Category: blaze media

An entrepreneur says she sold 1,000 updated versions of landline phones in 72 hours.

Cat Goetze, the creator behind Physical Phones, says most people hate that technology has taken over their attention span, and has sold $120,000 worth of product through her idea to bring back landline phones.

‘People don’t memorize people’s phone numbers anymore.’

“I started Physical Phones because I realized most people don’t actually hate technology,” Goetze said on “Fox & Friends First.”

Goetze is selling physical phones that mimic rotary phones, the handheld phones of the 1990s, and the phones that hung from the wall in most homes in the 1970s and 1980s. However, they don’t work by plugging into a phone jack; rather, they are powered by a rechargeable battery/USB, and connect to modern smartphones via Bluetooth.

“People don’t memorize people’s phone numbers anymore, so we built this really awesome feature in where I’m connected via Bluetooth right now,” she told the Fox hosts. “If I pick up my physical phone and I press star, it activates Siri, so I can just say, ‘Call Mama’ … and it’ll go ahead and call her.”

RELATED: Uber launches autonomous rides in Dallas, Texas, with partner Avride

Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Goetze says that in 2023, she “hacked a Bluetooth antenna into a pink landline phone simply because taking calls while twirling my finger [in] a curly cord made me smile.”

In her recent appearance, as well as on the company’s website, Goetze stated that young people “shouldn’t be forced to choose between tossing your iPhone in the ocean and spending eight hours a day doomscrolling.”

The idea is that any video or audio call that comes through the connected cell phone — including from WhatsApp, FaceTime, or Snapchat — goes to the landline-esque phone to help users resist the allure and temptations of their smartphone.

“It’s actually the young people who have never actually had a landline phone that are the most excited,” Goetze remarked. “They’re the ones who have this nostalgia and this craving for a simpler time because they grew up with smartphones.”

RELATED: Trading cubicles for crops: One couple’s ‘Exit’ from the corporate grind

Photo by H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images

Readers may remember the NoPhone, the original answer for those who are against using a smartphone entirely or wanted to rid themselves of being attached to a device. The item looks like a smartphone but has zero functionality whatsoever.

Launched in 2014, the original NoPhone sells from $15 to $21. A newer version, called the “NoPhone Selfie Update,” is listed for $23. The updated version says customers are “able to make real-time selfies,” as it comes with a mirror stuck to it.

AT&T currently offers landline connections ranging from $59 to $72. Verizon offers its own set of landline options as well.

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​Return, Phone, Cell phones, Rotary phones, Landline, Iphone, Tech 

It was once fashionable to speak of Ethereum as a “world computer,” a phrase that suggested a certain noisy, industrial utilitarianism. The idea was that every instruction, every transfer of value, every digital breath would be executed publicly and redundantly by a global network of nodes, a process that was transparent, unstoppable, and, as it turned out, prohibitively slow.

Although Ethereum in 2015 aimed at radical transparency, it is now engaged in a great transformation, an architectural renovation carried out while the building is still occupied. Ethereum is remaking itself not with more computing power, but with the mathematics of shadows: zero-knowledge proofs.

Ethereum replaces personal trust with mathematical guarantees, accountability without surveillance.

The central tension of the digital age has always been this trilemma: how to remain secure and decentralized while scaling to meet a global demand. Ethereum’s answer is to turn to an innovation in cryptography: the zero-knowledge proof, a protocol that allows one party to prove a statement is true without revealing why it is true, or indeed revealing any other information at all. It is a way to convince a stranger that you know a secret without ever telling him the secret itself. This property, which borders on the magical, is being woven into the very foundations of the network.

The heavy lifting of transaction execution is leaving the main stage. The Ethereum roadmap, in a phase titled the “Surge,” dictates that most activity will now occur off-chain, on Layer-2 networks known as rollups. These rollups bundle thousands of transactions, execute them in the dark, and generate a succinct validity proof, which is then posted back to Ethereum’s main layer. The main chain, once the sweating engine of the network, is now a high-security court, a judge that need not hear the testimony, only see the irrefutable mathematical certificate of the verdict.

