Category: blaze media

The smart TV on your wall isn’t just for watching shows and movies. It also might be spying on you. A bombshell report claims that some smart TVs are recording living room conversations, storing unencrypted transcripts, and sucking up other private data, all for “advertising” purposes. Here’s what you need to know and how to stop it.

During a two-hour video posted by Gamers Nexus, editor in chief Steve Burke argued that LG’s smart TVs can suck up an enormous amount of information about their users.

If you own a smart TV of any kind whatsoever, you’re still not completely safe.

“We were able to retrieve plain-text transcripts of voice conversations and inputs from the TV,” Burke claimed. His team also maintained that audio and video could be recorded and saved to a remote device, even while the TV was disconnected from the internet.

While the alleged conversation-recording capabilities would be the most alarming discovery, users could also face siphoning of other personal data. Burke said his test LG TV scoured his data network and saved an entire list of smart devices that were also linked to the same Wi-Fi address, including iPhones, Android devices, Apple Watches, routers, printers, PCs, and more. Burke further claimed it also marked down the IP address for the host network, as well as the individual IP addresses of the other located devices, and marked down the TV’s geographical location and the names of other nearby Wi-Fi networks.

That would amount to just about all the information available to the device.

Ultimately, Burke and others suggest, LG compiles this information and sells it to advertisers so that they can serve customers targeted ads through their LG Ad Solutions network. Gamers Nexus further claims, however, that LG and its partners aren’t the only ones that can access this data. Hackers may also get ahold of it through “remote code execution” vulnerabilities where they take control of a TV and manipulate its behavior.

To be clear, LG denied all of Burke’s claims. The company pushed back forcefully.

The claims made in the recently published video are not true. LG TVs process voice data only when the voice button on the remote control is pressed and held or when a wake word such as “Hi LG” is recognized after the user has activated the Far-Field voice recognition feature. Other than these instances, the TVs do not collect or record ambient conversations. (If the wake word is not recognized, no voice data is transmitted to the server; the audio processing for wake word detection is performed locally on the device and is immediately deleted.)

So where does this leave users?

RELATED: Your smart TV may be watching you back: NEW report reveals troubling details

Pat Gray Unleashed

At this point, whether or not you might worry about LG smart TVs in your home that might be recording your conversations, you might think you’re in the clear because you have an other-branded TV on the wall. Unfortunately, if you own a smart TV of any kind whatsoever, you’re still not completely safe.

Shortly after Burke published the initial video alleging LG’s surveillance machine, the Verge, a longtime mainstream tech media outlet, claimed that all smart TVs track their users through automatic content recognition. Built into most modern TVs, ACR monitors your screen to see what you watch. It can also capture audio and video from viewing sessions and send them to a server to help the TV provider deliver content recommendations or sell targeted ads.

Granted, ACR isn’t nearly as invasive as LG’s audio surveillance discovery is claimed to be, but it still proves that, at the very least, your viewing habits are being watched and monetized out from under you.

That brings us to the solution. If you own an LG TV and you’re wondering what to do next, here are some tips that can help.

Wipe and restore your smart TV as new. This process is a little different, depending on the year of your LG TV, but the goal is ultimately the same. We want to wipe any local data your TV already captured and stored, including surveillance data.Disconnect your TV from the internet. Cut off Wi-Fi access and unplug any ethernet cables attached to the back panel. If your TV can’t connect to the internet, it can’t transmit surveillance data. That said, Gamers Nexus discovered that LG TVs still capture conversations while disconnected, and they can relay transcripts if that connection is ever restored, so ensure you keep your LG TV away from your Wi-Fi for good.Give your TV a new brain. Since you now effectively turned your smart TV back into a dumb TV, you can get back some smart functionality by connecting a separate streaming device, preferably without ACR. Non-ACR options include the Apple TV and the Google TV Streamer, while Fire TV and Roku both come with ACR technology built in.

The best way to stop smart TV companies from spying on you is not to own a smart TV at all. However, new dumb TVs are hard to find these days, especially in larger form factors. At the very least, if you do plan to buy a new TV soon, shop carefully, and watch as events unfold.

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​Advertisers, Privacy, Spying, Tech, Surveillance 

Questions have swirled about Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s past for years, but one reporter from LindellTV finally had the guts to ask her these questions on camera.

Alison Steinberg stopped Omar in a congressional hallway and pressed her on a claim that BlazeTV host Pat Gray’s been waiting for.

“I have been waiting for this particular confrontation with Ilhan Omar for a long time. A long time. Somebody actually finally did it,” he says, before playing a clip of the tense encounter.

“Hi congresswoman, Tom Homan said that you’re under criminal investigation for immigration and marriage fraud,” Steinberg said, asking, “Any comment on that?”

“No, I don’t have a comment for that,” Omar responded through laughs.

“If there’s some marriage fraud,” Steinberg continued, “Can you just tell us straight up, did you marry your brother?”

“Absolutely not. What a ridiculous thing to ask,” Omar said, before adding, “Did you marry your brother?”

“Absolutely not,” Steinberg responded, but she wasn’t done.

“Why are you being criminally investigated?” she asked, to which Omar said, “I am not.”

Steinberg then pressed Omar as to whether or not Tom Homan, who has said otherwise, is a “liar.”

“He is, he’s been saying some dumb s**t like you,” Omar said angrily.

Gray couldn’t be more impressed with the young reporter.

“That’s great,” he says. “That’s not easy to do. That might look easy to do, but it isn’t.”

“Straight up,” he adds, “‘Did you marry your brother?’”

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Alison steinberg, Criminal investigation, Ilhan omar, Immigration fraud, Lindell tv, Pat gray, Tom homan, Blazetv show 

Joe Biden has been out of office for almost two years now — so why does everything still feel so expensive?

As midterm elections draw nearer, that’s the question on the top of American minds, and BlazeTV host Ron Simmons has some answers.

While prices are up, Simmons points out that this all began under Biden, where “prices rose about 21%.”

“That’s over 5% a year. And since that time, since the second administration of President Trump, they’ve grown a little over 2% a year, about 2.5% a year,” he explains.

“When prices grew to 21%, so if something cost a dollar and then when Biden left it cost a $1.20, it didn’t go back down to a dollar when President Trump got elected,” he says.

“What he has done, and his administration have done, is they’ve just reduced how fast it’s increasing,” he adds.

Simmons explains that prices will go down when demand goes down.

“If you remember back to 2008, 2009, when they had the huge housing crisis, well, in 2007, do you know what interest rates were for mortgages at that time? Guess what they were. They’re right what they are right now, a little over 6%,” he explains.

“People lost their jobs and things, and there was more supply than there was demand,” he continues. “So they dropped interest rates and they brought interest rates down, probably too low, honestly — artificially low — and so you could buy a house at a 3% mortgage.”

“Then when the economy got better, and the fact that we pumped a lot of unnecessary money into the economy, interest rates went up because there ended up being more demand than there was supply,” he adds.

When the demand is high, the interest rates remain high.

“Now, what we don’t want to happen is another huge recession, obviously, but just remember how this happened,” he says, pointing out that Democrat policies have led us here.

“Housing has become dramatically more expensive during the Biden years,” he continues, noting that the Heritage Foundation has reported that the cost of financing a medium-priced home has risen 114% since 2021.

“At the same time, consumer prices have risen about 20%, which we talked about, and it costs about $13,300 more per year to purchase the same house, interest-rate-wise, than it did in 2021,” he says.

“Immigration was a part of this,” he explains. “When they opened the floodgates, more people coming into the country means there’s more demand for goods and services, and that increased the cost of living and housing.”

However, Simmons points out that the most expensive cities — San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, New York, and Boston — are all run by Democrats.

“So just remember when you’re voting this time,” he adds.

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.

​Biden administration, Donald trump, Economy, Housing crisis, Inflation, Prices, Recession, Ron simmons, Midterms, Blazetv show 

An interview to mark the start of the NHL season went off the rails when an activist reporter hammered one of the league’s greatest players of all time with political questions.

Almost two weeks before the games start to count, Washington Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin was talking to the media when an ESPN reporter started pelting him with question regarding a recent political ad he had been a part of.

She’s ‘got an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for abducting Ukrainian children.’

Ovechkin, the NHL’s all-time goal-scoring leader — yes, he has scored even more goals than Wayne Gretzky — was featured in a pro-Russia ad for President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party in the lead-up to the elections last weekend.

Although Ovechkin simply stood in the background during the ad, ESPN reporter Robert Klemko — who is half-Ukrainian — went after the hockey player about the details of the filming, asking if he informed his team before the video shoot.

“No,” Ovechkin replied, per Klemko’s recollection of the interview.

The reporter then told Ovechkin his appearance in the commercial “feels to people like a pro war stance.”

“I don’t think it’s a pro war,” Ovechkin reportedly replied. “I think it’s just support what’s happening in Russia. I want the peace and love for everybody. It doesn’t matter who you are, American, Russian, or Ukrainian.”

