Category: blaze media

Surveillance video captures the moment a man apparently sparked a large fire in front of a federal building in New York City on Monday.

The man attempted to flee on foot but was captured and arrested, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The department described him as a protester opposed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Photographs from the location also showed a cart with a sign reading, ‘ICE OFF OUR STREETS.’

A federal employee and a civilian were injured during the fracas, but the injuries were described as minor.

“This morning an individual deployed an incendiary device outside of 26 Federal Plaza in New York. The individual is in custody,” wrote FBI Director Kash Patel on social media Monday. “FBI [Joint Terrorism Task Force] is investigating the incident.”

The man set off fireworks, spilled what appeared to be gasoline in front of the building, and lit it on fire, according to the DHS.

“An FPS Protective Security Officer swiftly tackled and detained the agitator, sustaining minor injuries during the incident,” said the DHS statement. “Officers quickly recovered the individual’s bag, which contained what appeared to be two pellet guns and a manifesto. EMS, FBI, and the NYPD are on the scene.”

Two law enforcement sources told Fox News that the suspect was identified as Andrew Arrabaca and that he possessed “anti-ICE stuff” during the attack.

Video of the smoke billowing up from the federal building and the police response was widely circulated on social media.

Getty photographs from the location also showed a cart with a sign reading, “ICE OFF OUR STREETS.”

RELATED: Democratic mayor installs ‘anti-ICE’ signs all over L.A. — Trump admin issues MOCKING response

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) released a statement condemning the attack.

“What occurred outside 26 Federal Plaza this morning was deeply disturbing,” he said on social media. “I’m relieved no one was seriously injured and that a suspect is in custody. My team is in touch with the NYPD, and we will support the federal investigation. Our administration will continue to ensure that every New Yorker is safe in their city — and hold accountable any who threaten that.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also issued a statement.

“Acts of terror and violence have no place in our city and will never be tolerated. The individual responsible for this must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Jeffries said in part.

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​Department of homeland security, Immigration and customs enforcement, New york city, Zohran mamdani, Politics 

One candidate has emerged as the apparent victor in Maine’s scramble to replace former Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner — but unfortunately, his politics don’t appear to be any less radical than those of his predecessor.

Platner officially withdrew from the contentious Senate race on July 10 after a former girlfriend accused the self-described oyster farmer of sexual assault, causing his financial and political backing to quickly dissipate.

‘It’s become very clear to me that abortion is health care, and I believe in health care for everyone.’

Maine counties held nomination meetings over the weekend to select delegates for the Democratic Party’s upcoming convention, where former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson pulled through as the frontrunner to replace Platner, winning more than three-quarters of the total delegates’ votes.

Jackson, who spent two decades in the state legislature, has cultivated a reputation as a staunch progressive in Maine politics. His Senate campaign website highlights policies including Medicare for all, tax increases on billionaires, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, codifying a federal right to abortion, and cutting U.S. funding for Israel’s “genocide” — positions that closely resemble the platform on which Platner won the primary.

Despite voting against a 2009 bill legalizing same-sex marriage, Jackson has since changed his views on the issue, calling his vote “something I regretted from the start.” In 2024, Jackson’s voting record received a 100% from Equality Maine, a gay rights advocacy group.

Jackson also opposed abortion rights earlier in his career, earning a perfect score from the Maine Right to Life Committee in 2010. Yet by 2023, he had co-sponsored a bill allowing late-term abortions under certain circumstances.

RELATED: INSANE videos from unhinged Democratic debate to replace Graham Platner are going hilariously VIRAL

Troy Jackson stands with supporters during a July 14 demonstration outside a federal immigration office in Scarborough, Maine, following the fatal shooting of a man by ICE agents. Ryan Murphy/Getty Images

“It’s become very clear to me that abortion is health care, and I believe in health care for everyone,” Jackson told the New York Times.

Jackson’s background, including his experience as a logger and purportedly as a union organizer, has also made him appealing to the progressive left.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) threw his support behind Jackson even before Platner officially dropped out.

“[Troy Jackson] is someone who has spent his life standing up for these progressive values,” Khanna wrote. “The movement is about standing for Medicare for All, opposing foreign wars, and getting money out of politics.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) organization, Our Revolution, followed suit, praising Jackson’s “commitment to workers, lower prices, and affordable housing,” which “best reflects the platform that won the primary.”

Earlier this year, Jackson unsuccessfully ran for governor of Maine, finishing third in the Democratic primary’s ranked-choice voting. Despite his defeat, he managed to secure the endorsement of the Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the organization behind a plethora of other far-left candidates around the country — many of whom have been successful in their bids for elected office.

“Maine DSA proudly endorses Troy Jackson for governor!” the organization posted, adding, “The Maine working class will wield its collective power, and Maine DSA will have a seat at the table.”

Jackson also frequently appeared alongside Platner on the campaign trail during their respective primary campaigns. The two shared a stage at a “Fighting Oligarchy” event with Sanders over Memorial Day weekend, signaling the close political alignment between the candidates even before Jackson emerged as Platner’s likely successor.

RELATED: Apple and Google BURIED damaging Graham Platner stories, media report claims

Troy Jackson, Bernie Sanders, and Graham Platner during a Fighting Oligarchy event in Portland, Maine, on May 25.. Sophie Park/Bloomberg/Getty Images

In the aftermath of the sexual assault allegation, Jackson called on Platner to drop out of the race, doubting his ability to defeat incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

“He’s just not going to win, and he’s going to leave us with another six years of income tax cuts for billionaires and no health insurance,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s nomination is expected to be finalized at the July 25 convention, where he will face Collins in a race that could help determine control of the Senate.

“In November, Mainers will defeat Susan Collins, and we will take back our Senate seat from the billionaires and corporations who think they own it,” Jackson wrote in a post on Sunday evening.

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​Democratic party, Graham platner, Politics, Maine 

There’s no doubt that Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” took one of the foundational works of Western civilization and transformed it — but BlazeTV host John Doyle believes it was for the worse.

“Feeling very vindicated dude,” Doyle says, adding that he’s “never been a Chris Nolan fan.”

“Honestly, part of me almost wants to cope and say that Christopher Nolan is actually our guy. He’s going behind enemy lines. He’s a secret patriot. He’s actively trying to ruin any possibility of further adaptations with this kind of stuff,” he says.

But unfortunately, Doyle doesn’t think that’s possible, as it’s “one of the most in-your-face, on-the-nose subversions that has ever been made by Hollywood.”

The most obvious, Doyle says, is that they cast Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Ellen Page, who now goes by “Elliot,” as a soldier.

“He made ancient Greece into this kind of rainbow nation,” he says, “where you’ve got white Greeks, black Greeks, Asian Greeks, you know, even Greeks on Homer-ian H-1B visas from the Greek city state of Kolkata looking you, the audience member, directly in the eye and saying we are Greeks from Ithaca, right?”

“It basically means nothing. It’s literally just driven by visual spectacle for third-world masses with practically every actual integral plot point being completely obliterated,” he continues.