Instead of a world computer, Ethereum is becoming a “world settlement layer,” an anchor for off-chain environments. To facilitate this, the network has introduced “blobs,” an inelegantly named but vital innovation of the Dencun upgrade. Blobs are temporary data, a cheap lane on the highway for rollup trucks, allowing vast amounts of information to be posted without clogging the passing lane. The new Fusaka upgrade promises to expand this capacity further, raising the gas limit and introducing PeerDAS, a system where nodes sample data rather than storing it. It is a move toward a system where the network holds everything, but no single participant must hold more than a fraction.

RELATED: Bitcoin billionaire will serve time after British police broke down her door and arrested her in bed

Photo by Vince Mignott/MB Media/Getty Images

But the most radical application of this new approach lies in the “Verge,” a suite of upgrades intended to make the network “stateless.” The ambition is to allow a user with a basic laptop, or even a phone, to verify the chain. Through the use of Verkle trees — cryptographic accumulators that replace more cumbersome data structures — proofs of state become tiny, manageable things. Verification is broadened, flattening the hierarchy of nodes. In this future, we need not trust institutions or even the “full nodes” of the blockchain priesthood, but rather trust the math and verify the proof.

There is a detachment to this logic that appeals to the cypherpunk instinct. The implications are deeply social. In the classical world, trust was intimate; it required knowing a reputation, a face, a history. Ethereum replaces this personal trust with mathematical guarantees. It is a vision of accountability without surveillance. This affordance is particularly relevant in the realm of privacy, an area where the unblinking transparency of the blockchain has long been a liability.

The Privacy Stewards of Ethereum, a group operating within the Ethereum Foundation, have outlined a roadmap that seeks to make privacy a “first-class feature.” They speak of “private writes” and “private reads,” of enabling users to interact with the ledger without leaking their identity or intent. They reject the idea that scaling requires the sacrifice of privacy and posit that one might gain a degree of invisibility while the system enforces the rules so strictly that cheating becomes computationally impossible.

One could prove one is a unique human without revealing one’s name, or prove a vote was counted without revealing the ballot. It is a shift from universal transparency to a society of secret handshakes, where transparency is selective and discretionary.

Of course, the Ethereum roadmap has risks. There is the question of “gas limit politics,” the danger that the specialized hardware required to generate zero-knowledge proofs will reintroduce centralization by another name. There is the fragility of the new cryptography itself, the fear that a breakthrough in quantum computing could render these mathematical castles defenseless. There is the ever-present tension between the ideal of a decentralized network and the reality of complex governance.

Yet, the momentum is undeniable. The integration of a zkEVM at Layer 1, an implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine that generates proofs of the blocks themselves, represents the capstone of this overhaul. It is an attempt to scale to the level of global finance, to process hundreds of thousands of transactions per second, without utilizing trusted servers.

Ethereum aims to renovate digital society in real time, to reconcile the conflicting desires for scale, security, and privacy through a reliance on “moon math” that has suddenly, quietly become infrastructure. Ethereum is betting that cryptographic truth can substitute for consensus. It is moving toward a global notary that sees everything and nothing, verifying the unseen with absolute precision in a ballet of proofs, harmonizing to a music we are only just beginning to hear.

​Tech, Ethereum 

The city of Seattle’s progressive ideology is set to clash with Islam during the FIFA World Cup next June.

Lumen Field in Seattle is scheduled to host six World Cup games in 2026, and the city’s organizing committee is planning a special gay-pride game for June 26.

‘The match-up of two countries where it is illegal to be gay is actually a “good thing” for the Pride Match.’

Announced in October, the committee is dubbing the game the “Seattle Pride Match” and has even procured gay art from fans through a contest meant to be used in Seattle’s “citywide celebration.”

However, after the World Cup draw finally happened on Friday to determine the tournament groups, the gay game is likely to run into ethical problems after it was decided who the two combatants will be.

The June 26 game will showcase a Group G matchup between two Muslim nations where homosexuality is prosecuted: The Islamic Republic of Iran and Egypt.

RELATED: ‘Equality’ in pay and ‘everything’ bar for women’s sports opens in Seattle

Photograph by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

In Iran, same-sex relations are criminalized, with punishments ranging from flogging to the death penalty, according to Amnesty International.