After Klemko claimed the war would “be done soon” if Putin stops the invasion, he later asked if Ovechkin would support Russia “no matter what.”

The 41-year-old replied, “Well, I’m gonna live there, yeah.”

This prompted the ESPN journalist to ask an inflammatory question: “So if they’re responsible for a genocide, you would support the genocide?”

Ovechkin asked for a translation of “genocide” from a member of his media team, a note corroborated by different outlets. He then replied, “Oh. I would say, like, I’m, I hope it’s not gonna, it’s not gonna be like that.”

RELATED: Sophie Cunningham defends Sydney Sweeney — but admits she ‘morally’ has a problem

In a clip from CTV News, Ovechkin told reporters he is going to move back to Russia when he retires from hockey.

“I’m going to stay there. I’m going to live there. My kids are going to live there.”

Regarding the political ad, Ovechkin stated that he’s “for peace and love” and that he hopes “everything’s going to be okay.”

He revealed when he was asked to do the commercial, he simply replied, “Yes.”

“So, simple as that,” Ovechkin said.

Outlet HockeyFeed said Klemko then “pressed” Ovechkin after the group press conference and attempted to tell the player what his involvement in the ad “really signals.”

Ovechkin continuously gave statements like “I’m not in politics,” and “I don’t know who that is” in regard to certain people featured in the ad, but Klemko pressed forward and asked the Russian if he felt he was perpetuating propaganda.

“It mimics messaging Russians get that says Ukraine is responsible for being invaded by Russia,” Klemko wrote.

“I can’t say who’s right and who’s wrong,” Ovechkin responded soon thereafter.

Klemko said he told Ovechkin that one of the people in the ad is “Maria Lvova Belova,” who, he said, “got an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for abducting Ukrainian children.”

Ovechkin said he didn’t know who that person is.

RELATED: Charles Barkley defends WNBA, but says ‘race’ and ‘sexuality’ are behind Sophie Cunningham clashes

Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images

Klemko’s subsequent article for ESPN, published Thursday, cited University of Maryland “senior scholar” Sarah Oates, who directly stated that Russia is “perpetuating a genocide on Ukrainian people.”

“Putin has said Ukraine and Ukrainians have no right to exist. And this is a key reason for the invasion. Ovechkin supports Putin, he supports the Russian regime, and that means he supports genocide,” Oates claimed.

After his questions about genocide, Klemko said the media relations team ended his interview with Ovechkin.

Capitals general manager Chris Patrick later told ESPN that if Ovechkin had told the franchise about the ad, the organization would have “worked to avoid the situation very hard. And I doubt we’d be standing where we’re standing right now if he had run it by us.”

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​Nhl, Alexander ovechkin, Espn, Russia, Ukraine, Hockey, Sports 

Despite intense protests and warnings about a “slippery slope,” Canada’s liberal government legalized medically assisted suicide nationwide in 2016.

As critics predicted, the so-called Medical Assistance in Dying program — recognized by Canada’s Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer as a cost-saver for the country’s immigration-strained and eugenicist-founded health care system — has been grossly liberalized over the past decade, become a leading cause of death and claiming the lives of ineligible victims.

‘This is murder.’

The family of an 83-year-old Christian woman who was allegedly killed by lethal injection without proper consent in a MAID procedure has filed a complaint with the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario, sounding the alarm about the euthanasia regime.

Brigitte Kranendonk noted in a July 21 post on Facebook that her German-born grandmother, Brigitte Stegemann, a resident of the Pearl — a long-term care facility in Cannifton, Ontario — was diagnosed earlier this year with untreatable stage 4 stomach cancer.

While Stegemann could have potentially survived for years, a meeting was held several months ago to discuss the possibility of MAID, Kranendonk said.

“At that time, GG clearly stated that she did not wish to pursue it. As a devout Christian, she explicitly expressed that MAID conflicted with her personal beliefs and faith,” Kranendonk, who held legal power of attorney for Stegemann, claimed on Facebook.

The grandmother was approached on two occasions about pursuing MAID while her granddaughter was on a 10-day vacation, the Facebook post claimed, then visited on July 7 for a MAID assessment by a physician identified in Kranendonk’s complaint as Catherine Koester.

The Christian Canadian think tank Cardus noted in an August 31 report that unlike most first-world nations, Canada requires only one written request for euthanasia and one witness to that request and does not legally require communication with a patient’s family members about the patient’s medical history and state of mind.

RELATED: Priest breaks hip — now Canada apparently wants him dead

Universal Images Group/Getty Images

During the July 7 assessment, Stegemann allegedly failed to evidence soundness of mind — “GG repeatedly provided objectively incorrect answers to basic, factual questions about her own life and immediate family” — and signaled distress while family members protested the evaluation, Kranendonk claimed.

‘They saw an opportunity.’

Among the questions the elderly Canadian apparently got wrong was a query about how many siblings she had. While the actual answer was 13, Stegemann said that she had none, according to her granddaughter.

Despite Stegemann’s apparent disorientation, the physician allegedly found her fit to make the MAID decision, then informed the family that the procedure would take place just days later.

Kranendonk suggested to the Daily Mail that her grandmother’s final moments were a horror show, alleging that a gloveless nurse who supposedly treated the family members contemptuously had repeatedly failed to tap the right vein in one arm for the deadly IV before switching to the other arm and beginning the prodding anew.

“There was a phenomenal amount of blood,” said Kranendonk, who indicated that Stegemann had wept bitterly in the lead-up to her final day. “It is all over my Oma’s arm, it is all over her nightie, soaking through her pillow, all over the sheets, there is so much blood.”

According to Kranendonk, the doctor entered the room on July 10, explained to Stegemann that she was going to administer some “medicine,” and after 10 minutes, the woman was pronounced dead.

“She was a vulnerable human being, and they saw an opportunity,” added Kranendonk.

Kranendonk’s complaint to the province’s chief coroner, which was obtained by Canadian combat veteran and MAID critic Kelsi Sheren, states that in the case of her grandmother’s demise, there was a “severe failure of statutory safeguards, procedural requirements, and patient consent protocols.”

In addition to Stegemann allegedly lacking the capacity to make the decision to pursue MAID, the complaint alleges that “care home staff actively initiated private MAID discussions and facilitated the completion and witnessing of official application paperwork in secret, deliberately bypassing” the patient’s legal power of attorney. It also alleges that the euthanasia took place without verbal confirmation from Stegemann.

“One of our greatest ethical concerns is that GG [Stegemann] had explicitly declined MAID, stating it violated her Christian faith,” Kranendonk said in her Facebook post. “Once a vulnerable patient explicitly declines this path, the facility should never have targeted her for re-evaluation behind closed doors while her primary advocate was away — especially when the facility had no trouble contacting [Kranendonk] daily for minor, routine care decisions.”

Blaze News did not immediately receive comment from Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s office, Ontario Health at Home, the Pearl, or Dr. Koester.

While the Office of the Chief Coroner told Blaze News that it “does not share details related to any death investigation,” it noted that “the MAiD Review Team (MRT) reviews every MAiD death reported in the province to ensure compliance with all federal legislative and regulatory requirements. This includes reviewing the MAiD Death Report submitted by the practitioner, confirming completeness and accuracy of the information, and directly contacting a representative of the deceased to identify any issues or concerns.”

Kranendonk — who greatly regrets not applying for a legal injunction to halt the procedure — told the Daily Mail that she is also appealing to the Patient Ombudsman and Belleville Police in an effort to determine whether what happened to her grandmother was legal.

A spokesman for Belleville Police told the Daily Mail, “This incident is currently open and under investigation with our Criminal Investigations Division. We are unable to provide any additional information at this time.”

The death of Brigitte Stegemann has attracted international attention, especially in the United States.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) wrote, “The intersection of assisted suicide and socialized medicine results in state-led horrors, treating the young, old, infirm, and distressed as disposable people. We must never allow this barbarity to spread in America.”

“This … is … evil,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican born in a Canadian province that has recently taken some steps to rein in Canada’s sick experiment.

Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck emphasized that “this is murder. Canada murdered this woman.”

Jason Kenney, Canada’s former conservative defense minister and Alberta’s 18th premier, said that the tale of Stegemann’s demise is an indictment of the Canadian Supreme Court’s “decision to trample on its own precedent, and the democratic decisions of Parliament, by opening the floodgates to killing the elderly and the infirm. If the claims made here are credible, the Crown must charge those responsible for the murder of Brigitte Stegemann.”

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​Canada, Euthanasia, Health care, Medical assistance in dying, Mike lee, Ontario, Socialized medicine, Ted cruz, Politics 

Various news outlets, including Fox News, have agreed to suspend pool reporting at the White House as a way to protest the president’s news ban.

On Friday, President Donald Trump accused CNN, MS NOW, and Politico of peddling fake news and banned them all from the White House.

‘If they had credibility, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.’

