Category: blaze media

If a rock concert in 2026 isn’t overtly political, is it really a rock concert?

Apparently not if the Strokes are involved.

‘As we as we fight fascism and genocide, raise wages, and guarantee health care to everyone.’

Fight the Powers

The New York band performed before roughly 40,000 fans at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on Friday, with a lineup that included Beach House, TV on the Radio, and Fcukers — plus a couple of considerably more political special guests.

One famous audience member made sure everyone knew he was there.

“Austin Powers” star Mike Myers posted several photos from the concert to Instagram while wearing a black T-shirt reading “FIGHT FASCISM,” emblazoned with the familiar red raised fist of left-wing protest movements.

Myers described the Strokes with fire emojis before writing, “#voteinnovember #fightfascism.”

The leftist love wasn’t limited to the crowd.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) took the stage before the Strokes’ set and heaped praise on the band.

“The greatest city in the world is now welcoming the greatest rock band of our generation, who have always been committed to a better future for all of us,” Ocasio-Cortez declared, “as we fight fascism and genocide, raise wages, and guarantee health care to everyone,” she continued, as the crowd cheered.

The audience got even louder when AOC introduced the next guest: Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

RELATED: GRAVE ‘DIGGER’: Will Tom Cruise’s $100 million eco-flop bury Warner Bros.?

Bern there, done that

AOC escorted Sanders to the microphone, the two raising their arms together as the crowd roared.

Sanders opened by joking that he had come to sing a few songs.

“You wouldn’t want to hear that,” he added.

He then thanked the Strokes for “standing up for economic justice” and “fighting racism,” while praising the band’s “understanding that health care is a human right.”

Sanders closed by urging the audience to vote and to “stand up to authoritarianism” in November.

The Strokes have been “feeling the Bern” for a few years now. The band performed at a Sanders campaign rally in New Hampshire during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, with frontman Julian Casablancas calling Sanders America’s “only truly non-corporate candidate” and declaring, “This is why we support him.”

Friday’s event — which the band’s website noted was taking place in “one of the most culturally diverse neighborhoods in the world” — also featured a live edition of Casablancas’ podcast, “S.O.S. Earth Is a Mess,” devoted to climate change.

RELATED: Did these 6 movies about Satan accidentally summon him to their sets?

ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Citizen Mike

As for Myers, this was hardly his first recent political outing.

The Canadian-born actor endorsed Liberal Party leader Mark Carney during Canada’s 2025 federal election and helped popularize “Elbows Up,” a hockey-derived rallying cry that Canadians adopted while pushing back against President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state.

Myers is also an American citizen. In a previous interview, he spoke about being grateful for that citizenship and described living in the United States as a privilege.

Apparently dual citizenship also means never having to choose just one country’s politics.

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​Mike myers, Elbows up, The strokes, Alexandria ocasio-cortez, Bernie sanders, New york city, Entertainment 

When it comes to educating your children, never go full woke.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the New York Times writer best known for “The 1619 Project” and her work on school segregation, apparently learned that lesson the expensive way. In a lengthy New York Times Magazine essay, she recounts how she deliberately enrolled her daughter, Najya, in struggling Brooklyn public schools because she believed families like hers should live their integrationist principles instead of seeking out better schools.

Hannah-Jones deserves some credit for publishing an unusually candid account of what happened to her daughter. But that candor should lead somewhere.

The experiment did not go well for Najya. Hannah-Jones describes weak instruction, assignments that went ungraded, little homework, disorderly classrooms, and large gaps in basic math. Her parents paid for tutoring and repeatedly intervened on her behalf, but the academic deficiencies accumulated.

By eighth grade, Najya insisted on choosing her own high school. She selected a rigorous screened school, mostly white and Asian, and initially struggled because she had not received the same preparation as many of her classmates. With tutoring and help from her new teachers, she caught up.

Her verdict on the experience was brutal: “Sometimes I wish instead of always thinking about other kids, you would have thought about me. I never really got the education I wanted.” Hannah-Jones apologized. “I feel like you got cheated,” she told her daughter. She also wrote that, in the end, “I had not chosen her.”

So Hannah-Jones does recognize that she failed her daughter. What she does not abandon is the larger diagnosis that led her there.

Her essay still treats segregation, school choice, and the sorting of affluent and high-performing students as central explanations for why schools like Najya’s struggle. She closes by arguing that there is “no absolution” as long as families rescue their own children from failing schools while poor black children remain behind.

But her own story points toward a more basic problem: Schools do not become good because more high-performing children are assigned to them. High-performing families are attracted to schools that teach well, maintain order, set clear standards, and hold adults and students accountable.

Money does not explain away what happened, either. New York City Public Schools reports a $45 billion budget and $34,717 in per-student spending for fiscal 2026 — and that per-student figure excludes debt service, transportation, and food. Whatever else New York City schools lack, they are not operating on starvation rations.

The harder question is competence.

In my experience teaching high school English, failing schools are often terribly run. Principals avoid disciplining disruptive students, teachers lower expectations to keep everyone moving, grades cease to mean much, and administrators explain away poor results instead of correcting them. The result is a campus where good teachers burn out, serious students learn to keep their heads down, and everyone gets passed along.

RELATED: Portland schools turned one mom into a culture-war enemy

Lindsey Nicholson/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Hannah-Jones’ reporting describes many of those symptoms, yet she can’t seem to connect the dots. Najya said students received little homework, grades did not reflect mastery, and classrooms could be loud and chaotic. When Hannah-Jones played those complaints for Unison Principal Emily Paige, Paige cried and blamed the larger system: “This is the reality of a segregated system, and it’s not just segregation by race and class; it’s by ability. This is the reality of school-choice systems.”

That answer is revealing. If a school needs an influx of stronger students to make the classrooms function, then sorting may explain who attends the school, but it does not explain why the adults failed to teach the students already there.

To Paige’s credit, she also told Hannah-Jones something far more important: “It is important to not, in our pursuit of being antiracist, lower expectations. Because this is what happens, right? It’s racism under the guise of antiracism.”

That is much closer to the lesson Hannah-Jones’ story actually teaches.

Freddie deBoer, writing from the left, takes the argument in almost the opposite direction. In a response to the Hannah-Jones essay, he argues that schools and teachers have relatively little influence over a student’s long-term academic outcome and that prior performance and innate academic ability matter far more.

Yet Hannah-Jones’ own account makes that hard to dismiss as irrelevant. Najya entered high school with serious gaps in algebra and basic math. Intensive tutoring and direct help from teachers followed. By the end of the semester, she was earning mostly A’s and B’s and later passed the state algebra exam. Whatever one thinks about the size of school effects in the aggregate, instruction and intervention plainly mattered to this particular student.

RELATED: How to fix the woke teacher problem

H. Rick Bamman/Pioneer Press/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

Mississippi offers another useful comparison. Since the state enacted its Literacy-Based Promotion Act in 2013, its fourth-grade reading score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress rose from 209 to 219, while the share of fourth-graders scoring proficient or advanced rose from 21% to 32%. In 2024, Mississippi ranked ninth nationally in fourth-grade reading.

Those gains did not come from simply throwing more money at schools or rearranging their racial composition. Mississippi combined early screening, teacher training and coaching, evidence-based reading instruction, intensive intervention, clear promotion standards, and retention for third-graders who could not meet the reading threshold, with exemptions for specified cases. The state now touts the nation’s largest fourth-grade reading gains since 2013.

The lesson is not mysterious. Schools that insist on order, competent instruction, meaningful grades, and high expectations give students a better chance to learn. Schools that make excuses for disorder and disguise failure with inflated grades do not.

Hannah-Jones deserves some credit for publishing an unusually candid account of what happened to her daughter. But that candor should lead somewhere.

If a child can earn honors grades without learning algebra, if parents must hire tutors to repair years of missing instruction, and if a principal’s first explanation is that the school lacked enough high-performing students, the problem is not that too many families exercised choice.

The problem is that the school was failing the children who were already there.

​Antiracist, Education, High school, New york times, School choice, Segregation, Woke, Children, Nikole hannah-jones, Mississippi, Public education, Math, New york city, Opinion & analysis 

A female Arizona State University senior allegedly punched a police officer and interfered in an arrest over the summer — after which police used force against her and criminally charged her.

Eryn Bonner was criminally charged in connection with a violent July arrest on Mill Avenue in Tempe, KNXV-TV reported.

‘The female is actually striking the police officer with her fists and her legs. That fits that definition of aggravated assault.’

A Tempe spokesperson confirmed to KNXV that Bonner faces two misdemeanor charges in Tempe City Court: disorderly conduct under state law and interfering with police under city code.

The city previously told KNXV that Bonner punched a police officer several times, and the station added that video of the incident appears to show that moment in question, with the officer sitting over Bonner before striking her.

The Tempe Officers Association shared the following statement supporting the charging decision and standing by officers’ actions, the station said:

The filing of charges against Ms. Bonner aligns with what the complete video evidence has shown from the beginning: This incident was far different from the brief clip circulated on social media and her attorney’s repeated misstatements about the facts of the case.

The video shows Ms. Bonner repeatedly ignoring officers’ commands to step back while they were attempting to control an active arrest. TOA remains confident that the officers acted appropriately under difficult circumstances. The relevant video has been released. The case remains under internal review and, when that is complete, the full facts and analysis will be available for public review. We see no basis for a third-party investigation.

KNXV said the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office declined to pursue felony charges and that an initial misdemeanor charge was filed and later dismissed before Tempe refiled the case with additional misdemeanor charges.

A city spokesperson previously said the original charge was dropped to allow prosecutors to refile it alongside additional charges after reviewing all available evidence, the station said.

Josh Logan — a former Chandler police officer and founder of Guardian Training and Consulting who has worked shifts on Mill Avenue — told KNXV in a previous story that his review of the video shows Bonner re-approaching officers after they told her to get back and that she did more than that.