Egypt is known to use its “debauchery” laws to prosecute gay acts, and while homosexuality is not explicitly illegal, the country used anti-prostitution laws to convict a man for sending nude photos to another man on the gay-dating app Grindr in 2017, according to the Guardian.

The Seattle organizers, who are not affiliated with FIFA, said they are already preparing the area’s gay businesses to prepare for the influx of fans.

“We’re working with small businesses so the region’s LGBTQ+-owned enterprises are ready to benefit from the tournament’s unprecedented visitor surge,” said Hedda McLendon, the committee’s senior vice president of legacy, according to Newsweek.

Seattle also organized a committee specifically for the Pride match, calling it the Seattle Pride Match Advisory Committee. A member of that of that group, Eric Wahl, reportedly stated on social media that “the match-up of two countries where it is illegal to be gay is actually a ‘good thing’ for the Pride Match.”

RELATED: Major League Soccer lifts ban, allows fans to display Antifa-adopted ‘Iron Front’ flag during games

Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty images

The activism does not stop at gay pride for the Seattle group. It will also celebrate Juneteenth for one of the games. Juneteenth was first recognized by President Biden to celebrate the end of slavery annually on June 19.

A Group D match between the United States and Australia will take place in Seattle that day.

“Having the U.S. Team playing in Seattle on Juneteenth creates a high-visibility, high-responsibility moment to introduce hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide to Juneteenth and to create benefit for local Black-owned businesses and arts and cultural organizations,” the organizers said on their website.

For that match, the group created another committee called the Juneteenth Advisory Committee.

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​Fearless, Soccer, World cup, Gay pride, Woke, Seattle, Lgbt, Pride night, Islam, Muslim, Iran, Egypt, Sports 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has effectively torpedoed President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

After his meeting on Monday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and French President Emmanuel Macron — who reportedly suggested last week that the U.S. might “betray” Ukraine — Zelenskyy reportedly told reporters that Kyiv will not cede any territory to Russia.

‘A lot of people are dying. So it would be really good if he’d read it. His people loved the proposal.’

“We have no right to give anything away — not under our laws, not under international law, not under moral law,” said Zelenskyy, reported the New York Post. “Russia is, of course, insisting that we give up territory. We, of course, do not want to give up anything — that is precisely what we are fighting for, as you are well aware.”

Zelenskyy, whom Trump accused in February of “gambling with the lives of millions of people,” added, “To be honest, the Americans are looking for a compromise today.”

Russia, which has slowly captured additional territory over the past year, presently occupies around 20% of the entire country and most of the Donbas — including all of the Luhansk region, most of the largely Russian-speaking Donetsk region, much of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

Under the Trump administration’s initial 28-point peace plan, embraced by Moscow but rejected by Kyiv and European leaders,

the U.S. would recognize Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk as de facto Russian; Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would be divided along the current line of contact; Russia would cede other territories under its control outside the five regions; and Ukrainian forces would abandon the part of Donetsk Oblast currently under their control, leaving it as a demilitarized buffer zone.

RELATED: European leaders gossip about US amid apparent efforts to torpedo Trump’s Russia-Ukraine peace deal: Report

Photo by Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images

Trump has long maintained that Kyiv will have to make some territorial concessions to bring an end to war that has resulted in millions of casualties. In August, for instance, the president said that while the U.S. seeks to negotiate for some of the Russia-occupied territories back for Ukraine, inevitably “there will be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.”

On Monday, Zelenskyy suggested that he and Trump see things differently, stating that Trump “certainly wants to end the war. … Surely, he has his own vision. We live here, from within we see details and nuances, we perceive everything much deeper, because this is our motherland.”

‘It gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.’

Trump said in an interview with Politico on Monday that while he credits the Ukrainian people for their bravery in defending their homeland, Russia is presently in the stronger negotiating position and “size will win, generally.” Accordingly Ukraine has to “play ball,” suggested the president, who was uncertain about whether Zelenskyy had even bothered to read the latest peace proposals.