In response, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and Fox News announced on Monday that they had suspended White House TV pool reporting.

“This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton wrote in an email obtained by Politico.

“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place,” he added.

Fox News Media, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News also released a joint statement about the suspension.

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” the group wrote.

Many noted that CNN had defended Fox News in 2009 when former President Barack Obama had limited its access. Fox News returned the favor in 2018 when Trump shut out a CNN reporter.

The president justified his ban in comments to reporters Friday.

“I don’t want them in my office. I don’t want them here,” he said.

“The ban is because they are fake news, they cannot write the truth,” he added. “If they had credibility, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

RELATED: CNN says Trump press ban is illegal — then the Trump team THROWS DOWN fiery response

The president had also threatened to expand the ban to include other outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

In a post Monday on Truth Social, the president compared fake news to a “cancer” afflicting the country.

“It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control,” he wrote. “It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”

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​Fake news, Fox news, White house, Politics, Donald trump 

Feminism has sold women the lie that “patriarchy” is a crisis that’s followed their female ancestors throughout the centuries — but BlazeTV host Nick Freitas believes the real crisis isn’t too many men ruling.

Rather, it’s those who refuse to.

And author Jeremy Pryor couldn’t agree more.

“The word patriarchy is actually very recent,” Pryor tells Freitas. “It’s sort of like less than 100 years old. It was actually invented by people on the left to really attack the idea of there’s too many men. And so they came up with this word.”

“The word patriarch is extremely old. The word patriarchal is very old. The word patriarchy, that’s a fairly new word,” he explains, noting that he’s “wrestled” with whether or not to “embrace” it.

“Because part of what they mean by that is the oppression of a class of people, primarily powerful men over women and over everyone else in society, and we got to smash the patriarchy,” Pryor says.

The word means “ruling father,” and he says he “cannot imagine something more important” than “helping fathers understand that they need to begin to rule families.”

“There’s nothing better for women and for children,” he tells Freitas. “The worst thing that happens to women and children is when men decide to abandon that responsibility.”

“And so what a patriarch is, is somebody who takes that responsibility very personally and very seriously, somebody who doesn’t just protect and provide but also sets a vision for the family,” he adds.

And this is a natural way for men to behave, as Freitas notes that “men crave legacy.”

However, modern culture has seen family legacies take a hit.

“When you turn the family into something that basically is a temporary occupation,” Freitas says, “that eventually breaks down, and then your kids put you in a home. … If I want to build something that’s going to last, well then I build where I think it’s going to last, not where I know it’s by design supposed to break apart and do its own thing.”

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Jeremy pryor, Legacy, Nick freitas, Patriarchy, Feminism, Patriarch, Men, Fatherhood, Blazetv show 

Patrick Clancy held out hope for his 8-month-old son Callan after Lindsay Clancy strangled him and his siblings — 5-year-old Cora and 3-year-old Dawson — in January 2023, according to a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday.

He said he returned to his Duxbury, Massachusetts, home from an errand to find Lindsay lying in the back yard; her throat and wrists were cut — and she was paralyzed after jumping from an upstairs window, CBS News reported.

‘There was a time where I didn’t think I would live to see my 35th birthday. And I was completely fine with it.’

Patrick, 36, said he found his children strangled in the basement; Cora and Dawson were dead — but Callan was hanging on and was airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital, the news network noted.

“I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live,” Patrick said in the interview. “I remember just thinking, ‘Just give me one. Just give me one kid, and I would raise him as best I could, and I would give him the best life I possibly could. I’d tell him about his brother and sister.’ And I was holding out hope for that.”

Callan’s heart continued to beat for four days, according to “60 Minutes.”

“I got to hold him. I got to lay down next to him,” Patrick revealed. “And he died in my arms.”

In the following days, CBS News said Patrick wrote tributes to each of his three children — and decided to publicly forgive Lindsay, who’s now his ex-wife.

“I saw headlines that said, you know, ‘Killer Mom,’ and ‘Baby Murderer,’ ‘Monster.’ And none of them were accurate,” Patrick noted in the interview. “I believe that it was her mental illness that caused that. So I shared those words.”

The news network said Lindsay never asked Patrick for forgiveness, but Patrick gave it to her anyway.

CBS News said Patrick and Lindsay both brought medical malpractice lawsuits against health care providers who treated Lindsay — and while some have denied wrongdoing, others haven’t yet responded to the claims.

Patrick noted to “60 Minutes” that he believes he “did the best I could with what I had at the time. And I live with the outcome. I live with it every day.”

He also shared that shortly after his children’s deaths “there was a day where I, really without thinking, I drove by their school, and it was at the exact time that all of their friends were getting dropped off, and I … just couldn’t be there anymore.”

RELATED: Lindsay Clancy murder trial hits huge speed bump (UPDATE)

JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images

Patrick was asked in the interview if he had suicidal thoughts. His reply? “There was a time where I didn’t think I would live to see my 35th birthday. And I was completely fine with it.”

He added that he no longer could stay in Duxbury, and in April 2023, he moved to New York City where he sought anonymity, CBS News reported.

“Five weeks after I moved to New York, on May 26, I had to figure out how I’m going to celebrate Callan’s first birthday,” Patrick shared in the interview, his eyes welling up. “And how do you celebrate your son’s first birthday months after he’s passed away? And so I go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I light a candle, and I said, ‘I love you buddy.’ And I walk out on 5th Avenue, and I stared crying my eyes out. And nobody cared … and I thought, ‘This is where I need to be. I can grieve.'”

Patrick added that before moving from the family house in Duxbury, he kept a number of items that reminded him of his children: Interviewer Ross Douthat mentioned a stuffed “baby sloth that Cora carried everywhere; a photo of Callan wearing a bow tie almost bigger than him; [and] Dawson’s battered and beloved helicopter.”

You can view the entire “60 Minutes” interview here; the below clip is a summary of its content:

RELATED: Lindsay Clancy murder trial fireworks: Defense attorney wants 1 juror kicked out, tells judge his jury instruction is ‘soft’

By this April, Patrick was remarried to Rachel Danis, a New York City fertility doctor, CBS News said.

Danis told the news network that she met Patrick in January 2024 in a New York City run club and got to know each other over coffee.

“Pat pulled out his phone to pay, and I noticed this adorable photo of children as the wallpaper,” Danis shared with CBS News. “And I just asked, ‘Who are those cuties?’ And Pat said, ‘Those are my kids.’ And then I think I asked if they live in Massachusetts, and Pat said, ‘They died.’ And this is just at the cashier.”

Danis noted in the “60 Minutes” interview that she tried to “take some of the weight from Pat.”

“I can’t bring his kids back,” she noted. “But if I can honor them and allow Pat to grieve but also just continue to honor them in the present, I guess that’s all I can do.”

What’s more, the couple shared with “60 Minutes” that they’re starting a family — and Patrick is preparing to one day tell his future child about their older siblings, Cora, Dawson, and Callan.

“I think every parent can agree, you have different relationships with your kids, but they’re all your kids,” Patrick said, according to CBS News. “And I can’t wait to tell them about their brothers and sister.”

During Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial over the summer, Patrick testified and found himself at the center of an online swarm of sleuths and influencers dissecting every detail of the case, developing theories that portray him as uncaring, unfaithful — and even the murderer of his children, CBS News reported.

“It’s painful to see. And it makes it difficult to be in public, and it’s possible that some of those people, after seeing lie after lie after lie, they start to believe it, and that’s what we’re left with,” Patrick said in the “60 Minutes” interview.

CBS News reported that one of the catalysts for theories about Patrick was his apparent stoicism on the witness stand, but Patrick said testifying was difficult — and that he experienced a “massive, traumatic panic attack” on the second day of his testimony.

“They put me in an ambulance,” Patrick noted in the interview. “They offered me some medication, but I said, ‘I don’t want it, because I want to go back, and I want to finish this so I can be done with this.’ And I went back, and I finished the testimony.”

Lindsay Clancy’s trial ended with a hung jury earlier this month.

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​Lindsay clancy, Patrick clancy, 60 minutes, Mom killed children, Massachusetts, Murder, Crime 

Did an ICE agent spin up a wild story after shooting a Venezuelan national in Minnesota early this year? Or has he been scapegoated by a state filled with “rage” over immigration law enforcement in general?

Both federal and Hennepin County prosecutors have formally charged Christian Castro, 52, for allegedly lying to investigators, but one of his attorneys, David Lindenmuth, told Blaze News that his client has been unfairly targeted by “rabid” officials looking for someone to blame for other controversies associated with Operation Metro Surge.

‘He was in pursuit of people in a vehicle who fled. … There was a person on that porch that apparently had a weapon at some point.’

“They went through some pretty serious things up there with the federal law enforcement being sent up there. There’s a couple of high-profile deaths,” Lindenmuth said. “And because of that, I think that what happened, to be quite honest … [is] Mr. Castro is basically the one that they chose to prosecute.”