“The female is actually striking the police officer with her fists and her legs,” Logan added to the station. “That fits that definition of aggravated assault.”

Logan also told KNXV that if the officer’s account of Bonner striking the officer multiple times is true, the force used against Bonner is justified in most police department’s policies: “If you reach that level of active aggression, you’re within policy to perform closed fist strikes to the face.”

The station said Bonner — a member of the ASU stunt team — was left with bruises for days following the incident.

Her attorney, Benjamin Taylor, told KNXV that the officer who took Bonner to the ground should be fired, calling his actions “very excessive” and accusing the city of targeting his client: “This is the way to try to cover up the officer’s wrongdoing. Two months later to pursue these charges seems very vindictive.”

Taylor added to the station that civil action typically cannot be filed when someone is convicted of a crime: “Usually, when cities bring charges months later, [they’re] trying to cover up for their civil liability.”

A Tempe Police Department spokesperson told KNXV that an internal review of the incident is still ongoing.

RELATED: July 4 mob attack on female cops: 3 adults, 4 kids charged with possession of machine gun, theft of Taser, assault on police

Taylor also repeatedly has called for an external review of the arrest, saying the sergeant overseeing Tempe’s investigation was previously suspended in a use-of-force case, the station said.

However, the city’s police union has pushed back, calling the move an attack on the investigation’s integrity, KNXV added.

Taylor said Bonner has pleaded not guilty, the station said, adding that a pretrial conference is scheduled for Nov. 4 in Tempe City Court.

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​College student, Criminal charges, Physical attack, Punching cop, Arizona state university, Arrest, Interfering with police, Tempe, Crime 

On a recent episode of “The Drive,” my co-host Karl Brauer and I got into a discussion about a pair of bills being considered in my home state of New York.

One sets a goal of reducing driving across the entire state by 20%. The other would tax certain fuel-efficient vehicles by the mile and require an electronic device in the car to keep track.

To calculate the tax, qualifying vehicles would be required to have an onboard electronic unit installed when the vehicle is registered, re-registered, or renewed.

I had a fairly basic question: This might work for New York City, but how exactly are the rest of us supposed to drive 20% less?

Even a Californian like Karl saw the problem immediately.

“There’s this whole area, the politicians might have heard of it,” he joked. “It’s called Upstate New York.”

Exactly.

If you live in Brooklyn, you may have a subway station a few blocks away. Where I live near Buffalo, and across huge stretches of Upstate New York, your car isn’t some luxury you can casually replace with a subway, bicycle, or comfortable pair of walking shoes.

You drive to work. You drive your kids to school. You drive to buy groceries or see family.

For millions of New Yorkers, driving isn’t optional.

Miles to go

So what exactly is Albany proposing?

The Get Around NY Act, sponsored in the Senate by Brooklyn Democrat state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, would establish a goal of reducing the total number of vehicle miles traveled in New York state by 20% by 2050.

Now let’s be precise about what the bill does, because it’s important. Nobody is proposing that a police officer check your odometer on Dec. 31 and issue you a ticket because you drove 12,000 miles instead of 9,600. The 20% target applies statewide, not to individual drivers. The bill would instead use transportation policy to push the state’s total mileage downward.

Under the legislation, state and local highway projects that expand road capacity would have to undergo a “vehicle miles traveled impact assessment.” If a project doesn’t align with the state’s 20% reduction goal, officials would have to change the project or offset its effects through measures designed to reduce driving.

Those measures could include expanded public transportation, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, “micro-mobility” infrastructure, parking-demand management, transit-oriented development, and other land-use changes.

What are the alternatives?

Gounardes has been very clear about the idea behind it. “If we measure VMT, we can work to reduce it,” he said while criticizing the state’s transportation master plan. He added that this doesn’t mean New Yorkers need to travel less because the state can create better ways for them to get to work, school, and everywhere else.

I’ll bite. What exactly are these better options for people who don’t live in New York City?

Even New York’s own climate planners acknowledge the problem. State climate materials say many New Yorkers depend on single-occupancy vehicles because they have limited access to public transit.

Of course they do. New York is a huge state. Once you get beyond its dense urban centers, the transportation equation changes quickly. The state itself administers rural transit programs specifically to help people in smaller communities reach jobs, schools, health care, and stores.

That doesn’t mean nobody should build better public transportation. Build it. If you can give somebody a faster, cheaper, and more convenient way to get where he needs to go, he’ll probably use it.

But you can’t create a subway by passing a mileage target.

Pay as you go

And this isn’t the only vehicle-miles proposal Gounardes has introduced. A separate bill, S4196, would replace some of the gas-tax burden on fuel-efficient vehicles with something entirely different: a tax on every mile they travel on New York’s public roads.

The proposal would apply to vehicles rated at least 30 miles per gallon or 30 MPGe. Owners would pay 1.9 cents for every taxable mile driven.

Drive 10,000 miles in New York and that’s $190. Drive 15,000 and it’s $285.

But here’s the part that really caught my attention. To calculate the tax, qualifying vehicles would be required to have an onboard electronic unit installed when the vehicle is registered, re-registered, or renewed. The device would use GPS or comparable technology to determine how many miles the vehicle travels on New York public roads and regularly transmit the taxable mileage to the Department of Taxation and Finance.

The legislation includes privacy protections. It says the unit would report aggregate taxable mileage rather than your exact location, travel times, or individual trips. Drivers of fuel-efficient gasoline vehicles could also claim a credit for the gasoline taxes they continue to pay.

RELATED: Automakers were ready to kill the gas car. Buyers had other ideas.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Unwanted passenger

Good to know — but we’re still talking about the state requiring a GPS-capable electronic device in your private vehicle so it can calculate a tax based on how much you drive.

And New York would make sure it’s there. The bill would add the device to the equipment checked during the state’s annual vehicle inspection. The inspector would record both your odometer mileage and the mileage reported by the onboard unit. Tampering with or disconnecting the device with the intent to evade the tax could bring penalties.

The rationale for a mileage tax isn’t difficult to understand. Gasoline taxes help pay for roads. As vehicles become more efficient and EVs buy no gasoline at all, states collect less fuel-tax revenue even though those vehicles still use — and wear — the roads.

Look at the two proposals together. One bill establishes a state policy of reducing the number of miles New Yorkers drive by 20%. Another creates the infrastructure to measure the miles driven by a growing share of cars and charge their owners for every one.

They’re separate bills with separate purposes. The Get Around NY Act is aimed at transportation planning and emissions. The mileage-tax bill is aimed at replacing declining gasoline-tax revenue. But if you’re a driver, they meet at exactly the same place: your odometer.

And that brings me back to life outside New York City. What happens when you can’t reduce your mileage?

Maybe your job is 30 miles away. Maybe the closest specialist your child needs is an hour away. Maybe you’re caring for an elderly parent in another town. Maybe your kids play sports. Maybe you live somewhere where “take public transit” means arranging your entire day around a bus that comes a few times rather than every few minutes.

Those miles aren’t indulgences. They’re life.

There’s an enormous difference between giving people alternatives to driving and designing policy around the assumption that they’ll drive less.

Give me better public transportation. Give me roads that are safe. Give me communities where people who want to walk or bicycle can do it safely. Give consumers choices.

But before Albany decides New Yorkers should collectively drive 20% fewer miles, I’d like lawmakers to spend some time asking why we’re driving those miles in the first place.

Because outside the five boroughs, the answer is often pretty simple. We have somewhere we need to be.

​Andrew gounardes, Evs, Gasoline tax, Lifestyle, Mileage tax, New york city, Public transit, Upstate new york, Automotive 

Sylvester Stallone is one of America’s most recognizable actors. He also stands as a rare representation of sanity in Hollywood, refusing to dance to the industry’s carefully choreographed ideological drumbeat.

His new memoir, “The Steps,” documents his rather fascinating rise to fame.

Casting agents repeatedly shoved him out of their offices, telling him his voice sounded like a broken garbage disposal and his face looked like a stroke survivor’s.

The story starts on July 6, 1946, in a maternity ward in Hell’s Kitchen. The delivery went sideways when a careless doctor dragged him into the world with a pair of forceps, severing a facial nerve and paralyzing the lower left side of his lip, chin, and tongue.

Hangdog sneer

The easily avoidable accident left him with a permanent hangdog sneer and slurred speech, a combination that made childhood an endless gauntlet of brutal teasing. His home life proved equally chaotic, torn between a short-tempered barber father and an oddball mother who dabbled in astrology and DIY medicine.

His parents eventually “shipped” him off to a boarding home, and he bounced between over a dozen different institutions before finishing high school. Teachers saw him as a lost cause, while his peers treated his cartoon-character name as an open invitation to brawls. He routinely answered the mockery with his fists, accumulating bad grades, behavioral warnings, and a growing reputation as a feral misfit.

By the early 1970s, Stallone was stranded in Manhattan with a few dollars in his pocket, sleeping on wooden benches at the Port Authority Bus Terminal when he couldn’t afford rent. To keep from starving, he took on whatever absurd odd jobs came his way. He cleaned out lion cages at the Central Park Zoo, a gig where he lived in constant fear of urine sprays and sharp claws. He worked at a fish market slicing heads off cod, cut hair in a basement using box cutters with hands that “resembled ten bananas connected by foam rubber,” and worked as an usher at the Baronet and Coronet Theatre. He even sold his beloved bull mastiff, Butkus, outside a 7-11, a moment he describes in “The Steps” as his absolute bottom.