“And in so far as there even is a message, they removed all male sexuality from it. They feminized it. Gave it a once over with therapy-speak SSRI nonsense. And yeah, they made it about overcoming trauma and about how war is freaking bad,” he adds.

Doyle calls it the “complete inversion” and “antithesis” to the original “Odyssey.”

“It was supposed to be, you know, an epic poem meant to be spoken before a crowd using their imagination to paint the story for them, right? Paint the picture in their mind carried by the weight of the verses given and what it was imparted in meaning,” he explains.

“The adaptation, like modern garbage that tries to be carried entirely by the visual spectacle. It erases every thematic point in and every moral of the original. It just inserts the most boilerplate libtardism imaginable. War bad, therapy good, men bad, women good, ancient morality bad, progressivism good, freaking trauma,” he says, adding, “It’s really, it’s not even worth the watch.”

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​Christopher nolan, Hollywood, John doyle, Progressivism, The odyssey, Elliot page, The john doyle show 

For years, John Fetterman was viewed by many conservatives, including Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck, as a “Marxist” whose politics were too far left to be taken seriously.

But as the Democratic Party grows increasingly negative toward our ally Israel, the Pennsylvania senator is shockingly emerging as one of its most outspoken dissenters — warning that he would leave the party if its anti-Israel stance became official.

Glenn is shocked, calling Fetterman “one of the most honest people in the Senate.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying that,” he says, adding that he “may be the best Democrat out there now.”

“I think he’s one of the most interesting men in America,” he continues. “Yesterday, he warned the Democratic Party that he will leave the party officially if it turns its back on Israel. And that comes because yesterday 100 House Democrats voted against sending more aid to Israel.”

“He said, ‘If our party ever becomes — and just makes it official — the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would have to leave because,’ listen to this, ‘that has become moral clarity for me,’” he adds.

Fetterman also said his “long-term concern” with the Democratic Party has been wondering if it is going “to back away and turn their back on Israel.”

“You look at the kinds of individuals that are winning our recent primaries. It’s becoming more anti-Israel and hostile to pro-Israel people,” he quotes.

“This is John Fetterman,” Glenn says, shocked. “Do you remember what we all said about John Fetterman when he was being elected?”

“And I don’t mean about, you know, the brain damage. I mean about, I had always heard he was a Marxist,” he adds.

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​Glenn beck, John fetterman, Israel, Marxism, The glenn beck program, Democratic party 

A former top aide to Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and convicted scammer was arrested after allegedly refusing to submit for a chemical test for driving under the influence.

Abdi Nur Salah pleaded guilty in Jan. 2025 to stealing funds from a government program intended to feed children during the coronavirus pandemic.

The officer said he smelled a burnt chemical odor and found white powdery residue and straws in the vehicle.

Salah had also worked as a senior policy aide to Mayor Frey.

Records at the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office indicate Salah was arrested on July 11 on suspicion of DWI as well as refusing the test. He was received into custody around 7:35 a.m.

Salah was released Tuesday on a $6,000 bond, jail records show.

As part of his previous plea related to the massive Feeding Our Future scam, Salah agreed to forfeit $343,418.98 from his credit union account, as well as two real estate properties.

Prosecutors accused Salah of using his political influence to “lobby politicians to pressure the Minnesota Department of Education not to shut down Feeding our Future and sites under its sponsorship so that he and other co-conspirators could continue to carry out their fraudulent scheme.”

Frey fired Salah after the allegations were made public. Frey’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

RELATED: Top scammer of ‘Feeding Our Future’ fraud in Minnesota NAILED with painful sentence

Dozens of people have been convicted in the massive fraud scheme in Minnesota, many of which came from the Somali community.

Republicans have also accused Minnesota Democratic politicians of obstructing efforts to investigate and end the fraud. The allegations led to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) abandoning his re-election campaign. He has denied the allegations.

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​Feeding our future, Fraud, Minnesota somali fraud, Jacob frey, Politics 

Apple and Google were on the receiving end of multiple letters telling them to stop allowing abusive apps to be available on their platforms.

The City of San Francisco said it had been contacting the tech giants for almost a year to get them to stop, but they have continued to provide access to the apps while raking in profits.

‘Apple and Google have a responsibility to be proactive and vigilant to prevent sexual abuse.’

San Francisco accused both companies of “processing payments for illegal purchases” that allow users to digitally alter pictures using AI to unclothe whomever is in the photograph.

Commonly referred to as “nudify” apps, the city reportedly ordered dozens of the programs to be removed, as Apple and Google have continued to make money off them.

“Apple and Google are profiting off apps that exploit women and girls by generating nonconsensual intimate deepfakes,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu told TechCrunch. “While the companies cut ties with some problematic apps, Apple and Google have a responsibility to be proactive and vigilant to prevent sexual abuse.”

Dozens of states have codified protections after Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sponsored the TAKE IT DOWN Act in early 2025, which passed with a vote of 409-2 in the House and unanimously in the Senate.

RELATED: The latest iPhone security threat has a nasty fix

Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The law made it a federal crime to knowingly publish, or threaten to publish, nonconsensual intimate imagery using a computer service, no matter if it is real or fake. Penalties include up to two years in prison for adult victims and three years if the victim is a minor.

According to Stack Cybersecurity, 30 states have enacted these protections, while 46 states have their own laws targeting AI-generated media.

An Apple spokesman told TechCrunch that such apps were forbidden from the App Store and that the company has immediately removed three of those suggested by San Francisco.

“[We] are in the process of terminating their developer accounts from our program. We are in contact with four others that need to address policy violations or risk being removed as well,” the spokesman said.

RELATED: Smartphone and laptop prices are rising. Here’s why they won’t stop.

At the same time, Google said that all five apps referenced by the California city were suspended from Google Play.

“When violations are reported to us, we investigate and take swift action, which in the case of these apps has included suspending hundreds of violating apps and restricting related search terms like ‘nudify’ on our store.”

Meta began cracking down on such imagery in 2025, when deepfake “nudify” ads started popping up on its social media platform.

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​Apple, Deepfake, Google, News, San francisco, Take it down act, Tech 

A little-known Florida congressional candidate has posted a bizarre campaign video that went from firing off basic political talking points into something far darker — that Donald Trump is the “Antichrist” and “must be killed.”

In the campaign video, retired Marine William Upham explained that he decided to run for office to fix the “broken political system, to restore bipartisanship, return power to the working class, and to end our system of Washington insiders, extremism, and excuses from our current members of Congress.”

“I’ve reached a turning point in my campaign. Why? I’ve come to the realization that our country is broken. We are led by a president who’s the enemy of God. And President Trump will never bring us together like God intended,” he said.

Upham went on to explain that the video was a “message to all of God’s children” in America.

“We must defend ourselves against all enemies. We are at war with evil. This is a war between God and the Antichrist. There is no doubt in my mind that the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump is the Antichrist,” he said, adding, “He is a false messiah, and he is your enemy, and he must be killed.”

Upham went on to explain that the reason he believes Trump is the Antichrist is because “President Trump posted an AI-generated image of him in the likeness of Jesus Christ” and that he “also criticized the pope.”

“If you’ve criticized the pope, I guess you’re an Antichrist,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray comments, shocked.