Lindenmuth did not name names regarding the “high-profile deaths,” but the incident involving Castro occurred just one week after Renee Good was fatally shot on January 7.

On January 14, the Department of Homeland Security reported that an unnamed federal immigration officer had “fired a defensive shot to defend his life” during an immigration operation in Minnesota.

The officer had sustained a brutal attack, during which three individuals “ambushed” him and struck him with a “broom handle” and a “snow shovel,” the DHS claimed on January 14.

Now, however, the Department of Justice claims the officer made the whole thing up. On September 2, a federal grand jury indicted Castro on six counts of making a materially false statement.

RELATED: Trump threatens Insurrection Act after ambushed ICE agent shoots illegal alien: ‘Put an end to the travesty’

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

The federal indictment claims that on January 14, Castro told the FBI that while he was attempting to arrest one man, a second “unknown man grabbed a red broom off the front porch,” “a third unknown man came out of the house, grabbed a black snow shovel,” and all three ganged up on him.

Castro then claimed that “he tried to block strikes from the broom to his face with his left hand and reached for his gun,” according to the indictment. The men then bolted for a nearby residence, and Castro “lifted his back off the ground and fired one round from his gun in the general direction of the men at the same time they started running.”

Castro estimated to the FBI that he struggled on the ground with the original subject, identified as “A.A.,” for “approximately three minutes,” the indictment said.

According to federal prosecutors, none of Castro’s claims are true. Instead, prosecutors claim: No one struck Castro with a broom or a snow shovel at that time; there was no third person involved; Castro was standing when he shot through the front door of the duplex residence, where the two men had already hidden themselves; and the scuffle on the ground lasted only 11 seconds.

A probable cause statement from Hennepin County indicated that, following a 911 call, Minneapolis police took “remote-control of a city camera” and angled it at the residence in time to capture much of the incident.

Castro’s bullet struck one subject, identified as Julio Sosa-Celis in news reports but referred to as “J.S.-C.” in the federal indictment. Sosa-Celis was wounded in the leg but has recovered from his injury.

The indictment describes J.S.-C. as a 24-year-old “citizen of Venezuela” who resided in the duplex.

The probable cause statement claimed that at the time of the shooting, Sosa-Celis and A.A. “were residing in Minnesota lawfully, having been granted ‘Temporary Protected Status’ by the United States Department of Homeland Security.”

Sosa-Celis was arrested shortly after the incident, but all charges against him have since been dropped.

Though Lindenmuth admits that Castro “fired his weapon” that fateful night, Lindenmuth insisted that Castro is “innocent” and “had no intent to lie to federal agents.”

“The federal government has to prove that Mr. Castro lied to them, and then the state government has to prove that he actually committed a crime,” he explained to Blaze News. “The facts as I understand them is that he was in pursuit of people in a vehicle who fled, right? They fled. Then they fled on foot. There was a person on that porch that apparently had a weapon at some point.”

In the county probable cause statement, the original subject of the operation — whom the federal indictment referred to as “A.A.” — admitted to investigators on January 14 that he fled from the agents in his vehicle because “he feared for his life” and led them on a 25-minute chase. Once he arrived at his residence, he made a run for the front door but “slipped on the ice” and was then “tackled” by the ICE agent.

Video of the incident also shows that prior to the shooting, Sosa-Celis “stepped onto the front lawn of the home holding a snow shovel,” the probable cause statement indicated.

Castro was originally indicted by the Hennepin County district attorney back in May on four counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

He was arrested following the federal indictment and booked into Hennepin County Jail. Jail records show only the state charges.

Castro pled not guilty to the federal charges on Friday. He was released from jail after posting a $200,000 bond.

Castro is scheduled to appear in court again for the state charges on November 3. The DHS has suspended him without pay, Lindenmuth confirmed.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, the DHS, the Hennepin County Prosecutor’s Office, and the office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (DFL) did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News.

RELATED: Anti-ICE aid fund in Minnesota shuts down — and you can probably guess the reason why

Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Lindenmuth characterized the charges as a miscarriage of justice against a devoted American patriot who has been turned into a “political pawn” by bad actors.

“Mr. Castro was a 13-year veteran in the Army, a combat veteran deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he received a 100% disability rating as a result of his service for 70% for PTSD, 30% for traumatic brain injury, where he was hit by the last wave of a suicide bomber on the American embassy over there. And so this is a person who was injured serving his country,” Lindenmuth claimed, adding that Castro has also spent a decade as an immigration officer.

“He has given his life to serving this country, and he’s not [been given] the benefit of the protections of the presumption of innocence. … Basically he’s being tried out in public by the state of Minnesota, and it’s sad to see.

“That’s not how we’re supposed to operate.”

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​Department of homeland security, Minnesota, Department of justice, Immigration and customs enforcement, Politics 

More school districts are banning smartphones and AI use in classrooms, and more parents are understandably pleased. They picture learning environments returning to the good old days of pen and paper and actual eye contact.

But don’t pop the champagne just yet. Behind the crackdown, school administrators are building a corporate surveillance dragnet that would make a Cold War spy agency blush.

This diabolical system routinely harvests sensitive personal details about your home life.

American children are growing up inside an all-knowing, all-seeing system bankrolled directly by local tax dollars. A recent report from the Brookings Institution reveals that 88% of teachers report their schools use student monitoring tools on classroom devices.

Worse yet, 42% of those teachers confirm the tracking follows kids right out the front door and directly into their bedrooms after the final bell rings. The local school board effectively installed electronic ankle monitors on America’s children — all in the name of educational progress and student safety, of course.

A secret scandal

The process usually starts with a sneaky sales representative who convinces a school board to purchase thousands of cheap laptops or tablets for daily use. To keep kids off video game sites, administrators install intrusive software like GoGuardian, Bark, or Gaggle. These platforms record search histories. They read private messages and log physical coordinates. They track keystrokes in real time. Digital hall pass apps log the exact minute a child leaves a classroom to use the drinking fountain or restroom, generating a permanent, timestamped record of students’ daily body functions. Although America is not China, what’s happening in Beijing is now happening in Boston.

Parents were never asked for their consent. Under federal law, they don’t have to be. School boards signed multiyear software contracts with private operators without sending a single permission slip home to mom and dad. Intoxicated by their own sense of importance, administrators assumed absolute authority over your child’s digital activity, completely bypassing traditional parental rights.

This diabolical system operates under the wonderful promise of keeping kids safe, yet it routinely harvests sensitive personal details about your home life. Powerful algorithms scan student emails, private documents, and home web searches for keywords related to mental health, domestic arguments, and more. When an automated system flags a few words typed late on a Sunday night, it generates an instant alert sent directly to school officials or local police departments. A teen typing out a frustrated diary entry on a school-issued laptop suddenly finds a police car parked in the driveway for a late-night wellness check.

RELATED: They just announced the ultimate freedom phone — and getting your hands on it won’t be easy

Bloomberg/Getty Images

The information these devices generate doesn’t stay safely locked inside the principal’s office file cabinet. Third-party software companies store student location records and behavioral histories on commercial cloud servers. Many of these tech vendors reserve the right to share broad student metrics with data brokers, software developers, and research institutions of questionable merit. The private details of your child’s daily routine become valuable fuel for commercial products, helping train corporate algorithms on your family’s personal habits without your knowledge.

Restoring privacy

Few things in life are guaranteed, but one certainty is that surveillance tech always expands beyond its original purpose. Systems initially built to block bad websites now use computer cameras to track eye movements and score attention levels during standardized state tests. Automated systems process this data to generate risk scores for individual students, flagging kids as potential troublemakers before they even finish middle school. A minor behavioral mark recorded on a classroom tablet can become a permanent digital footprint that follows a child throughout his academic years.

This is not healthy, and it’s certainly not an environment that any sane parent should want his child educated in. It must stop, but it won’t happen without a clear plan and the will to enforce it.

Restoring privacy to the American classroom requires direct, decisive action from parents and local communities. Parents can immediately opt their kids out of school-issued laptops by submitting formal written requests to school principals. They are well within their rights to demand traditional paper textbooks, physical workbooks, and standard notebooks instead. Concerned voters must show up at local school board meetings to demand strict district rules that ban student tracking outside school hours, forbid third-party data sharing, and require mandatory written parental consent before any new software enters a building.

Genuine freedom depends on raising independent children who know what it means to live without an overseer monitoring their every move. If parents fail to draw a firm line now, the public school system will help raise a generation of compliant citizens who accept constant surveillance as just another part of everyday life. Again, America is not China. But step inside schools across America, and the comparison suddenly looks far less absurd.

​Surveillance, Tech 

Arizona Cardinals defensive back Kei’Trel Clark became the second Muslim player to receive a fine from the NFL in the past week or so.

Following a letter from the league, the 25-year-old is searching for answers, but he probably doesn’t have to look too hard.