“That’s as of yesterday. Maybe he’s read it over the night,” said Trump. “It would be nice if he would read it. You know, a lot of people are dying. So it would be really good if he’d read it. His people loved the proposal. They really liked it. His lieutenants, his top people, they liked it, but they said he hasn’t read it yet. I think he should find time to read it.”

Zelenskyy indicated this week that he will provide Washington with his views on the current U.S. peace plan — which has reportedly shed eight of the original points Zelenskyy characterized as “anti-Ukrainian” — on Tuesday night but not until he discusses with European leaders the “reparations loan and security guarantees” he regards as critical to the peace process.

When asked what would happen if Zelenskyy rejected the deal, Trump said, “He’s gonna have to get on the ball and start accepting things.” As for the European leaders who appear keen to involve themselves in the process, Trump said, “They talk but they don’t produce, and the war just keeps going on and on.”

Trump noted further that it’s time now — 18 months after Zelenskyy’s term was originally scheduled to end and in the midst of an ever-worsening corruption scandal involving Zelenskyy’s administration and close allies — for a Ukrainian presidential election.

“It’s been a long time,” said Trump.

“I think it’s an important time to hold an election. They’re using war not to hold an election, but I would think the Ukrainian people would, should have that choice. And maybe Zelenskyy would win. I don’t know who would win. But they haven’t had an election in a long time. You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”

Zelenskyy said in a statement on Tuesday, “We are committed to a real peace and remain in constant contact with the United States. And as our partners in the negotiating teams rightly note, everything depends on whether Russia is ready to take effective steps to stop the bloodshed and prevent the war from reigniting.”

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​Ukraine, Peace plan, Peace deal, Kyiv, Moscow, Russia, War, Donald trump, Putin, Zelensky, Zelenskyy, Ukrainian war, Politics 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) announced a new executive order on Monday, taking action against radical Islam.

DeSantis issued an order designating the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terrorist organizations.

‘CAIR was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator by the United States Government in the largest terrorism-financing case in American history.’

The order, which took immediate effect, argued that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “transnational network with a long history of engaging in or supporting violence,” noting that the group created Hamas in 1987. It stated that the U.S. designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and that the group was responsible for 1,200 murders on October 7, 2023.

DeSantis’ order explained that the Palestine Committee, a group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, founded CAIR in the U.S. in 1994.

“CAIR was designated as an unindicted co-conspirator by the United States Government in the largest terrorism-financing case in American history, and the court found ‘ample evidence to establish the association[]’ of CAIR with terrorist organizations,” the order read, citing United States v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

RELATED: Gov. Abbott talks redistricting victory, action against CAIR with Glenn Beck

KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP via Getty Images

“Florida agencies are hereby directed to undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities by these organizations, including denying privileges or resources to anyone providing material support,” DeSantis stated.

DeSantis’ order follows similar executive action from Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) in November.

RELATED: No Sharia law in Texas: Abbott draws a hard line against radical Islam

Greg Abbott. Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

CAIR issued a statement declaring that it plans to file a lawsuit against DeSantis’ designation, accusing the governor of “serving the Israeli government over serving the people of Florida.”

“Like Greg Abbott in Texas, Ron DeSantis is an Israel First politician who wants to smear and silence Americans, especially American Muslims, critical of U.S. support for Israel’s war crimes,” CAIR National and CAIR-Florida said in a joint statement. “Governor DeSantis knows full well that CAIR-Florida is an American civil rights organization that has spent decades advancing free speech, religious freedom, and justice for all, including for the Palestinian people. That’s precisely why Governor DeSantis is targeting our civil rights group with this unconstitutional and defamatory proclamation.”

CAIR plans to hold a press conference on Tuesday to announce details of its forthcoming lawsuit against the state of Florida.

— (@)

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​News, Florida, Ron desantis, Desantis, Greg abbott, Abbott, Texas, The muslim brotherhood, Muslim brotherhood, Society of muslim brothers, Council on american islamic relations, Council on american-islamic relations, Cair, Islam, Politics 

A nine-time convicted felon opened fire on a man and woman outside a Florida home early Sunday morning, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said.