RELATED: Mel Gibson has been fighting this fight longer than you think

Ellen DeGeneres/Twitter/Sunset Boulevard/Getty Images

Rejection as rocket fuel

His early acting credits were equally unglamorous. Desperate for heat during a brutal winter in a tiny room on 46th Street, he agreed to star in an adult movie called “The Party at Kitty and Stud’s” for $200. “The whole thing was an embarrassing debacle,” he writes in the book, maintaining a dry, self-deprecating tone about his total lack of hope and dignity. Casting agents repeatedly shoved him out of their offices, telling him his voice sounded like a broken garbage disposal and his face looked like a stroke survivor’s.

Stallone used the rejection as rocket fuel, sitting down with a notebook to study screenplays and figure out how stories actually worked.

The turning point came in March 1975, when he watched Muhammad Ali fight Chuck Wepner. Wepner was an obscure boxer who lost the fight, yet managed to knock Ali down and survive 15 punishing rounds. Stallone locked himself in a room for three days and hammered out the screenplay for “Rocky.” When producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff offered him $350,000 for the script, Stallone refused to sell unless he played the lead role. He had $106 in his bank account, and his wife was pregnant. Still, to his credit, he held firm against every attempt to replace him with an established star like Robert Redford or Ryan O’Neal.

Stubborn to a fault, he got his way and managed to get the film made for under a million dollars. “Rocky” went on to win Best Picture at the 1977 Academy Awards, instantly turning him into a massive movie star.

Stallone eventually bought his dog back for $1,500.

Eye of the tiger

The middle section of “The Steps” tracks his explosive run through the 1980s, but here the narrative loses some of its original momentum. Stallone is most entertaining when he is broke, angry, humiliated, and scheming his way toward the next opportunity. Once the rags become extreme riches, some of that desperate comic energy disappears. There are stretches where a story about an almost pathologically determined outsider turns into the considerably less relatable story of a very famous movie star.

But Stallone taps into his inner Rocky in the final act, reviving the book by confronting his age (80) and mortality with absolute honesty. A churchgoing Catholic, he suggests that although life can be difficult, “you just get stronger the more you fight back and finally realize that God’s greatest gift is your heart and the will to keep going.” It’s a little cliché, but the New Yorker is nothing if not genuine.

He looks back on his career choices with surprising sincerity, admitting when his ego got the best of him during his late 1990s box-office flops. He presents himself not as a genius auteur, but as a relentless, working-class craftsman who understood his own limitations better than his critics did. “The Steps” succeeds because it avoids fawning self-congratulation, standing as an inspiring account of a man who escaped a nightmare to achieve the American dream.

​American dream, Books, Muhammad ali, Sylvester stallone, Rocky screenplay, Hollywood, Chuck wepner, Rocky, The steps, Memoir, Lifestyle, Culture, Review 

The last thing the NFL needs is another national anthem controversy.

One online video, however, has the Chicago Bears in the spotlight for a player’s actions during “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and one online video may be all it takes.

‘Don’t pray to Allah during OUR national anthem!’

Before the Bears’ game against the New York Jets on Sunday, wide receiver Kalif Raymond was spotted alone on the edge of the end zone grass at Soldier Field in Chicago during the national anthem, seemingly praying on his hands and knees.

Raymond rose to his feet for what appeared to be the final 20 seconds of the anthem performance, standing still.

Raymond was spotted performing similar actions before Week 3’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, also at Soldier Field in Chicago

Some fans immediately took Raymond’s actions as a sign he is a Muslim.

“Don’t pray to Allah during OUR national anthem!” wrote radio host Grant Stinchfield on an X post.

However, other fans quickly pointed to Raymond attending both a private Christian high school in Georgia and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, a private Jesuit college.

In fact, last Thursday the Bears posted a YouTube video with Raymond wearing a microphone on the field, where he is seen saying, “I’m going to thank Lord Jesus first.”

Further evidence of his Christian faith comes from 2022, when Raymond said he was “just thankful that the Lord blessed me” after winning a game ball for his performance.

Still, some fans found the display disrespectful to the anthem.

RELATED: Former NFL player and Christian minister says Muslim players are being unfairly punished

“Is this respectful during the National Anthem?” a post asked.

A reply stated, “Anyone disrespecting the national anthem like this (or kneeling) should be fined and suspended.”

The NFL’s most infamous controversy came when quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem in 2016. The former San Francisco 49ers player’s performance was a vague protest about injustice and police brutality:

“I am not going to stand to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said at the time.

Many other players protested similarly in subsequent weeks, including retired player Ray Lewis, who joined the Baltimore Ravens’ protest but decided to get down on both knees instead.

Other famous prayers in the NFL include former quarterback Tim Tebow, who made his name into a verb by “Tebowing,” which meant to take a knee in the end zone to pray after scoring a touchdown.

RELATED: NBA team hires and fires announcer on same day over teenage tweets: ‘Asian people p*** me off!’

Amy Lemus/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The NFL rulebook does not specifically mention conduct during the national anthem.

At the height of the kneeling controversy though, outlets referred to a league Game Operations Manual that encouraged players to stand for the anthem but didn’t required them to. The NFL vice president of corporate communications confirmed this to FactCheck.org in 2017.

The previously listed operations manual no longer appears online, and the current operations manual mentions the national anthem only with regard to its maximum length.

The Bears organization did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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​Nfl, Football, National anthem, Chicago bears, Sports 

Laws are often passed under the guise of protecting the vulnerable, but sometimes they hurt the very people they’re intended to protect.

And immigration policy expert Lora Ries is no stranger to this, telling BlazeTV host Nick Freitas that this has been going on for decades when it comes to child trafficking and immigration policy.

“In 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act became law and it created a T visa for victims of trafficking even though we already had something called an S visa, which was nicknamed, you know, the snitch visa,” she explains.

The “snitch visa” allowed immigrants to “temporarily come into the U.S., help this prosecution testify in a criminal case, … and then depart.”

“Instead of using that, which they should have done, they created a T visa, which became both a temporary visa but also a permanent visa,” Ries says.

“It just has become yet another pathway for permanent immigration,” she continues, “And so this victim can then bring in their family members, their parents, who often put them into the trafficking situation to begin with. And on and on.”

Freitas points out that this creates an incentive for “people to send unaccompanied minors into the United States.”

“That may sound very, very generous, but in reality, you’re creating a situation where human traffickers are going to exploit this,” he adds.

Despite the policy being “about prosecution,” Ries explains that when the bill was first introduced in 2000 and passed, “The estimated number of trafficking victims was 600,000 to 800,000.”

The State Department reports that this number has now skyrocketed to 27 million.

“So this is not working,” Ries says, “and it gets reauthorized every few years. And just more money going out the door.”

Ries also explains that “when the Department of Homeland Security was created, the House Judiciary Democrats in particular insisted that the functions for giving shelter to unaccompanied minors and sponsors was not going to go in DHS.”

“They said, ‘Nope, it’s going over to the Department of Health and Human Services.’ And so that department receives a lot of money to go to these, you know, anti-trafficking NGOs. And during Biden’s four years, 550,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border,” she continues.

“Four hundred thousand of them, Biden’s HHS lost track of. And so those functions need to be taken away from HHS. It is not HHS’ mission and they’re clearly bad at it, and it needs to go back to DHS,” she adds.

“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 NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Child trafficking, Immigration, Lora ries, Human traffickers, Joe biden, Nick freitas, Blazetv show 

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has ruffled feathers with her ongoing investigation into H-1B fraud in Texas — and she has shown no signs of letting up.

After shining an unflattering light on Great America Technologies Inc. and sending the Indian alleged fraudster behind it into a panic, Gonzales took a close look Global Star IT Serve LLC — a purported software company that state records show was formed in 2021, is registered to Rajender Bairineni, and was supposedly based in the same co-working building in Plano as Great America Technologies.

‘It’s the same song and dance with these people.’

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ H-1B Employer Datahub, Global Star IT Serve has sponsored at least one H-1B visa. It recently received a damning review on MyVisaJobs.com, where an alleged former worker complained about “toxic management,” recurring payroll delays, questionable payroll deductions, and concerns about the existence of an actual physical office.

“If there’s one thing H-1B body shops love, it’s ripping people off,” said Gonzales, “whether it’s the American workers they’re stealing jobs from or the companies that they’re selling cheap labor to and even all the way down to their own employees.”

On the basis of claims from a disgruntled former worker that the company denied in a statement to Blaze News, Gonzales suggested that Global Star fit into this category of exploitative outfits and further accused Bairineni’s company — which is now inactive, according to state records — of “stealing wages from its workers.”

According to Gonzales, Global Star allegedly failed to pay its lone H-1B employee in a timely fashion and previously “took illegal deductions from his paycheck.”

“It’s the same song and dance with these people,” said Gonzales. “You set up shop in a co-working space to make it seem like you have an office so you can import a bunch of workers, a bunch of vulnerable people, and take advantage of them.”

RELATED: BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales’ investigation has Indian H-1B sponsor panicking

An unnamed H-1B worker who said he served the company as a software developer told Gonzales that Bairineni fired him in July. The worker claimed he was fired because Bairineni did not want to pay his salary for the previous two or three months.

Records obtained by Gonzales appear to show that Bairineni’s company also deducted thousands of dollars in “employer expenses” from the worker’s salary — deductions the worker flagged as potentially illegal. The worker estimated that Bairineni allegedly tried to skip out on paying nearly $40,000 total.

In addition to accusing the H-1B sponsor of attempting to intimidate him into signing off on the allegedly illegal after-tax deductions, the H-1B worker claimed to Gonzales that the address provided for Global Star on Google is “a fake address. … It’s not a ghost office. It’s a fake address. Somebody’s office is there. He’s using that address.”

Gonzales characterized the former employee and other similarly situated H-1B workers as vulnerable “indentured servants” whom predatory businesses seek out while edging out citizen labor.

The BlazeTV host tried paying Bairineni a visit at his home. Since no one answered the door, Gonzales decided to “resort to an old trick of ours.”