‘I got to report to God at the end of my days on the day of judgement!’

Clark posted the NFL’s correspondence on his Instagram page, telling him he was “in violation of the NFL Uniform and Equipment Rules.”

“Specifically, you displayed a personal message on your eye black,” the letter continued, per the Instagram story cited by the Daily Mail.

Clark was spotted on the field on September 13 against the Los Angeles Chargers wearing the message “Glory Be 2 God …” with a peace sign in the middle.

This message appears to directly violate Rule 5, Section 4, Article 8 of the NFL rulebook, which states, “Players are prohibited from wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages” during game day when the player is visible to the stadium or television audience.

As a result, Clark was fined $6,651.

Clark shared a screenshot of the letter with a picture of himself, writing, “I need answers. 6.6k for Giving God the Glory.”

He later added, “I got to report to God at the end of my days on the day of judgement! I’ll always give God the Glory and out loud. All good.”

RELATED: The NFL says it could expand with multiple teams — and you won’t like where they’re going

Kenneth Richmond/Getty Images

At the same time, Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair was fined following a loss to the Buffalo Bills for having the name “Hind Rajab” written on his eye black during the game on September 13, per Fox News.

Hind Rajab is the name of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl who was allegedly shot and killed in her family’s car by Israeli forces in 2024 during the Israel-Palestine war.

For that, Al-Shaair received an $11,492 fine.

On Sunday, Al-Shaair was spotted during warm-ups wearing a different message on his eye black: “Wafaa Akila.” A translation through Arabic123.com says Wafaa means “completeness, fulfillment, and loyalty,” while Akila means “a woman who is thoughtful and articulate in expressing her views and opinions on important matters.”

Any fines for that message could be announced later this week.

Al-Shaair was also fined $11,593 in January for wearing “Stop the Genocide” on his eye black during a playoff game. He told reporters at the time he knew he was in violation of the rules.

“I knew that that was a fine. I understood what I was doing,” he said before expressing some confusion.

“But I was told that if I wore that in the game I would be pulled out the game, so I think that was probably the part I was confused about.”

RELATED: Travis Kelce duped by Indian illegal immigrant in massive Ponzi scheme

Brooke Sutton/Getty Images

Clark did not appear to be fined for wearing eye black in September 2025 that read, “Inshallah …,” one of his many public expressions of his Muslim faith.

In a 2025 Instagram post he wrote, “I put my heart into this $h!t, it’s always been bigger then me. Only Allah Knows.”

As well, the front of his Instagram page contains Arabic writing that, when translated by Google, reads, “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.”

It also features links to photos of Quranic passages.

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​Nfl, Football, Islam, Muslim, Sports 

Pollsters and prediction markets are prophesying overwhelming Democratic success in the midterm election, which is now seven weeks away. CNN admitted in a recent analysis, however, that those hoping for a blue tidal wave might be left greatly disappointed in November.

Doom and gloom for the GOP

Polymarket presently suggests that Democrats have a 62% chance of taking the U.S. Senate and a 92% chance of taking the House. Kalshi similarly forecasts Democrats taking over the House and Senate.

‘It’s going to be close.’

According to the Economist’s latest midterm forecast, Democrats have a 93% chance of flipping the House and securing a 238-197 majority, and a 59% chance of taking the Senate.

The latest New York Times/Siena poll shows Democrats enjoying an eight-point edge on the generic ballot.

A recent NBC News poll found that while the Democratic Party is viewed more negatively than both President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, 50% of respondents favored Democratic control of Congress.

RELATED: The cost of living is coming for Congress

The Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

Pollster Nate Silver argued on Sunday that the idea of the Senate as a “toss-up” is “misaligned with the long history of strong opposition performance in midterm elections, especially when the incumbent president is as unpopular as Trump.”

Blue disappointment?

In light of recent polling, the average price of gasoline sitting at an estimated $4.44 per gallon, and the sense that the midterm vote serves as a referendum on Trump’s policies, hope is mounting on the left that a blue wave will wash away the Republican trifecta in Washington.

That hope may, however, be unfounded.

CNN political analyst Ronald Brownstein suggested just over a week ago that Democrats might not be in a position to exploit the president’s waning public approval, Americans’ economic woes, and growing political discontent.

In addition to noting that many Democratic candidates are not attracting the numbers of voters who disapproved of Trump in 2018 and 2020, Brownstein wrote that despite disenchantment among some voters on the right, few appear willing to turn coat.

“The share of non-MAGA Republicans who say they are still voting for Republicans this fall is about 20 points higher than the portion who approve of Trump’s performance,” Brownstein wrote, citing GOP pollster Micah Roberts’ analysis of CNBC survey data.

“There are a lot of people who may think, ‘I don’t like Trump but … I don’t agree with the policies of the other party and where they would take us,'” said Roberts.

While Republican voters might not cast votes for Democratic candidates, Brownstein noted that the GOP still faces the possibility that disenchanted Republican voters might decide not to vote at all — a big problem given the enthusiasm among likely Democratic voters.

Voter enthusiasm might threaten Republicans’ hold on power; however, the GOP’s redistricting efforts have placed breakers before any blue wave.

After all, far fewer House seats are competitive now than were in 2018, and 13 House Democrats must now defend districts where Trump netted at least five points more than his share of the national vote, said Brownstein.

The CNN analyst cast greater doubt on Democrats’ senatorial ambitions, noting that “of the Republican-held seats Democrats are most seriously contesting, Maine is the only one in a state that supported Harris; North Carolina is the sole other state on the Senate map where Harris even came close. Trump prevailed by double digits in every other state whose Senate seat Democrats are targeting.”

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, the GOP — not similarly hard up for cash like the Democrats — also enjoys a financial advantage Brownstein reckons could be wielded to limit Democratic gains.

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson told the New York Post earlier this month that instead of a blue or red wave this November, there will be “30 knife fights in 30 dark alleys.”

“It’s just a handful of races, but every one of them will be decided by a few thousand votes. It’s going to be close,” added Hudson.

The Cook Political Report projects that the GOP and the Democratic Party are set to win 208 and 205 House seats, respectively, and marked 21 seats as toss-ups.

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​Cnn, Polling, Midterm election, Blue wave, Senate, House, Republican party, Democratic party, Donald trump, Politics 

Radicals waving foreign flags and leftist signage flooded the streets of North Austin on Sunday following a nonfatal shooting involving a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer and a Venezuelan national.

As the sun set on a day full of anti-ICE rhetoric from Democratic officials, including Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, protesters turned violent, prompting a crackdown from Texas Department of Public Safety troopers.

The shooting

The shooting took place just before 1 p.m. on Sunday in the 8000 block of Anderson Square.

‘I am ready to Melt ICE.’

Austin-Travis County EMS Rob Luckritz noted that the individual who caught the bullet — identified by his immigration attorney as 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a Venezuelan national allegedly working as a DoorDash driver — had stable vital signs but was nevertheless taken to Dell Seton Medical Center in “serious condition.”

A video live streamed around the time of the shooting and reviewed by the New York Times captures the sound of screeching tires and a collision, then pivots to show a damaged Corolla driven by Perez stopped next to an SUV driven by an ICE officer, the NYT reported. The vehicles can be seen on the video facing in opposite directions.

In a different video obtained by ABC News that shows the aftermath of the shooting, Perez can be heard claiming in Spanish that he was shot for failing to “brake,” the outlet reported.

RELATED: The mass-deportation promise is disappearing

Masked radical throws a rock at law enforcement at an anti-ICE demonstration in Austin on Sept. 20. Brandon Bell/Getty Images.

Homeland Security Investigations is now investigating the shooting with the help of the FBI.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the individual shot on Sunday is an “illegal alien from Venezuela, who illegally entered our country under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal, during a law enforcement operation today in Austin, TX.”

Perez received treatment at the hospital and was transferred into ICE custody.

The Democratic reflex

Following the shooting, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson joined other Democrats in presuming the worst and attacking ICE, stating, “I am very angry and extremely disappointed that a person was shot on the streets of Austin by ICE. While I’m angry and disappointed, I’m not surprised. This has happened in other cities. With the rogue nature of ICE and the chaos we’re seeing fomented by ICE, there’s no reason to be surprised.”

Texas Rep. Greg Casar (D) also seized the opportunity to remind everyone that he loathes federal immigration enforcement, stating, “The horror has come to our city: ICE has shot a person in Austin this morning.”

“Just like Americans have from Minneapolis to Houston, Austinites will speak out peacefully against this deadly mass deportation machine. ICE has been terrorizing our country for far too long. We will not be silent,” added Casar, the son of immigrants.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) tweeted, “Trump has allowed ICE to flood our streets and put our communities in harms [sic] way again and again and Governor Abbott is complicit every time.”

Anchor-baby Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) accused the DHS of being the “biggest threat to our collective safety” and noting, “I am ready to Melt ICE and dismantle DHS!”

While admittedly short on information, Texas state Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D) stated, “This violence cannot continue.”