“So there are tens of millions of Antichrists running around this planet because a lot of people have criticized the pope,” he adds.

The Marine was promptly visited by the Secret Service and arrested for his threat.

“He didn’t necessarily say he would kill, but he said he must be killed, which is bad enough,” Gray comments, adding, “You can’t do it.”

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​Antichrist, Donald trump, Marine, Pat gray, Secret service, Pat gray unleashed 

An “emotionally disturbed person” shoved an elderly woman off a New York City subway platform and onto the tracks below Saturday morning, the New York Post reported, citing police sources.

WABC-TV reported that the attack was random.

‘Now that I’m getting older, I am more concerned about safety on the subway, and I try to stay away from the edge.’

The 70-year-old unidentified victim was on the northbound side of the 57th Street and 7th Avenue station just before 11:30 a.m. when the suspect approached her from behind and shoved her down to the tracks, police told the Post.

Witnesses jumped down to the tracks and pulled the woman back upon the platform, the paper said.

The victim was taken to Cornell Hospital in stable condition; she was being treated for a head wound, police added to the Post.

The suspect’s name wasn’t immediately released, but police sources told the paper said he’s a known “emotionally disturbed person.” The suspect was arrested, the Post said, adding that charges were pending against him.

Two women who work at a midtown Manhattan hotel told the paper they pray for their own safety on their daily train ride to and from Astoria.

“I leave my life in the hands of God. Nothing else,” Maria Giannoutsos, 61, told the Post, adding that “you never know what can happen in one second.”

Iljana Gilezan, 60, added to the paper that the attack left her “scared.”

“You also have a lot of homeless on the train,” she noted to the Post. “But we have to go to work, so we have to take the train, and I’m always looking straight to God to protect me.”

Gilezan also praised the “courage” of the good Samaritans who pulled the elderly victim from the tracks, the paper said.

RELATED: Creep allegedly pushes man onto subway train tracks, runs off. But witnesses rescue victim just before train arrives at Bronx stop.

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images

Paul Corley — a 67-year-old psychiatrist — told the Post he’s concerned about senseless violence growing more frequent.

“Now that I’m getting older, I am more concerned about safety on the subway, and I try to stay away from the edge,” he noted to the paper, adding that he was happy to see more metal barriers along the tracks.

“This is a scary story, but also an inspiring story,” Corely also told the Post. “To get pushed and be saved by a fellow New Yorker is very inspiring.”

Blaze News has reported extensively about similar attacks in New York City’s subway system:

An elderly man died in May after the suspect in his killing — who was in police custody just hours earlier — shoved him down subway entrance steps in New York City.A suspect who’s been deported four times faced upgraded charges in March after an elderly man he’s accused of shoving onto New York City subway tracks died.A great-grandfather was shoved onto New York City subway tracks and suffered a fractured spine in September while the arrested suspect claimed the victim “called me a woman.”An award-winning artist was “instantly paralyzed” after being pushed into a moving train in a New York City subway attack in May 2023.An attacker allegedly pushed a man onto subway train tracks and ran off in October 2022, but witnesses rescued the victim just before a train arrived at the Bronx stop.

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​Arrest, Elderly woman, Good samaritans, New york city, Physical attack, Police, Random attack, Shove, Subway, Crime 

The Pentagon has named two previously unidentified U.S. soldiers who were killed in an Iranian attack in Jordan late last week.

On Monday, the Department of War identified the fallen soldiers as 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, both of whom were killed during an enemy attack at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

‘She gave the ultimate sacrifice for her country and will always be remembered as a hero.’

Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, who was killed in action on Friday, enlisted with the U.S. Army in 2025.

Gonzales was assigned to 1st Battalion, 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She served as a 14P Air and Missile Defense crew member, according to the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command Public Affairs press release.

“We are profoundly saddened by the loss of Pvt. Isabella Gonzales,” said Brig. Gen. Glenn Henke, commanding general of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command. “She gave the ultimate sacrifice for her country and will always be remembered as a hero. Our hearts go out to her family, friends, and teammates. Our immediate priority is ensuring they have the resources and support they need to process this grief together.”

RELATED: One line from Tucker Carlson sparks political firestorm for the GOP

1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, who died on Saturday, was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 32nd Army Air Missile Defense Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

“1st Lt. Feehan’s unwavering dedication to our mission, our values, and the air defenders he led will leave an enduring legacy,” Brig. Gen. John Dawber, 32nd AAMDC commanding general, said. “We stand fully committed to supporting his family and loved ones through this incredibly difficult time, and we will never forget his ultimate sacrifice in defense of our nation.”

Feehan will receive “the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Combat Action Badge, and be posthumously promoted to captain,” according to a U.S. Army press release.

“Godspeed, heroes. Their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, following an initial CENTCOM announcement of the casualties.

The CENTCOM post added that four American service members were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals and have since been discharged. Other personnel were evaluated for minor injuries and have since returned to duty.

CENTCOM also announced that “one service member is currently missing,” in the same Saturday post.

The identity of the missing service member has not yet been confirmed, though a Central Command public release announced that U.S. military personnel found unidentified remains at the location on Sunday. The remains were being examined at the time of the release.

In the same release, CENTCOM announced a separate incident in northern Iraq that left one U.S. service member dead and another wounded during a “controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone.”

This brings the casualties over the weekend to at least three, with many more injuries being reported as well.

These announcements come at the end of more than a week of consecutive strikes against Iran as ceasefire negotiations continued to deteriorate. On Sunday, CENTCOM announced the conclusion of the ninth consecutive evening of strikes to “further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

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​Department of war, Fallen soldiers, Pentagon, Pete hegseth, Politics 

A potential massacre at a Christian high school in Nebraska was thwarted thanks to the swift action taken by school officials and the Nebraska State Patrol.

Columbus Catholic Schools, a unified educational system that serves over 850 students in Nebraska, received a message on June 26 threatening Scotus Central Catholic, a Christ-centered high school in Columbus.

‘The heated political rhetoric that too often leads to radicalization and violence must cool off.’

Jeff Ohnoutka, the executive director of CCS, said in a statement on Friday that after he was made aware of the “disturbing threat,” he immediately brought it to the attention of the NSP and the Columbus Police Department.

According to the NSP, the message “included a threat of violence to the school and Governor Pillen’s family.”

Republican Governor Jim Pillen and his wife, Suzanne, have four children and seven grandchildren. The family is Roman Catholic.

In a post under the name “Bobby McGee” on the Facebook page for Columbus Catholic Schools, 32-year-old homosexual Ean Halstead of Omaha allegedly wrote, “I’m going to shoot up this school and kill Jim Pillen’s children and a few nuns for (expletive) funsies,” reported WOWT-TV.

RELATED: International pro-life leader assassinated at home

Gov. Jim Pillen (R). Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

Within hours of learning of the threat, authorities identified an apartment in Omaha that was linked to the IP address associated with the social media post.

Authorities promptly made contact with Halstead outside an apartment complex on Bedford Avenue, but “the man refused commands from troopers, ran to the apartment, and barricaded himself inside,” said the NSP.