The team sent a production assistant dressed up as a delivery driver to the H-1B sponsor’s door, asking for Bairineni to sign for a fake package.

This time a woman who later identified herself as Bairineni’s wife answered the door and summoned the H-1B sponsor. As Bairineni emerged from his home, Gonzales ran over to confront him, immediately asking, “Hey, Rajender, why aren’t you paying your H-1B employees? … Why are you deducting contributions, Rajender? … Rajender, why are you labor trafficking?”

Bairineni immediately retreated inside the home and slammed the door.

Gonzales responded by shouting, “Why aren’t you paying your H-1B visa employees, Rajender? Knock, knock, b***h! Why’d you run inside? We’re just getting started.”

The BlazeTV host subsequently obtained audio of the 911 phone call placed by a woman in Bairineni’s residence to the Plano Police Department regarding Gonzales’ visit.

“I see here that you wanted to report someone knocked at your door?” said a Plano police officer.

The woman described with some accuracy the events — the fake delivery driver, the fake package, the request for Bairineni, and Gonzales’ appearance — then claimed the experience was “scary.”

“Okay, um,” responded the officer, “so do you want me to just document that, or do you want, like, a report?”

“I do want to report it because she has no right to come to my house and then just knock on my door,” said the woman.

“Strictly speaking, what they did wasn’t actually illegal,” said the officer, who added that “the act of recording is not a crime.”

Gonzales noted, “Typical scammers: They’re the ones who are caught breaking the law, and then they cry like they’re the victims. Again, this is case in point why we just need to shut the H-1B visa system down for good.”

Bairineni said in a statement to Blaze News:

The Company categorically denies each and every allegation as stated, and the following statement is provided on the record for attribution.

Office Lease and Business Location. The Company lawfully leased office space at 8105 Rasor Blvd, #125, Plano, TX 75024, and conducted legitimate business operations from that location. Any characterization of the address as a “fake address” is factually inaccurate and defamatory. The Company maintains documentation, including the executed lease agreement and related records, substantiating its lawful tenancy and business operations at that address.

Work-from-Home Arrangement. [Employee’s] position was a work-from-home (“telework”) arrangement. He performed his duties from his personal residence located at [employee’s address]. This remote work arrangement was known to and accepted by the Company, and is consistent with applicable H-1B telework and worksite reporting requirements. The Company’s end client was located at [client’s address], and [Employee’s] remote work supported the services rendered in connection with that client engagement.

H-1B Petition and Compliance with the LCA. The Company filed a bona fide H-1B petition on behalf of [employee] and employed him in the petitioned position. All wages were paid in accordance with the certified Labor Condition Application (“LCA”) and applicable U.S. Department of Labor regulations, including all applicable worksite and telework provisions. There are no pending or outstanding payments owed to [employee]. The Company has at all times remained in material compliance with the terms and conditions of the LCA and its obligations as an H-1B employer.

Alleged Deductions. The Company did not take illegal deductions from [employee’s] paycheck. Any amounts referenced by [Employee] pertain to his own mischaracterization of contractual receivable provisions, not to any unlawful withholding of wages. The Company’s payroll practices conformed to applicable law, and [Employee] has no outstanding balance or unpaid wages due to him.

[Employee’s] Separation and Misconduct. [Employee] voluntarily absented himself from his duties without notice, thereby breaching his professional and contractual obligations. His abrupt and unannounced departure caused material disruption at the Company’s end client in Charlotte, North Carolina, resulting in the loss of that client relationship and, ultimately, the cessation of the Company’s business operations. The Company had only one employee — [employee] — and at no point engaged in any improper, unlawful, or fraudulent conduct.

Extortionate Demands. Following his departure, [Employee] began making escalating and unfounded monetary demands upon the Company, invoking paycheck-related clauses in an attempt to extract additional funds to which he is not entitled. The Company regards these demands as baseless and, to the extent they constitute an attempt to obtain money through improper threats, potentially actionable.

Reservation of Rights. The Company expressly reserves all rights and remedies available at law and in equity, including, without limitation, claims for defamation, tortious interference with existing and prospective business relations, breach of contract, trade libel, and any statutory remedies available under applicable federal and state law. Nothing in this response shall be construed as a waiver of any such rights. This response is provided without prejudice to all such rights.

No Admission. This response is not, and shall not be construed as, an admission of any liability, wrongdoing, or the truth of any allegation. The Company denies all allegations of unpaid wages, illegal deductions, fraud, and misrepresentation in their entirety.

Should Blaze News elect to publish any allegation concerning the Company, we request that this response be included in full and that the Company be identified accurately. The Company is prepared to provide documentary evidence supporting the foregoing to the extent appropriate and consistent with its legal and confidentiality obligations.

Blaze News has repeatedly asked Bairineni to provide the “documentary evidence” he claims to have, but he has so far provided none.

Editor’s note: Blaze News has redacted the name of Global Star’s alleged victim, his personal address, and the address of his client.

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​India, H-1b visas, Visas, Sara gonzales, Politics, Texas 

Just weeks ahead of the midterm election, a federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden took aim at the federal law barring foreigners from voting in American elections, characterizing it as “unconstitutional.”

Chelsea Cox is a Jamaican national who came to the United States on a tourist visa in 1999. According to the Justice Department, Cox — who never bothered going home after her visa expired and presently has no legal status in the country — used a fraudulent U.S. Virgin Islands birth certificate to obtain a Florida driver’s license in April 2000.

‘Leftist judges are trying to invalidate the federal law prohibiting noncitizen voting.’

Cox was charged in the Southern District of Florida last October for allegedly using her false identity to vote unlawfully in the 2020 election. Citing Cox’s voter history, the Justice Department alleged that the Jamaican also voted in the general elections in 2012, 2016, and 2018.

Federal law — 18 U.S.C. § 611 — prohibits any foreign national from voting “in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner” unless he or she permanently resided in the U.S. prior to turning 16, has citizen parents, and/or reasonably believed at the time of voting that he or she was a citizen.

The Jamaican’s attorney argued that the states, not Congress, alone “can establish the qualifications of electors for federal elections” and that as such, Section 611 is “facially unconstitutional.”

RELATED: Trump administration revokes visas for HISTORIC number of noncitizens

Michael Loccisano/FilmMagic/Getty Images

U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz, the Biden-appointed nephew of billionaire car magnate Norman Braman, embraced the defense’s argument and dismissed the case on Thursday, stating that “the text, structure, and original public meaning of the Constitution show that Congress does not have the constitutional power to enact this statute.”

Leibowitz rejected the government’s arguments that the law can be “‘sustained on the basis of Congress’ broad authority over immigration and foreign affairs,’ which empowers Congress to legislate against ‘[f]oreign interference in elections,'” claiming that while such authority is “broad indeed,”

the Court finds no reason to conclude that an exercise of Congress’s “plenary powers” over immigration and foreign affairs would override the “foundational constitutional constraints” set out in the Voter Qualification Clauses.

While the Miami-based Biden judge said that “one can assume that the Defendant committed every element of the crime established by Section 611,” he concluded ultimately that “Chelsea Cox cannot be prosecuted for an alleged violation of an unconstitutional statute.”

Leibowitz did, however, note that Florida can “prohibit and punish the exact conduct Defendant Cox allegedly engaged in here,” and that this case does not address whether the Trump administration can deport Cox.

Blaze News did not immediately receive a response from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office.

Bruce Udolf, an attorney for the Jamaican, told NBC News that his client was “ecstatic” over the ruling.

“We were gratified by the court’s ruling and would hope that the government would not take this matter further as far as deportation is concerned,” said Udolf. “This person has lived peacefully and responsibly in this country for 30 years, and she is in very ill health and desperately needs a medical attention that would not otherwise be available to her in Jamaica.”

The Biden judge’s ruling was condemned by those keen to see only Americans voting in American elections.

James Percival, general counsel for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said of Leibowitz’s ruling, “A Biden appointed judge in Florida says that federal bans on noncitizen voting are unconstitutional. The thing that never happens is now ‘constitutionally protected activity!'”

“First leftist senators blocked the SAVE America Act, insisting that ‘noncitizens don’t vote.’ Now leftist judges are trying to invalidate the federal law prohibiting noncitizen voting,” wrote Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R). “If you find this unacceptable, vote for Republicans in November.”

The government has appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

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​Election, Joe biden, Florida, Noncitizen voting, Midterm elections, Stop the steal, Politics 

Who better to write a book called “The Man Book” than BlazeTV host Nick Freitas, a former Green Beret and Virginia legislator, husband, father, and — let’s be honest — an undeniably rugged, manly looking guy?

Freitas has built a huge social-media audience with dry humor and blunt observations about politics, culture, marriage, and family. His Instagram following recently crossed 2 million. More important, he offers young men an alternative to influencers peddling a hollow parody of masculinity built on conquest, self-promotion, and obsessive image management.

National renewal begins when men accept that calling at home and live in a way their wives, sons, and daughters can trust.

I have argued for years that real masculinity is not toxic. The one-dimensional brute whom the left beats like a cheap piñata is a cartoon caricature. Toughness, discipline, and endurance can make a man a better father, husband, and protector.

Freitas’ book makes much the same case. Published this spring, “The Man Book” — subtitled “A Point-by-Point Guide to Sucking It Up and Getting the Job Done” — reached the New York Times bestseller list and peaked at No. 6.

Appearing recently on A.J. Rice’s “Dangerous Laughter” podcast, Freitas said national renewal begins with men who accept responsibility, build strong families, and transmit faith, character, and durable values to the next generation.

“I am 100% absolutely convinced that the way you’re going to save the country and the way you’re going to save our politics is through godly families that are strong, that are cohesive, and that are transferring their values to future generations,” Freitas said.