The restoration of order

As Democrats took turns attacking ICE online, a horde of anti-ICE demonstrators rallied near the scene of the shooting, waving signs that said, “Stop ICE murder,” “F**k ICE,” “Moms against ICE,” “Justice 4 Wilber,” and “Abolish ICE.”

The mob grew increasingly unruly, not only lobbing rocks and other projectiles at law enforcement but attempting on multiple occasions to march on the taped-off site of the shooting. The Texas Department of Public Safety troopers responded by firing pepper balls toward the radicals while Austin police officers in riot gear stood ready.

After deploying tear gas, tackling some rioters, and successfully dispersing the mob, whose assembly was declared unlawful, troopers left the scene around 11 p.m., reported NBC News.

Blaze News reached out to the Texas Department of Public Safety and the DHS for comment but did not immediately receive responses.

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​Austin, Riot, Texas, Illegal immigrant, Venezuela, Deportation, Politics, Immigration and customs enforcement 

Islam is widely known as a religion, but former Muslim and Ideological Defense Institute founder Danny Burmawi doesn’t believe that’s actually what it is.

“When people think of Islam, they think of Christianity,” he tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck.

“No, when you think of Islam, think of the United States of America. Think of France, China, because Islam is a state. Now, that state has a religion,” he says.

“It has a constitution. It’s called Sharia. Just like the constitution of the United States. It has a population. They’re called Muslims. So Muslims are not analogous with Christians. It’s analogous with Americans,” he continues.

“We must look so incredibly ignorant and stupid,” Glenn says in response. “Because they say it in their mosque. They say it out loud. ‘We are going to take over. We will have Sharia.’ That means overthrow the constitution of whatever country they’re in.”

“And they’ve done it in country after country after country,” he continues.

“We just don’t see it. We’re not willing to stand up and speak the truth,” he adds.

However, Burmawi explains that the majority of Muslims do not adhere to the extremist beliefs of the few, because if they wanted “to adhere to everything that Islam teaches,” they would be better suited living with ISIS.

“Islam is not practical at all, and Muslims, they have cognitive dissonance. I was a Muslim. I’m telling you that confusion, you don’t know how to live in the word because your belief system is completely contradictory with the reality around you,” he tells Glenn.

“So you ignore it,” he continues. “However, if we have 1% out of the five, six million Muslims in America, only 1% who are faithful, who are willing to carry out all the teachings of Muhammad, then what is that, like 50,000 people?”

“You have literally 50,000 ISIS terrorists living in America today just at 1%,” he adds.

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​Christianity, Islam, Muslim, Religion, Isis, Danny burmawi, Glenn beck, United states, Blazetv show 

Welcome to the golden age of “illegal immigration tourism,” a truly perverse hospitality trend sweeping the European continent. In this upside-down world, guests don’t pay, hosts can’t say no, and room service is billed directly to someone else.

The author and academic Steven Pinker argues there has never been a better time to be alive. That is certainly true if you happen to be living on the receiving end of Western Europe’s taxpayer-funded generosity.

In Ireland, where I was born and raised, village hotels that once sustained regional tourism now operate as full-time reception facilities for Africans.

The Brussels package

There was a time when getting to Europe from North Africa was difficult, if not impossible. It required real planning and actual savings. Not anymore. Brussels bureaucrats streamlined the process entirely. Today, a person needs only a dinghy and a willingness to let the German state handle the reservation details — complete with complimentary linen changes and a buffet breakfast.

The recent real estate pivot in Hamburg-Harburg’s Inner Harbor perfectly illustrates the absurdity. Developers recently spent €60 million in combined public and private funds to transform a postindustrial harbor into a sleek waterfront destination. The crown jewel of this urban renewal project is the Niu Quay, a charming hotel aimed at middle- and upper-class visitors. It was supposed to transform the neighborhood’s dining, tourism, and nightlife. Instead, it opened with plenty of fanfare, enjoyed a remarkably brief run as a business, and then promptly shut its doors to paying guests.

Hamburg’s municipal housing agency, Fördern & Wohnen, then stepped in with taxpayer money, leasing all 340 rooms through at least the end of the year. The hotel’s primary function shifted overnight from hosting respectable tourists to serving as an all-inclusive sanctuary for incoming asylum seekers. The city’s public housing system is currently at 102.8% capacity, with hotel suites serving as an administrative workaround to avoid the optics of encampments in public parks.

Seasonal depression

There is plenty of dark humor in this arrangement. A Hamburg native, hamstrung by inflation and stagnant wages, faces an immediate dilemma. He hands over his hard-earned money that funds the municipal lease, only to be priced out of the very city his taxes are supposed to support. He buys the train ticket to the district. Upon arrival, he finds he cannot book a room at the newest hotel because the state outbid him using his own paycheck. If he wishes to enjoy a luxury staycation in his own city, he is out of luck. The state has monopolized the reservation desk and effectively nationalized the local leisure economy.

This situation is dire, and it’s not limited to the banks of the Elbe River. Across Europe, the traditional hospitality sector has morphed into a state-subsidized sanctuary network. In Britain, former Victorian seaside resorts and historic country houses have seen their traditional guest books replaced by lucrative, state-funded government contracts, effectively gutting the high streets and seasonal economies of beautiful coastal towns.

Five-star accommodations, complete with full spa access, state-of-the-art gyms, saunas, and heated indoor swimming pools, are now routinely repurposed to house one-star guests. In Ireland, where I was born and raised, village hotels that once sustained regional tourism now operate as full-time reception facilities for Africans, leaving local pub owners and shopkeepers to wonder where the actual tourists went.

RELATED: ‘The ship is already sinking’: Why the ‘Citizen Vigilante’ director wants to shock you

bollfilms.com

5-star fandango

The daily economics highlight the insanity. Last year, Hamburg spent an average of €82 ($95) per person per day just on hotel placements for migrants. Combined, the city-states of Hamburg and Berlin dump approximately €4 billion annually into housing and processing costs. That sum buys a staggering amount of high-end lodging.

While local residents cancel their own vacation plans to save money for winter heating bills, the government operates as Europe’s most aggressive luxury travel agent, booking out entire floors of freshly renovated properties without ever asking for a credit card pre-authorization.

City officials in Hamburg recently announced plans to dial back their reliance on expensive hotel leases. Directly after making that public pledge, they signed the lease for the Niu Quay.

Municipal negotiators insist they push for below-market rates, yet city agencies routinely sign off on premium room rates when state-run facilities close suddenly. A major processing center on Schlachthofstrasse shuts down this autumn, and the state’s immediate solution is to upgrade the occupants to a trendy harbor hotel — proving that in public administration, failure simply buys you a better view of the marina.

Holding the bag

Everyday citizens are left holding the bag. The chairman of the local parliamentary group pointed out that small restaurants, family-run cafes, and retail shops built their entire financial models around a steady influx of tourists with plenty of disposable income. Now, the district’s primary commercial center is occupied by a population being housed at the taxpayer’s expense. These men and women don’t dine out on corporate expense accounts. They don’t order local services or buy goods from nearby stores. Why would they, when everything is taken care of?

This asinine arrangement shapes a migrant’s first impression of their host nation. Arriving directly into this level of comfort fosters an immediate sense of entitlement. It instills the expectation that the government will never stop providing luxury accommodations and daily provisions and that the rewards will come without any personal effort, financial contribution, or integration into local society.

European governments have created a system where the easiest way to secure a mid-tier luxury room in a major city is to abandon your documentation at the border. The working class finances the hospitality. The business class loses its customers, and the state acts as the master concierge, ensuring every stylish guesthouse stays filled at public expense.

​Steven pinker, Immigration, Europe, Illegal immigration, Migrant hotels, Ireland, Germany, Hamburg, Culture, The rape of europa 

Democrat Texas Senate nominee James Talarico is once again attempting to rewrite the gospel, and this time it was while sitting down with Jimmy Kimmel — who claimed that they could only air it on YouTube “because of Trump.”

In the interview, he explained to Kimmel that Scripture “tells us that you can’t love God and hate other people.”

“You can’t love God and abuse the immigrant. You can’t love God and oppress the poor. You can’t love God and bully the outcast,” he began.

“Matthew 25 tells us Christians exactly how we’re going to be judged and how we’re going to be saved: by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger,” he said. “I often wonder: What would Jesus do if he visited the U.S. Senate?”

“I think he would tell the senators on the floor, ‘Depart from me, for I was hungry and you cut my food assistance. I was sick and you kicked me off Medicaid. I was a stranger and you deported me and my family,” he added.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray “can’t” with Talarico’s bizarre interpretation of God’s word.

“No more,” he says.

“Because Jesus was advocating for all of those government programs. Really?”

“That is so unbelievably stupid and wrongheaded and not the gospel. This guy is an antichrist. Again, he may not be the antichrist, but is an antichrist,” he continues.