Law enforcement on the scene — reinforced by NSP SWAT — obtained a search warrant for the residence as well as an arrest warrant and were able ultimately to coax the suspect out and into handcuffs without incident.

Halstead was initially charged with obstructing a police officer and failure to obey a lawful order.

Following further investigation and an examination of electronic items seized during a search of his residence, the NSP rearrested Halstead on July 17 and charged him with terroristic threats and destruction of evidence.

Halstead is currently being held at the Douglas County Department of Corrections. The NSP told Blaze News that the investigation remains ongoing.

According to court documents reviewed by the Plains Sentinel, Halstead has a “history of violent tendencies” and was previously slapped with a protection order from an ex-boyfriend for allegedly brandishing a knife and threatening to “kill him and their dogs while they slept.”

WOWT reported that Halstead was convicted for threatening his ex-lover and setting his bedroom on fire while filming.

Gov. Pillen’s chief of staff, Dave Lopez, said in a statement, “We are extremely grateful to the dedicated investigators of the Nebraska State Patrol and allied law enforcement agencies for their quick and thorough work to track down this individual and ensure the security of the First Family.”

“We have zero tolerance for political violence here in Nebraska, including threats to carry it out,” continued Lopez. “If you threaten violence against a public official or their family in this state, you will be found and held accountable. The heated political rhetoric that too often leads to radicalization and violence must cool off.”

Ohnoutka thanked the NSP and Columbus Police Department “for their service to our state and the city of Columbus.”

“May God continue to bless Columbus Catholic Schools,” he added.

Halstead’s threat comes nearly one year after a trans-identifying man formerly known as Robert Westman shot up a Catholic church full of schoolchildren in Minneapolis, injuring 23 and killing two kids, ages 8 and 10. The shooter, who committed suicide at the scene, left behind a mountain of evidence indicating that he was motivated by hatred for the Catholic Church and President Donald Trump.

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​Nebraska, Jim pillen, Catholic church, Nebraska state patrol, Politics 

The World Series of poker is returning and bringing with it an experimental AI to allow television viewers in on the secrets of body language and facial tics. The move generally invades the once hallowed ground of the proverbial “poker face.”

Will fans embrace or reject this great disenchantment? And does it even work?

Facial recognition leading to pre-cognitive services will be big business.

First, some history. The recent heyday of the World Series of poker is now a fading memory. To reverse its decline, Omaha Productions has expanded its live production slate to re-establish lost verve and recapture audiences.

Helmed by former quarterback Peyton Manning, the odd-duck production studio “stands as a trusted expert in the dynamic world of live events,” according to its website. “Our social content creation from these events ensure they have life outside the room as well. F*%$ it, we’ll do it live!”

Or if not live, then adjusted, via the latest in AI control features designed to further leverage the distance between what viewers want and what they are willing to try to understand in the thick of their media experience.

Blowing the cover of the industry’s best poker faces seems like a last-ditch effort to spice up the activity of, yes, watching other people on a screen who are watching each other and looking at cards on a table — proof of the great interiority of human experience if there ever was one.

This is where the fetid polycule marriage of social media, Hollywood dissolution, and AI entertainment tools is heading.

So what’s in the box?

The tech is made by one Luke Geel, according to LinkedIn a graduate of Johns Hopkins who describes himself as interested in poker, chess, and … augmented reality.

Geel’s so-far nameless AI tracks facial tics, blinks, gestures, and the like and subsequently weighs these against its prior training to deduce some semblance of “read” on body language and intention. This writer couldn’t find much evidence of the AI actually working.

But Geel posted a video to his LinkedIn three months ago (it shows up again in the various Omaha announcements) that depicts the overlay of various visual graphic effects on some footage of pro poker players. It leaves a lot to the imagination and appears to be little more than a low-rent “Minority Report” simulacrum. Check it for yourself.

Already it’s become clear to many once-wide-eyed denizens of the internet that their wondrous world wide web has been reduced to something nearer to a virtual late-night TV ad carousel.

RELATED: Can this robot give you the cure for loneliness?

imaginima/Getty Images

But it’s not quite right to think of the process as one of degradation. From the internet’s origins at the Stanford Research Institute to its crescendo amid the string of high-tech company offices along North First Street in today’s San Jose, the internet (like virtually all digital technology) is derived from, and keeps advancing, advanced weapons and varieties of weaponization. Surveillance, reconnaissance, cognitive and psychological operations — the list is long.

Weapons and worship

The laundry list of devices blurs the line between the excellent and the bogus. This too is a form of weaponizing. To take one example, the polygraph, despite continuous use in the application of federal and state security clearances, has never been made admissible in courts because it’s unreliable. The “science” doesn’t work. Nonetheless, the power of the “lie detector” is in its existence, in the fact that it can be wielded here but not there, understood only by a select few. The threat of it someday crossing over into some category of unimpeachable fact wires its anti-human element deep into the human environment.

We exist already in strange relationship with sacralized machines. If and when AI facial recognition software becomes standard, normalized like the polygraph, it will simply reify the tensions between the true, the false, and the unmentionable. Facial recognition leading to pre-cognitive actuarial services will be big business. It may even, like the proverbial broken clock, work sometimes. But it will never represent reality, because humans possess spontaneity. Absolute, human, emotional realities aren’t fixed into a grid. They simply cannot be predicted by men or their machines.

And yet we can be near-certain that efficient, accurate AI facial recognition is coming soon. In many places, whether we know it or not, it’s safe to say it’s already here.

So isn’t it just a few beats until we see the mainstream arrival of pre-cog, pre-crime, and every other possible preemptive measure of corralling the human being? Ironically, the advance of such things, and the acceptance and apathy that will doubtless often greet it, seem to suggest that their arrival won’t make much difference — because the behavioral “corrections” they are ostensibly deployed to achieve will already have been made. Why not act as if they’re already here if their arrival is inevitable?

That’s the logic, anyway. With little more than a graphic to prove it, we’re told no one can hide any longer behind his poker face. Are we willing to believe — and pay the price of that belief?

​Tech 

Democrats’ continued efforts to gaslight the nation about the integrity of American elections and the SAVE America Act proved too much on Sunday for ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, who evidently felt obligated to push back against one Democrat’s misleading claims.

President Donald Trump provided the nation on Thursday with damning insights into the apparent insecurity of American elections, past efforts by foreign powers to exploit election system vulnerabilities, and the Department of Homeland Security’s discovery of around 250,000 noncitizens on voter registration rolls in just four states.

‘That’s actually not the case.’

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) was among the many Democrats who raged over the president’s disclosures and conclusion that to shore up election security ahead of the midterms, lawmakers should pass the SAVE America Act — which would require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and voting in federal elections.

Warner has vowed to kill the SAVE America Act.

“The greatest danger to our elections right now is false narratives seized upon here at home as a pretext to convince Americans their elections cannot be trusted — or worse, to justify unprecedented federal intervention in elections that the Constitution entrusts to the states,” Warner said in a statement.

“Our democracy depends on confidence in elections that are administered according to law by the states, not on falsehoods invoked to justify unprecedented government intervention,” added the senator.