His political career grew out of frustration. Freitas served two combat tours in Iraq and later said he became fed up with political leaders imposing rules of engagement that, in his view, constrained warfighters in the field. After leaving the Army, he entered politics and served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2016 to 2026.

“The real problem,” Freitas told Rice, “was our side had kind of given up making the argument on what we believed and why. And to the extent that we did make the argument, it was always kind of this stuffy, overly academic, esoteric argument, instead of actually just talking to people and maybe — God forbid — adding a little bit of sense of humor and sarcasm to it.”

That direct style eventually migrated from politics to questions about marriage, fatherhood, Christianity, and manhood. The questions Freitas received changed too. Young men wanted to know how to become good husbands and fathers. Young women wanted to know how to recognize one.

RELATED: Before you ask us to trust again

AscentXmedia/iStock/Getty Images

The central distinction in “The Man Book” is between masculinity and its counterfeits. A good man is neither passive nor recklessly aggressive. He is strong but disciplined, capable but humble, protective without being domineering, and willing to use force when necessary without making violence an identity.

Freitas argues that progressive politics has alienated many men by treating qualities they naturally want to cultivate — strength, courage, competitiveness, competence — as suspect. Attempts to manufacture a politically acceptable masculinity therefore ring false. Aggression can imitate strength, but violence without self-command, responsibility, and moral purpose is not manhood.

“There’s no pinnacle that you achieve with respect to manhood,” Freitas said. “There’s just things that you go through and experiences that you develop and character that you develop that helps shape you and turn you into the sort of a godly man that other men want to follow and look up to and that your son can follow and look up to.”

That formation requires doing hard things. Freitas encourages fathers to create rites of passage and even to give their sons what he calls a “violent hobby” — learning to shoot or fight, for example — not as an invitation to recklessness but as a way to develop competence, courage, and self-command.

“The problem is that when you get to a critical mass where there’s enough men that don’t know how to do the difficult things,” he said, “you end up in a society where you remember very quickly why you needed men that could do difficult things.”

Theodore Roosevelt made much the same argument more than a century ago: “We need … the iron qualities that must go with true manhood,” including resolution, courage, indomitable will, and the ability to do “the rough work that must always be done.” Roosevelt immediately added that strength without moral purpose becomes little more than force and cunning.

“You’ll be your son’s hero until you prove to him that you shouldn’t be,” Frietas told Rice. A boy’s natural admiration gives his father an extraordinary advantage — and an obligation to become worthy of imitation.

“Part of being a man is doing hard things that hurt — that may make you tired, that may make you frustrated — and developing the emotional and intellectual maturity and the intestinal fortitude to push through in order to keep your word and take care of the people that you love.”

RELATED: The Christian counterculture is already here

RyanJLane/iStock/Getty Images

That means bringing sons into real work instead of relegating them to passive entertainment. The invitation tells a boy he belongs and that his contribution has value.

“You will never understand how important it is to your little boy to be included on projects dad is doing,” Freitas said.

A father’s example matters just as much to daughters. His strength, honesty, presence, and affection establish their earliest standard for honorable manhood. “Understand that you are the first vision to your daughters of what a good man looks like,” Freitas said.

That is where the interview moves beyond a book about masculine habits. Its larger claim is that politics reflects culture, and culture is formed most powerfully in families. Strong nations require men who can govern themselves, do difficult things, protect others, and transmit faith and virtue to their children.

National renewal begins when men accept that calling at home and live in a way their wives, sons, and daughters can trust.

​Culture, Faith, Family, Father, Husband, Marriage, Nick freitas, Opinion & analysis, Politics, Manhood, Courage 

A 42-year-old Texas mother is accused of fatally shooting her two sons last week.

Deputies with the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office responded just after 4 a.m. Thursday to the 900 block of Big Sky Drive in Waxahachie after a 911 call reporting an unknown emergency, KXAS-TV reported, citing a sheriff’s office news release.

‘l shot both my kids.’

When deputies arrived and entered the home, they found two individuals suffering from gunshot wounds, the station said.

One victim — identified as Christopher Scott Pitre, 21, of Waxahachie — was pronounced dead at the scene, KXAS reported.

The second victim — a 15-year-old boy — was taken to a hospital in critical condition, the station said, adding that investigators said he later died from his injuries. The family identified the 15-year-old as Brian Pitre, the younger brother of Chris Pitre, KXAS reported.

Deputies also found the victims’ mother, Colleen Nichole Lemmon, with non-life-threatening injuries, the station said.

Dispatchers received a 911 call hang-up but got the caller back on the line, KXAS said, citing a probable cause narrative, which added that “a female said all units were needed. Dispatch could not get the caller to clarify what was going on and the caller disconnected again.”

Responding deputies said they could hear a woman yelling to get more units, the station said, adding that deputies could see blood on her hands when she looked out a window. Deputies entered the home, asked where the blood came from, and “she said something to the effect of ‘l shot both my kids,'” KXAS reported, citing the narrative.

The brothers were found in separate bedrooms with gunshot wounds to the head, the station said.

RELATED: Mother waterboarded her baby, put him in freezer to test if father ‘gave a f*** at all’ about child, court docs say. Mom just got her sentence: 30 days in jail.

Lemmon was taken into custody and taken to a hospital for treatment, KXAS said, adding that after her release from the hospital, Lemmon was booked into the Wayne McCollum Detention Center in Waxahachie.

Lemmon has been charged with two counts of capital murder, the station said. Jail records indicate her bond was set at $2.5 million.

Scott Pitre, the victims’ father, told KXAS he had just celebrated Brian’s 15th birthday with him at a lake last Sunday and wants to be the voice for justice for his sons.

Their funerals are planned for next week, the station said.

“My deepest sympathies go out to the victims’ father, family members, and loved ones involved in this tragic incident,” Ellis County Sheriff Brad Norman said in a statement, according to KXAS. “They will remain in our prayers during this difficult time.”

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​Arrest, Double murder, Fatal shootings, Mom accused of killing sons, Texas, Crime 

Families across the country are being ripped apart by estrangement, leaving parents, children, and grandparents grieving loved ones who are still technically alive.

And Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck has seen this happen all too often.

“So a couple of days ago, we told you about what was happening in Chicago. These 200 parents get into a room. They have grown children that aren’t speaking to them anymore. And by the time we were off the air, I got to tell you, our inbox looked like that room,” Glenn begins.

One grandmother wrote to Glenn to tell him that she hadn’t seen her 14-year-old granddaughter since April.

“Her and her son were close, but now she’s just a label that she says he picked up someplace else,” Glenn says.

“A listener whose brother actually stood in his front lawn and screamed that he was voting for a pedophile and a rapist. He hasn’t spoken to his brother ever since,” he continues.

“A mom who cut off her oldest son since they had a disagreement. Two years later, he was dead of fentanyl. Now his sister has cut her off,” he adds.

These estrangements, often based on political disagreements, are what Glenn calls “a death with no funeral.”

“Nobody’s bringing a casserole,” he says.

And as we’ve entered an era rife with self-diagnoses of perpetual victimhood, Glenn believes this is getting worse.

“There’s a word that just keeps showing up on both sides of the door and that word is ‘narcissist.’ Kids now say it about the parents, the parents say it about the kids, then the ex-wives, the bosses, the pastors, the guy who cut you off in traffic,” he explains.

“’Gaslighting’ was Webster’s word of the year in 2022. Now add ‘toxic,’ ‘trauma,’ ‘triggered,’ and ‘boundaries,’” he says.

“We have built an entire vocabulary for describing what everyone else is doing to us,” he continues, adding, “We are breeding personality disorders.”

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Boundaries, Estrangement, Gaslighting, Glenn beck, Narcissist, Personality disorders, Toxic, Trauma, Blazetv show 

Anti-woke comedian John Cleese has infuriated leftists and Islamists alike with his public criticism of Islam and mass migration.

Now it appears that some of those offended by the “Monty Python” co-founder’s commentary want him shut up for good.

‘Tell the police to contact my agent.’

Muslim activists campaigned last month to pressure Birmingham Town Call to cancel Cleese’s Sept. 20 comedy show.

After the censorious radicals failed, Cleese was referred to Prevent — the government-run “counter-terrorism” program coordinated by the U.K. Home Office that is supposedly “designed to support people away from radicalisation before they commit an offence” — over his opinions about Muslims, Islam, and associated threats.

According to the Sept. 22 complaint that was first reported by 5Pillars — an English-language Muslim publication run by a Islamic propagandist who previously worked for Saudi, Qatari, and Iranian-funded media — Cleese’s commentary on social media allegedly meets “several indicators used in PREVENT risk assessments for anti-Muslim hate and counter-extremism concerns” and claims that such commentary risks setting the stage for “radicalisation, communal tension, and hate incidents.”

The complaint highlights multiple examples of online activity where Cleese allegedly “demonises, dehumanises, and collectively attributes violence and criminality to Muslims and Islam,” including an April 27 post where he stated that halal food is “a barbaric custom and English law should not allow it” and his March 31 post stating that “to criticize a culture whose holy book advocates the killing of all the people they disagree with … is not racist.”

RELATED: ‘Beyond evil’: Nightmarish report reveals full scale of mass Islamic rapes of ‘250,000’ white British girls

Amanda Stronza/Getty Images for SXSW

The complainant, whose identity has not been publicly disclosed, alleged that “these statements go beyond criticism of ideas and attach intrinsic criminality, violence, and moral depravity to a religious group.”

Cleese — who has emphasized that “criticism of Islam is not racist, it’s culturalist” — does not appear too cut up about the complaint or the possibility the state will take action against him.

The 86-year-old comedian tweeted on Monday, “I can’t wait to be arrested.”

“This is a real life sitcom!” he continued. “Please tell the police to contact my agent.”