Deputies responded around 2:15 a.m. to a report of two people who had been shot in the 3100 block of 11th Street Court East in Bradenton, officials said.

‘The title of this video is exactly what is wrong with our country: “9-time convicted felon.” There should’ve never been a second time.’

When deputies arrived, they found a 32-year-old woman with a gunshot wound to her face and a 41-year-old man with a gunshot wound to his chest, officials said.

Both victims were taken to a hospital, officials said. The woman was later listed in stable condition, and the man’s injury was determined to be minor, officials said, adding that he has since been released.

The sheriff’s office said the shooter fled the scene prior to deputies’ arrival.

RELATED: Florida creep, out on bond after allegedly exposing privates to girl, masturbating, saying ‘It’s big, isn’t it?’ caught again

An investigation identified the suspect as 26-year-old Exzavion Richardson, officials said, adding that he was located in a vehicle several blocks away and detained during a traffic stop.

Multiple witnesses positively identified Richardson as the man who came to the residence looking for someone he claimed owed him money, officials said.

Witnesses reported that Richardson shot the male victim and then shot the female victim who also was standing outside the residence, officials said.

Richardson is charged with two counts of attempted murder, home invasion robbery, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, officials said. Jail records indicate he’s being held with no bond.

As for his criminal history, court records indicate Richardson has at least two battery convictions and multiple convictions for lewd and lascivious behavior, WFLA-TV reported. Jail records indicate Richardson stands 6’3” and weighs 205 pounds.

Commenters under WFLA’s video report about the shooting were not happy the suspect was back on the streets after so many run-ins with the law:

“Lock up the judges that released him as accomplices to the crime,” one commenter wrote.”The title of this video is exactly what is wrong with our country: ‘9-time convicted felon.’ There should’ve never been a second time,” another commenter noted.”Where’s Vlad the Impaler when you need him,” another commenter wondered.”Only nine times; that’s practically a clean record,” another commenter stated sarcastically. “I mean, he didn’t kill the woman — just shot her in the face. Give him probation. 10th time is a charm, right[?] He will change smh.””This dude either has a huge growth on his 4head or someone hit a Grand Slam on it,” another commenter observed.

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​Repeat offender, Convicted felon, Florida, Shooting, Arrest, Attempted murder charge, Home invasion robbery charge, Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon charge, Crime 

If Democrats seem extreme now, wait until they adopt ranked-choice voting. Some activists inside the party want exactly that — a reform that would push presidential nominations even further left and force establishment figures to navigate an ideological gauntlet to win.

Multiple reports indicate that Democratic Party activists and elected officials are pressuring the party to adopt ranked-choice voting for its 2028 presidential primaries. Axios notes that the push has grown serious enough that top party officials met in late October with advocates including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), pollster Celinda Lake, and representatives from FairVote Action.

Ranked-choice voting would pour accelerant on a process already pulling Democrats further left.

Such an effort fits a long pattern: For decades, Democrats have shifted presidential nominations away from party leadership. On ranked-choice voting specifically, several states already use it — Maine and Alaska among them — along with deep-blue cities such as New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Ranked-choice voting takes multiple forms, but New York City’s model illustrates the dynamic. Voters rank up to five candidates. If no candidate wins an initial majority, the last-place candidate drops out, and those voters’ second-choice votes are redistributed. This “loser leaves” process continues until a candidate secures a majority.

Assuming rational behavior, Democratic voters would likely rank candidates from more extreme to less extreme. That pattern would advantage the leftmost candidates again and again as lower-preference votes transfer upward.

This structural boost would encourage both supply and demand for extreme candidacies. Candidates on the ideological edge would have more incentive to run. Voters who prefer them would have more influence. Ranked-choice voting’s supporters tout this expanded participation as a virtue.

Offering voters multiple choices would foster coalition-building. Knowing the race may go to multiple rounds, candidates would angle for second- and third-choice votes. The horse-trading once done in old convention “smoke-filled rooms” would unfold publicly through a series of ranked ballots.

But the key question is simple: Why would ranked-choice voting necessarily supercharge extremism inside the Democratic Party? Because the system rewards voters for casting marginal votes — and among today’s Democrats, “marginal” means “further left.”