RELATED: Democrats go into FULL PANIC MODE after Trump exposes election interference from China and the deep state

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Warner went on-air Sunday with his concern-mongering at ABC News, a network that days earlier refused to carry live TV coverage of Trump’s speech detailing election vulnerabilities and foreign interference.

When asked about the president’s disclosures, Warner admitted that multiple foreign powers actively seek to influence American elections and expressed concern about Chinese hacking initiatives.

However, sticking to his party’s script, the Democrat claimed that Trump “is not looking for a secure election because if we have a free and fair election, he and his allies are going to get beat historically this fall.”

ABC News host Jonathan Karl raised the matter of Democrats’ unanimous opposition to the SAVE America Act, then asked Warner, “Requiring photo ID to register to vote — is this something that Democrats should get behind?”

A Pew Research Center survey of over 3,550 Americans conducted last August found that 83% of respondents favored requiring all voters to show government-issued identification to vote. A Gallup poll conducted the previous October found that 84% of Americans supported the photo ID requirement.

“You know what? In Virginia, we have voter ID and photo ID. I got to show my — ” said Warner.

Karl interrupted Warner to note, “That’s actually not the case. I mean, I’m a Virginia voter. You don’t need to show a photo ID in Virginia. There are a wide range of things you can show for ID, and if you don’t show one of those, you can sign an affidavit saying, attesting — but, so it’s not required.”

“You do have a variety of documents,” said Warner. “But we have voter ID of one form or another.”

According to the Virginia Department of Elections, “Voters may provide either an acceptable form of ID or sign an ID Confirmation Statement at the polls.” Accepted forms of ID in Warner’s Democrat-run state include student IDs containing photographs; employee ID cards containing a photograph; and utility bills, bank statements, government checks, or paychecks containing the voter’s name and address.

Those who show up to a polling location who decline to sign an ID statement affirming their identity “may vote a provisional ballot.”

When asked whether there should be a voter ID requirement nationwide, Warner suggested he might support having to show a set of IDs “as long as it comes from some official point,” but he proceeded to once again attack the SAVE America Act as a form of “voter disenfranchisement.”

Following his live fact-check by Karl on ABC News, Warner was widely ridiculed online.

The Republican Committee of Prince William County, Virginia, asked whether Warner had “lost his ‘fastball.'”

The Virginia Project, a PAC supportive of the Republican Party in the Old Dominion, piled on, writing, “Warner doesn’t even know Virginia’s voting laws.”

The X account for the Republican Study Committee noted, “80% of the country wants to secure our elections, and Senate Democrats like Mark Warner keep proving they would rather fabricate facts than support basic safeguards, even when the truth is what our republic depends on.”

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​Mark warner, Virginia, Save america act, Donald trump, Jonathan karl, Politics 

Ann Widdecombe was a British politician and devout Catholic convert whose common sense and unabashed conservatism made her a popular target for leftist abuse, including by at least one official in the current Labour government.

Widdecombe — a 78-year-old patron of Right to Life UK and Reform UK immigration spokeswoman who fought for the rights of the unborn, against euthanasia, against LGBT imperialism, against climate alarmism, and for Britain’s departure from the European Union — was assassinated in her home in Devon, England, earlier this month.

‘He had expressed his hatred of me on more than one occasion.’

Widdecombe’s suspected killer, 28-year-old Joshua Kerry, appears to be yet another bloodthirsty leftist.

Police responded to the pro-lifer’s home on July 9 after her lifeless body was discovered lying in the kitchen. As Widdecombe’s grievous injuries could not be explained by a fall, detectives promptly launched an investigation into the murder, which is believed to have occurred just after noon on July 8.

On July 10, Kerry — whom Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage claimed, on “good authority,” to be a “hard-left activist” and “intolerant individual obsessed with Soviet communism” — was arrested on suspicion of murder in what was initially figured for a burglary gone wrong.

Kerry was reportedly caught on CCTV leaving his Rotherham residence, approximately a four-hour drive away from Widdecombe’s house, early on the day of the murder. Before leaving, he also was allegedly spotted by neighbors putting “some kind of wooden pole” into his car.

RELATED: British villagers act like it’s 1776, declare independence over mass-migration plans

Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

Assistant Chief Matt Longman of Devon and Cornwall Police urged the public “not to speculate about what might have happened,” and stressed that he had “no information to believe that that is a politically motivated crime.”

However, one Reform UK source said at the time, “It is clear to everybody that we are being gaslit by the police.”

Devon and Cornwall Police cut Kerry loose the next morning, claiming he “is no longer part of the investigation,” but hours later, Kerry was rearrested at his home in Rotherham — this time by Counter Terrorism Policing North East and South Yorkshire Police — on suspicion of murder and the “commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism.”

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood subsequently announced that counter-terrorism police had taken the lead in the investigation into Widdecombe’s death, and Laurence Taylor, head of National Counter Terrorism Policing, said the investigation had turned up “new information and evidence” pointing to the murder having been a “targeted attack.”

‘Why are we targeted like this? Because we say things that are unfashionable among many in Westminster.’

A source told the Sun (U.K.) that in their search of Kerry’s house, they found clippings of news articles about Reform UK, its leader Nigel Farage, and the party’s immigration policies.

“It would appear he had a profound dislike of the party, its leader, and its policies,” said the source.

Farage alleged in an article on Saturday that the suspect “attended various marches and hated anyone with an opposing view. He had expressed his hatred of me on more than one occasion.”

Courtney Foster, a woman who lives near the suspect, told the Telegraph, “He rarely comes out of the house — his dad used to do everything for him, and I don’t know what he did for a living.”

Kerry’s dad recently passed away.

“I think once his dad died, he went a bit loopy,” added Foster.

In addition to seizing Kerry’s electronic devices, police also seized a red Vauxhall Corsa believed to have belonged to the murder suspect.

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman, accused Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Tory politicians of setting the stage for the attack with their rhetoric.

“I can tell you about the climate in which she was killed, a relentless narrative from politicians and the media that Reform UK is a threat, a threat to be urgently stopped,” said Yusuf. “A narrative so relentless it constitutes incitement. And why are we targeted like this? Because we say things that are unfashionable among many in Westminster but are popular in the country at large.”

Farage recently celebrated his fallen friend, stating, “This was somebody who gave her life to public service, to fighting for the things that she believed in.”

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​Ann widdecombe, Assassination, Pro-life, Conservative, United kingdom, Politics, Crime 

Colorado’s race for governor has taken an unexpected turn. Republican nominee Victor Marx, a ministry leader, is one of the most unconventional candidates America has ever seen.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray is shocked by his background — which involves claims of murder and exorcism — calling it “some weird stuff.”

“This Republican running for governor in Colorado, he’s a ministry leader. His name is Victor Marx. He won the Republican primary for governor. And there’s now going to be the general election matchup in November with Phil Weiser, who’s the Democrat nominee,” Gray explains.

“This guy’s an interesting cat. Right now, he performs exorcisms that bring in about $7 million a year. And he does these exorcisms over the phone,” he says.