He noted in a separate post about the complaint, “The Islamic male ego becomes so bloated by its lack of restraint that it believes any criticism is blasphemy.”

Suella Braverman — the former home secretary who caused a stir in 2023 by acknowledging that multiculturalism “has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it” — condemned using the counterterrorism regime to silence criticism of Islam.

“Prevent is supposed to identify potential terror threats and interrupt them through deradicalisation,” wrote Braverman Tuesday. “Not to silence legitimate comment or debate about Islam. If progressed, this referral will really expose how broken our counter-terrorism system is and that a blasphemy law has been re-introduced into the U.K. by the backdoor.”

Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, noted, “The government is likely to take this quite seriously, for to do otherwise might risk enraging the nation’s Muslim population, and that is what they want to avoid doing above all. What, however, did Cleese say that was not true? And that is the problem with all ‘Islamophobia’ initiatives: they make it a crime to tell unwelcome truths.”

The Free Speech Union stressed that the government’s assurances that the official definition of “Islamophobia” would not adversely impact Britons’ free speech turned out to have been meaningless and that “Mr Cleese is not alone in being targeted by those who wish to silence legitimate criticism of Islam, its history, or its practices.”

The union noted, for instance, that Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe was reported last month to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards — responsible for investigating alleged breaches of House of Commons Code of Conduct and Registers — over his criticism of Pakistani Muslim rape gangs and “the islamification of Britain.”

In July, Afzal Khan, a Pakistan-born Labour member of parliament, also submitted a complaint about Lowe to the commission, concern-mongering about the conservative lawmaker’s criticism of the state’s apparent tolerance of Sharia courts.

Cleese has advocated for Lowe’s Restore Britain ascendant political party, which seeks to deport millions of migrants from the isles.

“The ability to criticise, debate, challenge, and mock a religion is a fundamental right in Britain. It is not extremism. Parliament voted to abolish our blasphemy laws in 2008, eighteen years ago, but we now have one for Islam alone, said the Free Speech Union.

Blaze News did not immediately receive a response from Prevent.

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​Islam, Free speech, Restore britain, United kingdom, John cleese, Monty python, Immigration, Politics 

While passkeys offer better account protection than conventional login credentials, they’re not necessarily more convenient. Passkeys are generally locked to the platform where they are created, but a new feature aims to change that. Google Password Manager users can now export their passkeys to another password solution with a few easy taps.

When you create a new passkey on an Apple device, Android phone, or Windows computer, the key gets stored within that ecosystem for safekeeping. This isn’t a problem, if you stay within that ecosystem for all your web browsing needs, but if you’re the type that uses a Windows PC at work, an Android phone on the go, and an iPad for leisure, your passkeys can end up strewn across multiple operating systems, all inaccessible to each other.

This feature comes just months after Google Password Manager came under fire for a nasty malware called Pass-ta-key.

In short, passkey cross-compatibility still has a long way to go, but Google is making it a little easier to move them from its first-party password manager to a third-party platform — or rather specific third-party platforms. Direct passkey transfers are only available for Bitwarden Password Manager and Dashlane, with 1Password on the way. Google claims that even more password partners are coming soon, but there isn’t a timeline yet.

To export Google Password Manager passkeys to one of these apps, you’ll need an Android phone running Android 8 and up. Next, download the applicable password management app from the Google Play Store that you wish to use and open it. Each app has a different design, but you ultimately need to find the import option buried in the settings:

Bitwarden Password Manager: Tap the “Settings” icon in the right bottom corner, and choose “Vault” from the list. Next, select “Import items,” followed by “Import from another app.” Choose Google Password Manager and follow the prompts to move your data.Dashlane: Open your Vault, tap “Add New” in the bottom right corner, followed by “Logins.” Select “Import multiple items” at the top, then “From another password manager,” which is in beta. Follow the prompts to start the import process from Google Password Manager, and you’re set.1Password: Google says that 1Password already supports passkey transfers, but it wasn’t active when we tested it ourselves. This feature should be available very soon.

Google Password Manager Passkey Transfer Tool/Google

The thing that makes this tool so compelling is that passkey transfers take place on device without any manual file juggling or hassle. You move your passwords with a few taps, and you’re done. Google also notes that this new system enables easy password and passkey transfers between platforms going forward, so you’re never locked into any one platform at a time.

Alternatively, Google lets you export passkeys into a CSV file format, which you can import into another password manager. However, this method is far less secure, as it leaves your credentials exposed in a plain text file with no password protection or encryption. On top of that, not all third-party password platforms accept passkeys through this method, so it’s best to rely on Google’s new transfer tool, if you plan to jump from one password platform to another.

RELATED: This company helps stop password nightmares — you’ll never guess why the left hates it

dasilvafa/Getty Images

This feature comes just months after Google Password Manager came under fire for a nasty malware called Pass-ta-key on Windows PCs. Aimed directly at passkeys stored in Google’s platform, Pass-ta-key used three different attack methods to trick Google’s system into accessing users’ passkey data, and in some cases, it could even steal the entire passkey vault.

If for any reason you feel that your data is at risk, you could benefit from transferring your passkeys out of Google Password Manager to another platform, at least until the issue is fully resolved. Unfortunately, since Pass-ta-key takes advantage of several vulnerabilities within Chrome and Windows, there isn’t a quick fix to shore up security.

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​Data security, Malware, Password, Tech 

If one lawmaker has his way, new rules are coming that will change the way Flock Safety and other automated license plate reader companies will run their companies.

With data and accountability at the forefront, tech companies could face much stricter parameters on what they can do with their recordings.

‘A nightmare for individual liberties.’

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley says he is set to introduce the Stop Flock Abuse Act, and while the proposed legislation mentions Flock Safety by name, it would apply to other AI-powered surveillance agencies as well.

Hawley put forth seven key pillars that such companies will be directed to follow should his act become law.

This included restrictions on data, like a requirement to delete driver information after 10 days, except for active criminal investigations. The data must be encrypted, never leave the United States, and cannot be sold or shared with nongovernment third parties.

ALPR networks would not be allowed to use facial recognition with their technology either.

Furthermore, agencies would be required to log who has conducted a search, the reason for it, who approved it, and what exactly was viewed. The logs must be routinely audited.

The goal is to prevent search abuse and require a paper trail for every search that is conducted.

“AI-powered cameras produced by Flock and its competitors are tracking and creating digital footprints of everyday Americans — a nightmare for individual liberties unless Congress enacts meaningful rules and accountability,” Hawley said at the press release.

“That’s why I’m introducing the Stop Flock Abuse Act to establish basic safeguards for AI-powered cameras and protect Americans’ fundamental constitutional rights. Law-abiding Americans should not be treated like criminals.”

Weeks earlier though, Flock chief legal officer Dan Haley ensured the senator that the company respects and protects civil liberties.

RELATED: Flock offers to pay employees to leave — and the backlash gets hotter

“Flock is a safety technology platform that helps communities take a proactive approach to public safety and crime prevention, while respecting and protecting core civil liberties,” Haley wrote in a letter. “We are proud that our hardware and software suite supports cities, law enforcement, businesses, schools, and neighborhoods with tools for public safety and investigations.”

Haley added that the company sees a positive impact on public safety “every single day,” including in Hawley’s state of Missouri.

However, Flock expressed that it welcomed “clear, sensible legislation” that would apply to all vendors and not depend on the good judgment of just one.

Flock also said it was committed to strengthening its ability to detect misuse of its technology, but admitted in the letter that it does not keep track of instances of misuse.

When asked to provide the confirmed instances of misuse of Flock systems, the company wrote that the underlying search records “are owned and controlled by each customer agency.”

“Flock does not maintain a single consolidated count of confirmed customer misuse,” the answer added.

RELATED: Welcome to the new traffic stop, where it’s your word against AI’s

In terms of data retention, Flock said it had recently lowered its recommended retention period from 30 to seven days for new law-enforcement customers. However, this is just a suggestion as customers own and control the data the cameras capture; a customer can retain data in Flock’s system for a maximum of one year.

For its search function, Flock revealed that until December 2025, there were no standardized reasons a user had to enter for a search, leaving it as a free-text field, which, “in some cases, resulted in non-specific documentation.”

Vandals recently got a hold of a Flock camera and described it as having the processing of a “midrange smartphone” with around 20 built-in apps for motion detection, taking pictures, uploading data, and receiving updates.

The cameras had limited space and struggled with storage, but no facial recognition software was found.

According to ALPR tracking website DeFlock, Flock Safety operates 81% of the active 142,000+ surveillance cameras in the United States.

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​Flock safety, Josh hawley, Tech, Privacy, Security 

Over the years, Meta became an open-weight AI giant on the back of Llama, its large language model that powers Meta AI in Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. Now, the company is throwing it all away in favor of a new closed-source solutions. This time, it is tapping into nostalgia to win the hearts and minds of users with an upcoming agentic device that looks a lot like the Tamagotchi of yore.

When talking about frontier AI models, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok take up most of the air in the room. However, on the open-weight side, Meta’s Llama is quite popular, with 2.4 billion downloads as of early 2026. Despite its notable lead in a category increasingly flooded by Chinese competitors, Meta is opting to throw out its progress in favor of a new AI platform called Muse Spark.

You’re essentially using someone else’s computer to carry out tasks and store your data.

Introduced earlier this year, Muse Spark is a multimodal system aimed at achieving “personal superintelligence.” Meta calls it a “ground-up overhaul of our AI efforts,” claiming that it is on par with the latest Llama 4 Maverick model while using far less compute. In other words, it’s equally powerful, yet more efficient.

Muse Spark isn’t the story, though. It’s merely the backbone to Meta’s new service, unveiled in early September. The company’s first consumer-facing AI agent, simply called Muse, is designed to carry out tasks on behalf of the next billion users. It runs inside Muse Secure VM, a virtual machine that contains Muse itself and a user’s personal data.