“He is continually preaching the opposite of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is unbelievable. Wow,” he adds.

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​Antichrist, Christians, James talarico, Jesus christ, Jimmy kimmel, Medicaid, Pat gray, Scripture, Us senate, Blazetv show 

I have spent more than two decades working in politics and have been involved in roughly 50 campaigns, from local races to presidential contests. If there is one lesson I have learned, it is this: Never tell voters that what they are experiencing isn’t real.

With the midterm elections eight weeks away, too many campaigns risk making that mistake. Washington wants to talk about foreign policy, economic indicators, and political strategy. Voters are looking at receipts, and those receipts tell a different story.

Voters can forgive difficult circumstances. What they will not forgive is being told those circumstances don’t exist.

In the week ending September 7, the national average for diesel reached a record $5.97 a gallon. That matters far beyond truck stops. Farmers, contractors, freight carriers, and delivery networks all depend on diesel.

When those costs rise, they move through the supply chain. Fuel becomes part of the grocery bill, the restaurant bill, the cost of construction, shipping, and nearly everything else Americans buy. The consumer ultimately pays.

The line between foreign policy and affordability is not always clean. Wars, sanctions, and instability abroad can raise oil prices and transportation costs at home. But voters experience those events through household economics: the price on the pump, the supermarket receipt, and the balance in the checking account.

Politicians love macroeconomics. Voters live in microeconomics.

A candidate can talk about GDP, job creation, or the stock market, but those figures do not erase what a family pays for groceries, housing, insurance, and energy. The voter’s checking account gets the final vote.

As much as it pains me to admit it, Democrat strategist James Carville got at least one thing right. During Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, Carville drove home a simple message: “It’s the economy, stupid.” More than three decades later, Republicans would be wise to remember the lesson.

I have seen campaigns become consumed with the issue they want voters to care about rather than the issue voters actually care about. Those are not always the same thing.

The evidence this year is hard to miss. A July Pew Research Center survey found that voters most wanted congressional candidates to discuss economic issues, especially prices and affordability. In a companion survey, 66% said they were very concerned about food and consumer-goods prices, 64% about housing costs, and 56% about gasoline prices.

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Foreign policy and national security still matter. China, Russia, Iran, and America’s place in the world cannot be dismissed. No single issue will decide every race. But elections are personal, and voters usually encounter national policy through its effect on daily life.

A parent in a supermarket aisle is not conducting a geopolitical analysis while comparing grocery prices. A driver filling the family SUV is watching the numbers on the pump. Both are asking the same question: How much is this going to cost me?

They are thinking about the mortgage, electric bill, car payment, insurance, groceries, gas, child care, and credit cards. They are wondering why an income that once felt comfortable now seems barely sufficient. That is affordability, and it will decide November.

Economic frustration helped return Donald Trump to the White House. Republicans cannot assume that the issue automatically works in their favor now. They cannot tell families struggling with grocery and fuel bills that everything is fine or insist that distant events matter more than household finances.

That does not require Republicans to abandon foreign policy or the administration’s agenda. It requires candidates to acknowledge what voters are experiencing and explain what they intend to do about it. There is an enormous political difference between saying, “The economy is great,” and saying, “We’ve made progress, but prices are still too high, and here is what we’re doing next.”

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Democrats should not celebrate, either. Economic frustration does not automatically translate into support for Democratic policies. Voters will judge which candidates understand their financial situation and offer credible solutions. That gives both parties an opportunity, but neither a guaranteed victory.

Campaigns succeed when candidates understand what voters are feeling. They fail when consultants persuade candidates that voters should care about something else. After roughly 50 campaigns, I have found that voters can forgive difficult circumstances. What they will not forgive is being told those circumstances don’t exist.

The question in November will not be whether Washington can produce statistics showing that parts of the economy are strong. It will be whether Americans believe they can afford their lives.

When they enter the voting booth, they will not be carrying economic charts. They will be carrying their grocery receipts.

​Affordability, Campaigns, Foreign policy, Gasoline prices, Grocery prices, Housing costs, Job creation, Mortgage, Stock market, Voters, White house, Opinion & analysis 

Donald Trump did not invent political trolling, but he may be its most gifted modern practitioner. His opponents still do not understand the tactic, which is why he runs circles around them. To understand trolling, we must see the larger ideological conflict of our time.

For Christians, trolling poses a serious moral question. It can seem cruel: a digital version of poking someone until he explodes, then laughing at the explosion. It also often involves deception. Does that violate the Ninth Commandment? How can deliberate provocation be reconciled with Christ’s command to “love your neighbor”?

When the guardians of tolerance demand that dissenters be silenced, love may even require a well-placed troll.

The answer begins by defining the term carefully.

The internet term “trolling” appears to draw on fishing, not the monster under the bridge. A fisherman drags bait through the water and waits for a fish to bite. A political troll places rhetorical bait before an opponent and waits for an angry, thoughtless response. The Oxford English Dictionary defines trolling as “posting antagonistic or disingenuous messages to provoke a hostile or annoyed response” and more broadly as behavior “intended to provoke or deceive.”

Political trolling is public mockery meant to elicit a response that exposes a contradiction, wastes an opponent’s time, and strips an ideology of undeserved authority. Legitimate trolling therefore presupposes that some public figures and ideologies deserve public mockery.

An effective troll identifies a contradiction in a public figure or ideology, frames it provocatively, and waits. The target becomes flustered and responds thoughtlessly, confirming the original criticism. Rather than merely accusing an opponent of hypocrisy, the troll induces him to demonstrate it before an audience.

This is not the same as insulting strangers for entertainment. Nor is trolling a license to lie, defame, threaten, or mock private suffering. It is more like misdirection in war or sports, used to confuse an opponent and reveal his weaknesses. No one accuses a quarterback of lying when he fakes a handoff, and no one expects a general to warn the enemy about a surprise attack.

Sun Tzu taught that warfare depends on knowing both your enemy and yourself. Schopenhauer cataloged the rhetorical tricks people use to appear right. The troll draws on both insights, arranging the contest so the opponent reveals his weaknesses to the public and loses respect.

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Christians recognize the distinction between just and unjust wars. Not every use of force is murder, and refusing to defend the innocent is not an act of love.

Rhetorical warfare is also real. Words can deceive, intimidate, indoctrinate, and destroy reputations. Institutions use language to disguise coercion as compassion and discrimination as inclusion.

Not every Christian is called to fight a kinetic war, and not every Christian is called to fight a rhetorical one. Some lack the temperament, position, or skill for public confrontation. That is no disgrace. A soldier without discipline endangers his own side, and so does a would-be internet warrior with a social media account and three cups of coffee.

But Christians cannot pretend that no conflict exists. Christian and anti-Christian visions of God, humanity, sexuality, justice, freedom, and authority compete for control of our institutions. They cannot both prevail. The question is not whether society will be governed by a moral vision, but which moral vision will govern it.

The Bible does not condemn every use of ridicule. Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal, suggesting that their god might be occupied or asleep. Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees “whitewashed tombs.” Public teachers promoting public falsehoods were exposed so their teaching and authority would lose the audience’s respect.

We can identify a pattern for legitimate trolling. Its proper target is a public figure advancing a destructive ideology. Its method is ridicule aimed at hypocrisy. Its immediate purpose is to provoke a revealing response. Its true audience is not the target but the people watching. The goal is to protect the vulnerable from harmful ideologies that lead souls to perdition.

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Publicly exposing the absurdities of ideologies such as critical theory or LGBTQ activism gives those who might be led astray an opportunity to reconsider. Stripping an ideology of its unearned authority can turn the audience toward truth and away from leaders and systems that lead to destruction.

I am not recommending that everyone take up trolling. But we should not treat an ideological war as less consequential than a sporting contest, where teams talk smack and use fake plays and misdirection to win.

When opponents of Christianity seek to censor biblical teaching and replace it with Marxist dialectics and LGBTQ sexual ethics, exposing their public leaders to laughter and ridicule is part of the conflict. Their panicked responses can display their folly. The purpose is to protect the vulnerable and persuade those who recognize the emptiness of the anti-Christian position.

Love of neighbor does not require helping a hypocrite preserve his disguise. Sometimes love requires argument, and argument requires confrontation. Trolling can protect your neighbor from wolves in sheep’s clothing. When the guardians of tolerance demand that dissenters be silenced, love may even require a well-placed troll — and the patience to let your opponent prove your point.

​Christians, Donald trump, Political trolling, Ust war, God, Humanity, Sexuality, Justice, Freedom, Bible, Lgbtq, Marxists, Trolling, Opinion & analysis 

We live in an age of extraordinary psychological misery. Depression, anxiety, and suicide are tearing through younger generations, with young women facing some of the steepest increases in emotional turmoil. Wherever modern society faces a crisis, someone inevitably turns it into a business opportunity. As the old saying goes, never let a good crisis go to waste.

Enter the “sickfluencer.”