“I didn’t realize there was that kind of cash in exorcisms,” he continues, adding, “This is going to make this industry explode.”

Marx also claims that when he was just 7 years old, his stepfather forced him to kill someone.

“He claims his stepdad put a gun in his hand in some rural area and then placed his hand over Victor’s hand and pulled the trigger, killing an unarmed man out in the wilderness somewhere. Then, he took that man back to his house, and he buried him underneath the house,” Gray explains.

“And there’s never been any evidence of that,” he says. “But I don’t know why you would make up a story like that. You just think it’s cool? You think it’s mysterious?”

“I’m not really sure what’s going on with the guy, but that’s bizarre. And he was asked if he’s the only person he’s ever killed. And he said, ‘As a child, yes, without question,’” Gray says.

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​Colorado, Exorcism, Pat gray, Victor marx, Pat gray unleashed 

Massachusetts police say they are investigating the discovery of a dead man’s remains at a Mattapan home owned by the husband of a Democratic congresswoman.

The property is a multi-family rental building that is owned by Conan Harris, husband of Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

‘My heart goes out to the family that lost a loved one today in Mattapan.’

Police said they went to the property on Saturday at about 1:52 p.m. and found a man who appeared to be dead from a single gunshot wound.

The homicide unit is investigating the incident.

“We got home, and there were police coming down the street; they blocked it off with crime tape over there, and neighbors were gathered around,” said Ari, a woman who lives on the same street as the location of the incident.

“The Congresswoman extends her deepest condolences to the impacted family,” read a statement from a Pressley spokesperson.

Harris posted a message on Facebook about the incident.

“Thank you everyone for the care and concern, our family is safe,” the statement read. “My heart goes out to the family that lost a loved one today in Mattapan.”

Boston Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu also released a statement.

“I know the situation is still under investigation, and Boston police are diligently trying to pursue the information they can get,” she said at an event Sunday in Roxbury,

RELATED: Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib claim gun shop’s billboard is ‘inciting violence’ against them

Pressley, a member of the far-left radical Democratic group known as the “Squad,” was first elected to Congress in 2018. She has repeatedly excoriated the criminal justice system as racist.

“Our families and communities continue to be plagued and destabilized by the overlapping crises of mass incarceration, police brutality, and over-criminalization,” she said in May 2025, adding that “black and brown communities” continue to endure “an unprecedented assault” from the second Trump administration.

In June 2020, she also boldly declared, “Yes, I support the defund movement,” and called for “restorative justice practices.”

“Why are we deploying the police when there’s an individual battling mental illness?”

Online records indicate the property was last sold in 2021 for $340,000 in 2021. It was listed for sale at the price of $1.15 million, but the listing was removed on Saturday.

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​Ayanna pressley, Boston, Murder, Politics 

As a physical therapist, I have seen the same problem countless times. A patient makes steady progress for months, then suddenly plateaus. The exercises have not changed. The injury has not worsened. The patient is doing everything right, yet lingering pain or weakness will not budge.

After some investigation, we often find the cause: a medication problem. A prescription changed. A refill was delayed. A side effect went unrecognized. The patient’s body began responding differently, and the rehabilitation plan stalled.

Protecting pharmacy access is not a favor to one industry. It is part of protecting the patient’s path back to health.

Physical therapy, prescribing, and pharmacy cannot operate as separate worlds. Most patients who enter my clinic have at least one chronic condition, one prescription, or both. Medication can affect pain, balance, fatigue, inflammation, and healing. The pharmacist who understands a patient’s history and drug regimen belongs on the care team, not outside it.

Physical therapy can often reduce pain and restore movement without long-term reliance on medication. But after surgery or during a complicated recovery, pharmaceutical support may play an essential role. Patients do best when movement, hands-on care, and medication work together deliberately rather than through guesswork.

Recovery already asks a great deal of patients. A death in the family, an unexpected bill, or a difficult work schedule can disrupt appointments and home exercise. Those obstacles are hard, but patients can usually manage them with planning and support.

A collapsing pharmacy network is different. Patients cannot will a closed counter back into service, reach an unavailable pharmacist, or fill a prescription that remains trapped in a broken system.

Look at San Francisco, which now faces a “pharmacy crisis.” National chains have closed locations, while independent pharmacies struggle to survive. In Missouri, state officials are suing CVS and other pharmacy benefit managers over insulin pricing. Lawmakers may intend to lower costs, but poorly designed interventions can destabilize the same pharmacy networks patients depend on.

The ownership model is secondary. A national chain and a neighborhood independent may operate differently, but either can provide essential access. When either disappears, patients lose timely refills, answers about side effects, and help resolving dosing questions. In physical therapy, that can mean slower progress, cautious loading, missed sessions, and avoidable setbacks.

A short-staffed pharmacy creates similar problems. Patients struggle to reach prescribers and may wait days for guidance. Pharmacists often serve as the most accessible medication experts in the health care system, but accessibility requires someone behind the counter with enough time to listen.

When those questions go unanswered, therapists are left working around uncertainty. We may not know whether dizziness comes from the exercise program, the underlying condition, or a new medication. We may have to delay progress because safe rehabilitation does not permit guessing.

RELATED: Joy Behar’s TrumpRx rant shows how elites think

Gary Gershoff/Getty Images

I see the opposite when pharmacy access works. Sometimes a pharmacist’s clarification or a small medication adjustment helps a patient move past the last trace of a limp. Sometimes it allows a musician to use his fingers comfortably again. When the pharmacy side of the plan aligns with physical therapy, patients can recover faster without adding unnecessary costs or complications.

The care I provide is important, but recovery succeeds through cooperation. Physical therapists restore movement. Prescribers diagnose and choose treatments. Pharmacists catch interactions, explain side effects, and help patients use medications safely. Large chains and local independents both employ professionals who perform that work every day.

Pharmacists have become “integral to chronic disease management.” Policymakers should treat them that way. Any reform aimed at drug prices, corporate practices, or pharmacy benefit managers should begin with a basic test: Will patients retain reliable access to a pharmacist?

When the answer is no, the consequences reach far beyond the pharmacy counter. They appear in rehabilitation clinics, physician offices, emergency rooms, and patients’ homes.

Good rehabilitation depends on movement expertise and medication expertise working together. Protecting pharmacy access is not a favor to one industry. It is part of protecting the patient’s path back to health.

​Opinion & analysis, Pharmacy benefit managers, Drug prices, Prescription drugs, Physical therapy, Caregiving, Insulin, Lawsuits, San francisco, Missouri, Rehabilitation 

Imagine driving a manufacturer-provided press vehicle for a road test and suddenly finding yourself surrounded by police because a license-plate reader misidentified your temporary tag.

That’s exactly what happened recently to an automotive journalist Joel Feder, who says officers tracked the vehicle for days before stopping him in a parking lot over a plate-reading error.

Some license-plate readers have also been installed near businesses that sell firearms, creating records of vehicles visiting those locations.

It isn’t an isolated case.