This way, Muse never takes full control of the user’s main device. Instead, it operates within a dedicated silo to complete assigned tasks, like browsing the web, filling out forms, and even shopping online. The virtual machine also lets Muse work, even if you close the app or shut off your device.

For the security-conscious, Muse Secure VM runs entirely on Meta’s cloud servers. That means you are essentially using someone else’s computer to carry out tasks and store your data. Furthermore, interactions are unencrypted, so Meta can technically peek at your conversations, both for safety evaluations and AI training purposes. This will change later this year, when Meta introduces Muse Confidential VM as another virtual machine option with full encryption, but for now, your conversations are accessible.

On the bright side, Meta claims that it won’t share your data strictly with its ad team, and all passwords, payment info, and other personal data are saved inside a secure storage system that Muse can’t see itself.

RELATED: Meta’s Ray-Bans allegedly record your private moments — as contractors watch it all

Joel Carillet/Getty Images

Right now, Muse lives within an app on iPhone and Android. You can also find it on the web at muse.ai. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is betting that you’ll want a dedicated device instead. On stage at Meta Connect, he unveiled Muse Charm, a handheld gadget with Muse contained inside. At first glance, it looks like a Tamagotchi pet from the late 1990s. Look closer, and you’ll find Muse’s customizable mascot, Jollybot, on the display. You can give it a name, swap out its outfits, and change its voice.

The device is designed to clip on a keychain and go wherever you go so that it’s always accessible. Place your finger on the fingerprint sensor on the side to summon Muse, and put it to work. Zuckerberg noted that Muse Charm is one of the easiest ways to access the agent, as if pulling out a phone and opening the Muse app is an arduous task in comparison.

Muse Charm devices are expected to launch in December this year. That said, Meta has a steep road ahead. So far, dedicated AI devices like the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 have flopped spectacularly. Consumers don’t want separate AI-powered hardware when their existing smartphones already do the same things without extra money or hassle.

Muse Charm actually competes in that sense with the Muse app, already widely available and growing fast, with 5 million downloads so far. Users don’t need this device, but Meta is betting millions will want to buy it anyway.

Then there are the privacy concerns, recently aroused by data-grabbing and mass-surveillance implications of the company’s Ray-Ban glasses. Meta hasn’t locked in consumer trust when it comes to devices, and Muse represents a substantial expansion of its powers.

Blaze News contacted Meta to address several privacy concerns, particularly around Muse’s lack of encryption and whether or not Muse Confidential VM will be a freely accessible solution in the future. A spokesperson responded by pointing us toward a quote on Meta’s developer blog:

Today’s Muse architecture isolates each user’s data from each other and keeps it secure. It restricts access to your data by Meta personnel through operational policies. It does not prevent Meta from accessing data when necessary to support, secure, or operate the service.

That last line confirms our suspicions — Meta can access Muse data if it deems necessary, with necessity open to interpretation. As for Confidential VM, they have no further details to share at this time, but if you are interested in using Meta Muse, your data will be most secure if you wait for the fully encrypted version later this year.

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​Chatgpt, Claude, Encryption, Gemini, Grok, Mark zuckerberg, Meta, Privacy concerns, Tech 

Seattle’s City Council voted 7-2 on September 22 to prohibit certain grocery pricing practices that use personal information to decide what customers pay. Consumer Reports supported the measure and helped the mayor’s office develop it.

The concept of “surveillance pricing” is straightforward. A company finds out about you, uses that information in a price-setting system, and adjusts the prices you see. In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission revealed the existence of methods capable of accessing information from browsing history, exact location, and even the way the user’s mouse moves or items in the user’s online cart.

Shopping surveillance isn’t new.

Imagine doing some last-minute dinner shopping while a system tries to estimate how much extra you’ll tolerate paying because it’s close to dinner time. Or the system estimating your income and deciding that you can afford to pay more for groceries. The concern is that grocery stores would follow the “surge pricing” trend established by ride-sharing apps like Uber, where your cost to get around town is completely unpredictable, based on the time of day, driver availability, traffic, and other factors.

Same groceries, different prices

According to an investigation conducted by Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative, and More Perfect Union in December 2025, it was determined that consumers ordering through the app Instacart encounter different prices for the same item from the same store. Nearly three out of every four products observed had different prices, with the biggest price discrepancy being around 23%.

In one Seattle Safeway test, the same basket ranged from $114.34 to $123.93. That’s a $9.59 difference for the same food. The volunteers recorded prices without buying the groceries.

The researchers estimated that the average price variations could translate into an annual swing of about $1,200 for a household of four, using Instacart’s grocery spending estimate. Note that estimate is extrapolated from the observed price variations; the researchers didn’t follow families for a year and document $1,200 in additional spending.

Instacart said it randomly assigned customers to pricing tests and didn’t use personal or demographic data for those experiments. The researchers’ published methodology found no statistically meaningful relationship between the shopper characteristics they examined and the prices offered.

RELATED: Our military turns off this invasive smartphone feature. So should you.

O Thx4Stock/Getty images

On December 22, 2025, Instacart announced that it was ending all item price tests on its platform. It maintained that the tests hadn’t used personal data or individual shopping behavior. The company said it would continue offering promotions and discounts.

Your loyalty card has a file on you

Shopping surveillance isn’t new. Grocery chains have long offered loyalty cards to customers, which exchange discounts for detailed shopper profiles. In a May 2025 investigation of Kroger’s shopper data, Consumer Reports obtained a 62-page profile for Oregon customer Hazem Salem after he requested his information under state privacy law. The file incorrectly identified his gender and underestimated his income. It also got his household size and education wrong.

Despite all the surveillance, Kroger couldn’t get the basics right.

Kroger told Consumer Reports that it didn’t personalize underlying product prices. It did personalize discounts, primarily using customers’ prior purchases and interactions with the company. Kroger also acknowledged that demographic or online behavioral data could help filter the audiences for those offers.

Seattle’s rules deserve scrutiny, too

The bill approved by the council, C.B. 121267, covers large grocery businesses, qualifying stores that sell groceries alongside other merchandise, and qualifying delivery services. It also includes random price variations in its definition of prohibited pricing discrimination. Its main pricing provisions are scheduled to take effect September 1, 2027.

The bill preserves discounts available to all members of a retailer’s Seattle loyalty program. It also allows certain discounts for groups based on prior purchases, provided they don’t rely on individualized prices, inferences about consumers, or additional personal data. Qualifying senior and military discounts remain permissible.

That doesn’t settle the question of what retailers will actually offer.

Councilmember Maritza Rivera, who voted against the measure, warned that its scope could jeopardize loyalty programs and make groceries more expensive. A policy sold as consumer protection ought to face scrutiny if it leaves shoppers with fewer useful discounts.

The bill requests annual reporting on grocery prices, comparisons with neighboring cities, and the availability of loyalty programs.

I want businesses competing for my grocery money. Offer a better price. Explain the terms of a discount so I can decide whether it’s worth signing up, but if the deal requires a secret assessment of my income or browsing habits, you’ve lost me. Feeding a family shouldn’t require agreeing to be profiled.

What do you think? Is Seattle taking a sensible pro-consumer measure, or is it another example of government overreach?

​Surveillance, Tech 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Blaze News exclusively that a 35-year-old woman from Mexico was caught smuggling cocaine into the U.S. Tuesday.

The discovery was made after a CBP officer referred the woman driving a 2017 Nissan Rogue for secondary inspection on the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge in Laredo, Texas.

The driver and the passenger were both arrested, and the narcotics and vehicle were seized by CBP.

The woman was accompanied by a 30-year-old male U.S. citizen passenger in the vehicle.

Officers utilized a canine as well as a non-intrusive inspection system to discover a total of 18 packages secreted inside the Rogue.

The packages allegedly contained more than 47 pounds of cocaine. CBP officials estimated the street value of the narcotics to be about $628,458.

The driver and the passenger were both arrested, and the narcotics and vehicle were seized by CBP.

“This seizure demonstrates the dedication and vigilance of our officers at the Laredo Port of Entry,” said Albert Flores, the port director of the Laredo Port of Entry, to Blaze News.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection remains committed to safeguarding our communities by preventing dangerous narcotics from entering the country,” he added.

Special agents of Homeland Security Investigations are investigating the seizure.

RELATED: 6 people found dead in boxcar in Texas border town, police say

“Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin,” CBP said, “the dedicated men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, alongside our law enforcement partners, have arrested and removed thousands of criminal aliens from the country — including gang members, rapists, kidnappers, and drug traffickers — to make our communities safer.”

More than $350 billion worth of international trade flows through the Laredo port of entry, according to 2025 records. Nearly 40% of the trade between the U.S. and Mexico goes through that port.

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​Border patrol, Drug traffickers, Mexico, International trade, Customs and border protection, Politics 

Candy Thompson came of age during the cultural revolution of the 1960s, when young women were told that liberation meant rejecting traditional womanhood and breaking free from the home.

She believed it.

But the freedom she was promised led her down a painful path marked by abuse, multiple abortions, spiritual confusion, and profound regret.

“The first abortion was after we had our son,” she says, telling Stuckey that her husband was not only not a Christian, but he was abusive.

“And we already had a son, and we were happy with him, and I thought well, this will be good, we’ll have our second child, maybe a girl, and I really wanted a girl,” she explains, though when she told her husband that she was pregnant, an argument erupted.

“The argument led to, you know, some words, and then he lost his temper and kicked me. He kicked me in the stomach,” she says.

While the abuse didn’t lead to the loss of her child, she was then “coerced into that abortion by feeling that [she] was trapped, that [she] had no other choice.”

She recalls the “dead feeling” that follows an abortion “and the horrible regret.”