Many blend real physiological ailments with bizarre spiritual woo-woo.

A growing number of young women have discovered that illness can be more than a medical condition. If channeled correctly, it can become an identity, a source of online status, even a full-time occupation. Social media algorithms reward creators who document every symptom, diagnosis, flare-up, and hospital visit, turning private suffering into public content.

Sharing practical medical advice online is a natural response to a confusing and infuriating health care system. Seeking peer support during a legitimate medical crisis has saved many lives over the decades. That’s not the problem. The issue lies in the scale, the algorithmically amplified reach, and the strange, solemn worship followers bestow on these digital creators. People line up in comment sections to canonize young content creators for simply surviving another afternoon with irritable bowel syndrome.

In the U.S., creators like Chronically Jaquie have built massive YouTube followings by broadcasting the daily minutiae of life with rare, hard-to-diagnose conditions like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Viewers tune in by the hundreds of thousands to watch intravenous line flushes, pharmacy hauls, and tearful hospital admissions. With Jacquie, privacy is optional, and boundaries are little more than silly suggestions.

Across the Atlantic, British TikTokers turn National Health Service waiting rooms into backdrop sets for short videos. They rack up millions of views while filming their own intravenous drips.

A broken system

The medical establishment deserves plenty of criticism from the public. Too often, doctors desperately attempt to reduce every ailment to a quick prescription. When a pill fails to work, instead of asking better questions, they simply write another prescription for a different drug designed to numb the pain without ever addressing the root cause.

This cycle drives exhausted patients — many of whom are young women seeking real support — straight into the open arms of internet wellness gurus and self-diagnosis forums.

The tragedy begins when these desperate souls swap a trained physician for a severely disturbed, wholly unqualified stranger on a smartphone screen.

Many of these online figures blend real physiological ailments with bizarre spiritual woo-woo. A creator will start a video explaining her legit autoimmune diagnosis and end it by hawking $80 jars of energized water meant to align her pelvic chakras. The transition from medical patient to crystal-clutching shaman happens fast when the viewer count drops.

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Social media platforms are built to monetize hyper-fixation. A teenager posting about her newfound allergy to tap water receives 50 views. But the moment she frames that allergy as a rare, untreatable cosmic curse, her view count jumps to 500,000. The brain learns very quickly that remaining ill pays the rent. Getting better means returning to an entry-level office job and virtual oblivion.

This financial incentive creates a perverse performative cycle. Creators curate their medical portfolios like LinkedIn resumes. They list rare syndromes in their bio sections like prestigious academic degrees. A new diagnosis brings fresh brand deals for designer mobility aids and holistic detox teas. The audience doesn’t want recovery, and the reason why is simple: Recovery ruins the show’s narrative arc. This is the first time in history that it has paid to be a perpetual victim. And with some sickfluencers, it pays very well indeed.

Followers build parasocial relationships with these personalities, treating their daily suffering as an ongoing soap opera. Fans defend their favorite sickfluencers with ferocious loyalty, attacking anyone who dares to ask basic questions about the validity of a dubious home remedy. The comment section becomes a digital sanctuary where illness is the ultimate form of social currency.

Perverse incentives, twisted rituals

Traditional religious institutions used to channel this very human impulse, directing it toward the recognition of a higher power. Today, the internet has replaced the divine with 18-year-olds broadcasting from their bedrooms, sharing breathless horror stories while strapped to IV poles. The devotion remains identical, complete with ritualistic viewing hours and monetary offerings sent directly through app payment features.

Medical professionals now find themselves arguing with patients who trust an unverified influencer more than a lab blood test. A doctor spends 10 years in medical school only to be informed by a temperamental teenager that her custom blend of essential oils and unpasteurized goat milk is curing her self-diagnosed rare blood disorder. I’m not asking you to sympathize with the medical establishment. Rather, I’m asking you to acknowledge the absurdity of the times we live in — the most enlightened of times, some argue.

The long-term consequences of this movement could prove costly. Thousands of impressionable young people genuinely believe that an incurable, identity-defining illness is the fastest path to fame and financial independence. They are opting out of normal life milestones in favor of a permanent, curated patient status. They are sick, incredibly so, in more ways than one.

Human beings crave connection. They actively seek meaning and a way to explain their pain. The modern internet took those basic human needs and engineered a marketplace that pays people to stay sick forever. Until the algorithms stop rewarding this madness, the sickfluencer industry will continue to thrive, one sponsored hospital vlog at a time.

​Lifestyle, Influencers 

For 1,500 years, a tiny sheet of gold lay folded inside a copper case in what is now central Turkey.

Archaeologists found it this summer at Türkmen Karahöyük, an ancient settlement in Konya province. The gold is just 0.1 millimeters thick, and researchers believe it probably carries a passage from the Bible.

The inscription begins by invoking St. Titus, followed by the Greek acclamation rendered in Latin letters: ‘Holy, holy, holy!’

Which passage? They don’t know yet.

Christianized charm

The fourth- or fifth-century Christian amulet likely belonged to a young child and was worn or carried for protection, according to excavation co-director Michele Rüzgar Massa. He compared its purpose to a nazar boncuğu, the traditional charm against the evil eye.

“Inside a copper box, we found an extremely thin gold sheet, only 0.1 millimeters thick, most likely carrying a passage from the Bible,” Massa said.

While Massa said amulets of this kind are rare, he did point to one particularly intriguing precedent from Germany.

That amulet has already been read — and its message revealed that Christianity had reached northern Europe decades earlier than previously thought.

Taken to the grave

The so-called Frankfurt Silver Inscription is roughly 1,800 years old. Archaeologists discovered the tiny silver amulet beneath the chin of a man buried in a Roman cemetery at Nida, in what is now Frankfurt. He had apparently worn it around his neck and taken it with him to the grave.

Inside was a wafer-thin silver scroll too fragile to unroll.

After years of efforts to decipher it, researchers finally made a breakthrough using high-resolution CT scanning, digitally reconstructing the crumpled foil piece by piece.

What emerged were 18 lines written entirely in Latin. The language was sophisticated enough that archaeologist Markus Scholz, an expert in Latin inscriptions at Goethe University Frankfurt, believes its author was an accomplished scribe.

Some portions remain damaged, and their reconstruction is disputed. But what survives amounts to a remarkably explicit Christian profession of faith.

Quoting St. Paul

The inscription begins by invoking St. Titus, followed by the Greek acclamation rendered in Latin letters: “Holy, holy, holy!” Then comes Jesus Christ, identified as “Son of God” and “the Lord of the world.” The prayer asks for protection and well-being for the man who has “surenders to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

And it closes with words drawn from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians: Before Jesus Christ “all knees” bend — the heavenly, the earthly and the subterranean — and every tongue confesses him.

The inscription dates to roughly A.D. 230 to 270, making it the earliest known evidence of Christianity north of the Alps. Other reliable evidence of Christian life in that part of the Roman Empire is dated at least 50 years later.

Christian amulets themselves are hardly unknown. Scores survive from late antiquity, many from Egypt, where the dry climate preserved papyrus and parchment that disappeared elsewhere. They range from scraps bearing a few words of Scripture to elaborate protective texts invoking Christ, saints, angels, psalms, and the Gospels.

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Ancient tradition

The practice was much older than Christianity. Amulets were commonplace across the ancient Mediterranean, and Christians adapted the custom to their own faith. Theodore de Bruyn, author of “Making Amulets Christian: Artefacts, Scribes, and Contexts,” describes the surviving objects as evidence of both continuity with older amulet traditions and the introduction of distinctly Christian forms.

Some surviving examples mix Christian language with older religious formulas. Others quote Scripture directly: The opening words of the Gospels, the Lord’s Prayer, and Psalm 91 were among the texts Christians carried for protection.

Against that background, the Frankfurt inscription is strikingly Christian. There are no invocations of pagan gods and none of the religious mixing found on many ancient amulets. It invokes Christ, God, and St. Titus. And its use of Latin rather than the Greek or Hebrew more commonly found on amulets of the period makes it more unusual still.

Controversial practice

Apparently plenty of Christians wore these things.

“The surviving amulets and the critiques leveled against them by religious elites indicate that the practice was very common among late antique Christians,” argues scholar Megan Nutzman in Biblical Archaeology Review.

One source of such critiques was St. John Chrysostom, who preached against Christians resorting to charms and amulets when they were sick, regarding the practice as dangerously close to superstition and idolatry. Yet the practice persisted. Sacred words weren’t merely read or recited. Some Christians folded them up, put them in tiny cases, and carried them against their bodies.

The Turkish amulet is several centuries younger than the Frankfurt find. Its inscription, if there is one, remains unread. For now, the amulet is a reminder that even in 2026, the story of early Christianity is still being written — or, more precisely, unearthed.

​Amulets, Archeology, Biblical archaeology, Early christianity, Early church history, History, Pagan, St. john chrysostom, St. paul, Turkey, Faith