Armed and dangerous

We’ve covered Flock cameras before. They were sold as precision crime-fighting tools that could quickly locate stolen vehicles and help police solve serious crimes. But mistakes continue to happen. Similar errors have led to innocent families, used-car buyers, and other drivers being subjected to high-risk traffic stops. In some cases, officers have even drawn their weapons.

At the same time, residents are pushing back.

Dozens of cities and towns have allowed Flock contracts to expire or removed cameras altogether after residents questioned the systems’ accuracy, privacy implications, and data-retention policies. Public pressure is making a difference.

Before anyone declares victory, however, there’s another side to the story.

The surveillance network itself isn’t disappearing. In many communities, Flock is simply being replaced by another vendor.

Different vendor, same spying

Companies such as Axon, Motorola Solutions through Vigilant Solutions, Rekor Systems, Genetec AutoVu, and ELSAG — now part of Leonardo — are stepping in to compete for the same contracts. They may promise stronger privacy controls or improved technology, but the basic model remains the same: photograph passing vehicles, record where they were seen, and store that information in searchable databases.

The debate is no longer whether these systems should exist. It’s who gets to operate them.

Privacy advocates argue that building long-term databases showing where people travel raises serious Fourth Amendment questions, particularly as courts have become increasingly skeptical of warrantless collection of detailed location information.

The concerns extend beyond highways and intersections. Some license-plate readers have also been installed near businesses that sell firearms, creating records of vehicles visiting those locations. Critics argue that this raises additional questions about lawful activities protected by the Second Amendment.

RELATED: Flock Safety CEO: It’s ‘terroristic’ to want to know where we put our spy cameras

Timothy Fadek/Boston Globe/Getty Images

DeFlock delivers

One of the most effective responses has come from ordinary citizens.

An independent project called DeFlock.org maps known automated license-plate reader locations across the country, allowing residents to see where cameras have been installed. Armed with that information, people have attended city council meetings, questioned local officials, and in some cases convinced communities to remove cameras or reject new contracts.

Technology companies will continue improving these systems because there’s money to be made, and police departments will continue looking for tools they believe help fight crime.

The real question is where communities decide to draw the line.

Every time you leave your driveway, these systems collect another data point about your movements. If everything works perfectly, most drivers never notice. When something goes wrong, however, innocent people can find themselves explaining a database error to police officers on the side of the road.

Changing vendors doesn’t necessarily change that reality. It simply changes whose logo is on the camera.

​Fourth amendment, License plate reader, Second amendment, Flock cameras, Deflock, Privacy, Surveillance, Big tech, Automotive 

Former President Joe Biden is preparing to tell Americans all about his presidency in a new memoir set for release this fall. But BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales isn’t buying the idea that Biden could write a book at all.

“Autopens are getting so advanced that these days they can write an entire book from cover to cover because Joe Biden has a book that is releasing in November,” Gonzales says.

“Oh man, I can’t wait to not read that,” she adds.

And a promotional video of Biden only adds more weight to her belief.

“Since I left the presidency, I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Joe, what have you been doing?’” the former president began in the video.

“Nobody asked you that. … My question is, don’t you have cancer? How is that going? Isn’t it strange?” Gonzales says, before playing another clip of Biden stumbling through the promo.

“It’s about the challenges we faced as a nation and about the decisions I made and why I made them,” Biden said.

Gonzales points out that the video only gets worse, just like his presidency.

“It’s about why I chose to run for re-election and why I chose to step aside,” Biden said.

“He chose to step aside, ladies and gentlemen. He chose it. That definitely was his decision. It wasn’t something that anyone forced on him,” Gonzales comments, wondering why the former president is choosing to release this book now.

“You’ve got to wonder, maybe the plan is to try to scrape together cash because didn’t Jill just write … a book, and nobody bought it, and nobody read it? Why do you guys keep writing books?” she asks.

“Maybe there’s a larger plan here,” she adds, pointing out that he could be “trying to get some cash flow coming in because nobody will pay for his presidential library.”

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​Sara gonzales, Joe biden, Jill biden, Autopen, Sara gonzales unfiltered 

Canada’s failed policies are doing more than fouling American air. Summer across the Midwest and East Coast has again brought unhealthy and hazardous air-quality warnings from Canadian wildfires. Poor forest management threatens public health and daily life. Canada’s immigration policies pose a deeper and more lasting danger.

Most Americans still regard Canada as a polite northern extension of the United States: familiar, friendly, and strategically harmless. That view belongs to another era. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that “nostalgia is not a strategy.” Neither is complacency.

America once regarded the northern border as its safest frontier. That assumption is precisely what now makes it dangerous. Nobody thought to watch it.

Canada is becoming one of America’s most underestimated national security vulnerabilities: a permissive northern platform through which mass migration, organized crime, and hostile foreign influence can reach the United States.

The first problem is demographic. In 1961, 96.8% of Canadians reported European origins, primarily British or French. By 2021, that figure had fallen to 52.5%, a decline of 44.3 percentage points in 60 years, even allowing for changes in census methodology. Canada has undergone one of the most dramatic demographic transformations in the Western world. A mass-migration regime has shifted the primary source of new Canadians from Europe to Asia, with Asian populations now making up roughly one-fifth of the country.

That change would carry fewer risks in a confident, assimilationist nation. Canada has chosen the opposite course. The United States has historically shown an extraordinary ability to turn foreigners into Americans. Canada instead embraced state-sponsored multiculturalism. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even described the country as the world’s first “postnational state,” with “no core identity” and “no mainstream.” Canada has combined mass immigration with an increasingly vague idea of national belonging.

Immigration without assimilation has accelerated the country’s Balkanization. New arrivals often settle in established immigrant communities, producing ethnic enclaves first at the neighborhood level and, increasingly, across entire cities.

In Brampton, Ontario, Canada’s ninth-largest city, more than 52% of residents are South Asian. In Richmond, British Columbia, more than half the population is Chinese. Markham, Surrey, Burnaby, Mississauga, and Richmond Hill reflect the same pattern: not merely high immigration, but concentrated communal geography.

Lebanon offers an extreme warning of where such politics can lead. Once politics stops revolving around competing ideas and becomes a census of rival communities, foreign governments learn to exploit those divisions.

RELATED: Can political dissent be classified as harassment? One Canadian city says yes.

DON MACKINNON/AFP/Getty Images

That prospect should concern Washington. Canada has already become a major arena for foreign interference. Its own public inquiry has examined the activities of China, Russia, India, and other governments. Diaspora communities can become targets and instruments of intimidation, surveillance, political coercion, and imported ethnic conflict. The 2023 killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar illustrated the danger. Canadian officials alleged that agents of the Indian government were involved in his assassination on Canadian soil.

China presents the gravest strategic threat. Beijing does not need to turn Canada into an outright enemy of the United States. It needs only to use Canada as a gateway into the North American system. During the 2025 campaign, Carney identified China as a major geopolitical threat and source of foreign interference. His government has since adopted a more accommodating posture, even avoiding a direct answer when asked whether he still regarded Beijing as a threat.

Canada’s decision to allow Chinese electric vehicles into the country at reduced tariff rates shows the risk. Modern electric vehicles are not simply cars. Their cameras, microphones, sensors, software, and remote-update capabilities can collect enormous quantities of data. Washington may restrict Chinese connected vehicles in the United States, but those safeguards weaken if Canada allows large numbers of them into the shared North American market.