“They’re having a regret, right afterwards, even though it looked like this was the best solution, you know, and instead they have the greatest regret of their lives a lot of times and just, you know, suffer for years and years,” she says.

Candy then got pregnant again and was made to get another abortion.

This is when she began “searching in other things to find answers.”

“Instead of the Bible and going to God like I wish I had, of course, I went to the feminine mystique at that time, and it just really, what it did is it just validated what I had been thinking, that I was a slave in the home there,” she tells Stuckey.

“I even went into the occult and read some occultic books at that time,” she continues, explaining that she was trying to “find the spiritual reason” behind everything that had happened to her and used the idea of reincarnation to “convince [herself] that [her] child wasn’t gone and [her] children weren’t gone.”

“We know in our spirit, we know in our hearts that they really were, they really are real. They’re our children,” she adds.

When she got pregnant a third time, this time she refused to have an abortion.

“I was determined that I was not going to be that slave anymore, that person anymore,” she tells Stuckey.

“We had the baby girl. She was beautiful. And I had always wanted to have a girl too,” she says.

However, after the birth of her second living child, she was placed in the psychiatric ward and had another abortion before finally divorcing her husband.

That’s when she began to go to church and met her second husband.

“I knew God had put us together,” she says, explaining that while her second husband was unhappy with her previous abortions, she was able to surrender her past to him and really start her relationship with Christ.

“My heart wanted to be back with God, and that marked the beginning of a long journey, of a lot of things, that God had to continue bringing me into more light,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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​Feminism, Occult, Jesus, Allie beth stuckey, Candy thompson, Abortion, Blazetv show 

It’s that time of year again, when certain well-meaning but misinformed Christians sin against their fellow believers by questioning their salvation and accusing them of inviting demonic activity.

One young woman told me she is ‘called’ to spend her time looking into these things, so she can warn everyone about the evil of Halloween.

The crime in question? Participating, in any way, in anything related to Halloween. Well, except for denouncing it — the well-meaning/misinformed group enthusiastically participates in things like this:

Diane Schrader

I appreciate the zeal of the people who came up with this. They want people to stop being evil and turn to Jesus.

But there are so many things wrong with this approach.

Let’s unpack some of their base philosophies on this — all of them pretty questionable.

Halloween is evil

The first false assumption is that Halloween is inherently evil.

The history of Halloween is a mash-up of Catholic and pagan traditions. All Hallows’ Eve (“hallow” means holy) was the night before All Saints’ Day, an explicitly Catholic celebration to remember dead saints, which intersected with pagan harvest time traditions related to the belief that the dead could come back as ghosts — thus the “spooky” imagery of the holiday.

Trick-or-treating seems to have emerged from a medieval British practice called “souling,” where the poor would go door-to-door on November 1 or 2, offering prayers for the dead in exchange for food, often “soul cakes.”

Are some pagan roots evident here? Yep, just like a lot of things in our culture. Our names for the days of the week, for instance, reflect the names of pagan gods — like Thursday is named for the god Thor.

The key point here, though, is that nobody will be worshipping Thor this next Thursday, most likely. Because how something started is largely irrelevant. What matters is how it is today.

Halloween traditions brought to the U.S. by immigrants from Britain, Ireland, and Scotland became increasingly mischievous and destructive in the early 20th century, sometimes leading to outright vandalism or violence. To curb this behavior, in the 1930s, various community groups, civic organizations, parents, and churches began promoting organized, door-to-door treat-collecting for younger children.

Trick-or-treating exploded in popularity after World War II and, as it was heavily marketed by the candy companies, grew into a cultural staple representing good clean fun for America’s kids.

That is what changed, and for the vast majority of Americans, that is where we are today.

So no, Halloween is not inherently evil, even in its history, nor is the American tradition of trick-or-treating.

Light should have nothing to do with darkness …

We can agree on this one; it’s in the Bible, of course — “what fellowship has light with darkness?”

The problem is, as we just clarified above, that children trick-or-treating, which is 99.99% of Halloween for most American families, is not “darkness.”

Ironically, the misled are actually taking this passage out of context, because it certainly is not arguing that we can’t go out and be around “darkness” (unbelievers). On the contrary, how can we love them if we hide away from them?

The real meaning of the passage surfaces when we read the whole thing:

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? —2 Corinthians 6:14

This is prohibiting close attachments with non-Christians that might compromise the Christian’s faith — think marriage or perhaps a business partner.

It’s hardly an injunction against going outside on an October evening and chatting with trick-or-treaters.

… but we’re just fascinated with darkness

It is my observation that the misled crowd tends to be more interested in ferreting out sordid aspects of the darkness than they are in bringing light.

Some even boast of having “gone down the rabbit hole” of “research” on Halloween. But it isn’t actual research, or they would at least have some of the basics down (see above, “Halloween is evil” section).

Instead, they grab onto and fearmonger the most horrific (yet undocumented) claims. We’re talking about TikTok videos from highly questionable “pastors,” spurious claims by “ex-witches,” or paragraph after paragraph detailing pagan gods and occult practices — none of this is a good use of time for most Christians.

One young woman told me she is “called” to spend her time looking into these things, so she can warn everyone about the evil of Halloween. She might be called; I’m just not sure who’s doing the calling. Because this is what we’re told to focus on:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is dignified, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, consider these things. —Philippians 4:8

There’s no darkness in that (above) at all!

Anyway, here are a few of the claims repeatedly made “from the dark side.”

CLAIM: You’re worshipping the devil when you trick-or-treat, whether you want to or not! (A lot of credit is given to what satanists have allegedly said about all this.)

FACT-CHECK: You can’t be “tricked” into worshipping the devil.

CLAIM: Halloween is the worst day for human trafficking!

FACT-CHECK: There is zero supporting evidence; there is no “worst day” for human trafficking, according to law enforcement.

CLAIM: Also human sacrifice.

FACT-CHECK: Again, zero supporting evidence for this.

CLAIM: Witches are out casting spells on Halloween; being outside risks having a demon attach to you.

FACT-CHECK: You can’t accidentally pick up a demon; you have to willfully sin to invite that kind of activity.

CLAIM: If your neighbor is a witch or a satanist, the neighbor curses the candy, and that demonic presence comes into your home!

FACT-CHECK: Your neighbors are most likely not witches or satanists. And if they are? “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” —1 John 4:4

RELATED: The last ethnic Halloween costume nobody apologizes for

NBC/Getty Images

All demons, all the time

There is a flavor of Christianity that tends to fall into this obsession with darkness, and it reaches its pinnacle in so-called “deliverance ministry.”

Deliverance ministry focuses on casting out demons and tearing down spiritual strongholds and uses language about curses, “soul ties,” and the “legal rights” of demons. Much of this is not biblical. There are people who claim “deliverance” is their gift, and they dig deep into the darkness because of that.

The problem is that there is no such gift in the Bible. Only Jesus and the apostles were able to cast out demons. No instruction about that is given to us, and there is not even the suggestion that we should try to interact with demons in any way. On the contrary, actually, as we’ll see below.

Instead, every believer is given everything we need to win at spiritual warfare, in the fight against the demonic:

We are to put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18).We are to resist the devil (James 4:7).We are not to give him room in our life at all (Ephesians 4:27).We are to seek God, who tells us we can overcome the world, by simple faith (1 John 5:4).We are to be alert and of sober mind (1 Peter 5:8-10). A magnificent passage, and not a word in there about ordering demons around.

The things I have heard some Christians say about “opening a door to demons” are truly troubling. Touching a crystal opens the door. Stretching your body in a way that yoga teaches opens the door. A pumpkin on your porch opens the door — and the person wasn’t even talking about a carved pumpkin — just a pumpkin. Or my very (least) favorite: Using alternative medicine opens the door.

Some of the most outspoken purveyors of this kind of thinking are people who were formerly involved in the occult. I respect their desire to stay far from anything that reminds them of their old lives. But they overstep when they blindly condemn others for a pumpkin, a stretch, or a trip to a functional medicine provider.

Believers, of course, cannot “accidentally dance with the devil.” We are sealed in Christ, who never lets us go, as multiple Scriptures attest. We have nothing to fear from demons while we walk in His light. We can walk outside on Halloween night, and we can even bring home a Hershey bar and not fret that it’s “cursed.”

However, Christians can certainly make choices that open them to satanic influence. Mindfully disobeying God puts you in a dangerous place. But we are bought and paid for by the blood of Christ, and obeying the Scriptures above is our ticket to spiritual safety.

The bad attitude of the demon-obsessed

It shouldn’t be too surprising that people who get caught up in demon obsession are going to respond very negatively to being told they’re on the wrong track.

But they prove they’re wrong with how they interact with the rest of us. Because it is wrong to demonize (pun intended) fellow believers who participate in neighborhood trick-or-treating. The spiritual pride of those who think they have it right leads to them saying some pretty appalling things.

This guy on the right below is a prime example, and Red Pen Logic does an excellent job of explaining how he’s wrong in this brief video.

The ‘Halloween Halters’

As for the “Halloween Halt” event advertised in the graphic at the beginning of this article, I think it’s pretty obvious that accosting families with children to tell them that their Halloween celebration is satanic is highly unlikely to win anyone to the cause of Christ, but it will certainly embitter, anger, and antagonize moms and dads just trying to enjoy this cultural tradition with their little ones.

Two truths the Halloween halters and haters are missing:

God put you in your neighborhood for a reason.One night a year, God literally brings your neighbors to your door.

This is called a gospel opportunity, and next week I’ll share some ideas on how to make it truly a night of light.

This essay previously appeared at the She Speaks Truth Substack.

​All hallow’s eve, All saints day, Catholicism, Christian living, Christianity, Culture, Deliverance ministry, Demonic, Halloween, Lifestyle, Samhain, Satanic influence, Spiritual warfare, Trick-or-treating, Faith