That policy could put tens of thousands of Chinese surveillance platforms on American roads, gathering information near military bases, power plants, communications infrastructure, and other sensitive sites.

The physical border creates another vulnerability. The northern frontier no longer deserves its old reputation as strategically irrelevant. U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions rose sharply from fiscal year 2022 through fiscal year 2024, although they have since declined under the Trump administration.

The increase showed how easily weak Canadian migration policy can undermine American border enforcement. When the United States tightens its southern border while Canada maintains looser entry policies, the northern frontier becomes an escape valve for foreign nationals seeking unlawful entry.

RELATED: Canadian female, 33, accused of slapping teen girl wearing pro-Trump clothing on NJ boardwalk. Now suspect is in ICE custody.

mirsad sarajlic/iStock/Getty Images

The danger extends beyond illegal immigration. Criminal organizations, foreign agents, and potentially terrorist-linked individuals can exploit a border designed around an older assumption of trust. Fentanyl compounds the threat. Authorities have intercepted Chinese precursor chemicals in Canada and uncovered sophisticated drug “superlabs” north of the border.

The conclusion should be unavoidable: The Canada of the American imagination no longer exists. The old Canada rarely sent toxic smoke across the border. It served as a loyal northern shield — a NATO ally, a NORAD partner, and a dependable member of the Western alliance.

The new Canada is more ambiguous and more dangerous. It remains formally allied and culturally familiar, but it is also increasingly fragmented, increasingly open to commercial ties with American adversaries, and increasingly exposed to hostile foreign influence.

The United States need not treat Canada as an enemy. But we can no longer assume Canada will remain a fully reliable security partner. America once regarded the northern border as its safest frontier. That assumption is precisely what now makes it dangerous. Nobody thought to watch it.

​Illegal immigration, Opinion & analysis, Canada, China, National security, Nato, Border patrol, Fentanyl 

Zohran Mamdani ran a brilliant campaign last year by promising to make New York City affordable through democratic socialism.

Now the bill is arriving.

Firefighters are good. Firefighters are socialism. Therefore, socialism is good. That is the intellectual caliber of the movement now ascending in American politics.

New York’s new pied-à-terre tax took effect this month. Almost immediately, the luxury real estate market tanked. Wealthy buyers, it turns out, are not livestock. They can delay purchases, move money, change residency, or simply decline to participate in Mamdani’s experiment.

This elementary fact appears to have surprised the people running America’s largest city.

That’s the trouble with democratic socialists. They are forever astonished when human beings refuse to behave like figures in a budget projection.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has a solution: Make the argument so stupid that nobody can discuss socialism seriously at all.

Appearing recently on “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” Ellison announced that police departments are socialist because taxpayers fund them.

“You call the cops; guess who pays them. Your tax dollars,” Ellison said. “Guess what that is. That’s socialism, pal!”

He threw in fire departments, water inspectors, and public works for good measure.

No, pal. That isn’t socialism. That’s just government.

Ellison wasn’t offering a forensic definition, of course. He was performing a cheap semantic trick for people he assumed would nod and applaud before thinking.

Police are socialism. Firefighters are socialism. Roads are socialism. Public schools are socialism. (Well, yes, kind of.) Once every government function becomes socialist, socialism no longer requires a defense. You already support it. You have no choice. Unless you plan to extinguish your own house fire, arrest your own burglar, and pave the road yourself, welcome to the revolution.

Joe Rogan has been repeating the same dumb line for years, I’m sorry to say. Last year, he again called the fire department socialist because everybody pays for it and everybody receives protection.

I like Rogan. He isn’t a malefactor like Ellison. He simply does not know what he is talking about. That is less wicked, but it is increasingly difficult to excuse in a man who has spent thousands of hours interviewing people who actually know things.

Millions hear Rogan and think: Well, gosh, that makes sense.

No, it doesn’t. It’s flat wrong.

Worse, Ellison and Rogan smuggle in the same fraudulent choice: socialism or chaos.

Either government employs police officers and firefighters, builds roads, and inspects drinking water, or every citizen must hire his own private constable, buy his own fire engine, and fill the pothole at the end of the driveway.

That is not the choice.

RELATED: The media’s Democratic cover-up is collapsing

Chuwy/Getty Images

Socialism concerns ownership and control of productive property. Government collects taxes, enforces laws, maintains courts, fields armies, and provides services. Governments did all of those things long before socialism acquired a name.

By the Ellison-Rogan standard, if we can call it that, every king who collected taxes was a socialist. Ancient Rome was socialist because it built aqueducts. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were socialists because the national government employed customs agents. Louis XIV was apparently waiting for the workers to seize Versailles.

The alternative to socialism is not anarchy. It is limited government.

Conservatives sometimes make the mistake of talking as though government itself were the enemy. It isn’t. Not necessarily. Bad government is the enemy. Unlimited government is the enemy. Government that exceeds its legitimate purposes, devours private institutions, and treats citizens as dependents is the enemy.

But we need government.

We need cops and firefighters. We need courts, armies, roads, and public works — the odd toll road notwithstanding. Somebody must enforce contracts, punish violence, defend the country, and preserve public order.

Ordered liberty requires order.

The American political tradition does not reject government. It recognizes that government is necessary and dangerous and therefore must be limited by law. That is a much older and more serious idea than the facile view that every tax-funded service is socialism and every objection to socialism is an argument for anarchy.

Ellison knows better. That’s what makes him a bad guy. He understands perfectly well that a police department is not socialism. He chooses to speak as though he does not because the confusion serves him.

If cops and firefighters are socialism, then socialism is already as American as apple pie. No need to defend rent controls, wealth taxes, government grocery stores, confiscatory tax schemes, or the steady expansion of public power on their merits. Just offer the child’s syllogism: Firefighters are good. Firefighters are socialism. Therefore, socialism is good.

That is the intellectual caliber of the movement now ascending in American cities.

RELATED: ‘Back the blue’ cannot mean blind obedience

Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

Ellison is dishonest about words because dishonesty serves his politics. Rogan is careless with ideas because being laughably wrong has never reduced his audience. Mamdani is careless with markets because he imagines moral righteousness repeals the law of supply and demand.

These are not serious people. But they are seriously dangerous.

They hold offices, microphones, audiences, and influence wildly disproportionate to their judgment. They confuse applause with vindication and slogans with thought. They speak with total confidence because none of them expects to pay for being wrong.

The people who do pay are homeowners, renters, workers, employers, customers, and taxpayers who cannot laugh, wave, and leave the consequences to somebody else.

Democratic socialism’s new champions are not merely wrong about economics. They are frivolous about power. They offer socialism or chaos because admitting the existence of limited government would ruin the con.

They are playing with cities and states they are not wise or disciplined enough to govern. Shine, perishing republic!

​Democratic socialism, Keith ellison, New york city, Police departments, Socialism, Zohran mamdani, Taxpayers, Joe rogan, American politics, Fire departments, Opinion & analysis