The party’s ideological shift is measurable. In Gallup’s 2023 polling, 54% of Democrats identified as liberal — an all-time high. Support for democratic socialists in major-city mayoral primaries shows how rapidly the party’s activist base has moved left. In 1995, the liberal share of the party was 25%, roughly equal to conservatives. Three decades later, conservatives make up just 10% of Democrats.

Exit polling confirms the trend: In 2024, 91% of self-identified liberals voted for Kamala Harris; only 9% of conservatives did.

Extrapolate from this trajectory, and the danger becomes even clearer. Extreme candidates increasingly win Democratic primaries in major cities. Those cities dominate statewide Democratic politics. And in closed primaries, only Democrats vote — meaning the hyper-engaged activist left already sets the terms of competition. Ranked-choice voting would amplify that influence. The same voters who nominated democratic socialists in New York and Seattle would wield disproportionate power in a presidential contest.

RELATED: Democrats are just noticing a long, deep-running problem

Photo by RYAN MCBRIDEDON EMMERTDON EMMERTKENA BETANCURROBYN BECKANGELA WEISSROBYN BECKROBYN BECKROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Consider how the 2020 Democratic primary might have played out under ranked-choice voting. Joe Biden — an establishment candidate favored by moderates — would have faced a field dominated by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer, and others to his left. Ranked-choice voting would have forced him through a gauntlet designed by the party’s most ideological voters.

This trend is not new. In 1972, George McGovern reshaped Democratic nominating rules and then benefited from the changes. Since then, the party has repeatedly weakened its establishment’s role (with key exceptions). Ranked-choice voting would accelerate that shift dramatically.

With moderates now only 36% of the party, according to Gallup, how could they resist a move toward ranked-choice voting? More importantly, which remaining moderate or establishment Democrat could survive a ranked-choice system dominated by the party’s left wing?

Ranked-choice voting would pour accelerant on a process already pulling Democrats further left. The only question is how long it takes for the party to adopt it — and how long the party can remain viable nationally if it does.

​Opinion & analysis, Elections, 2028 election, Primary elections, Democrats, Democratic party, Democratic socialists, Bernie sanders, Elizabeth warren, Zohran mamdani, New york city, Seattle, Ranked-choice voting, Extremism, Leftists, Left-wing, Polls, Gallup poll, Joe biden 

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, has provided a number of strong indications that he might be every bit as radical in office as his critics feared in the lead-up to the mayoral election.

On Sunday, for instance, the Democratic Socialist conflated “immigrants” with illegal aliens, stressed that New York will always be a “city for all immigrants,” and identified ways that people can “stand up to” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Last week, Mamdani suggested that he will end the clearing out of homeless encampments in the city.

Mamdani’s personnel decisions similarly hint at what is to come.

‘The optics and reality here point to a potential erosion of public safety in New York City.’

Until Freedom, an identitarian activist group, recently announced that its leaders had been “chosen to serve on Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team on committees for public safety and criminal justice respectively.” In addition to one of the radical co-leaders of the 2017 Women’s March, Tamika Mallory, Mamdani brought aboard Mysonne Linen — a 49-year-old convicted armed robber who has made no secret of his racial animus and once suggested that all of the black Americans in President Donald Trump’s “circle” are “coons.”

According to the New York Daily News, Linen was found guilty in July 1999 of robbing multiple cab drivers in the Bronx. A prosecutor indicated at the time that Linen was among the thugs who held up cabbie Joseph Eziri in 1997 and smashed him with a beer bottle. Another cabbie, Francisco Monsanto, identified Linen as the thug who held him at gunpoint on March 31, 1998, stealing a ring and cash.

RELATED: Why the kids are not all right — and Boomers still pretend nothing’s wrong

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Despite denying responsibility — he claimed at the time he didn’t need to commit the crimes because he was making money writing music for rappers such as Lil’ Kim — Linen was ultimately convicted on three counts of robbery, weapons possession, and possession of stolen property. Although he faced up to 25 years in prison, he was released on parole in July 2006.

Linen, still denying his guilt and complaining about “white supremacy,” later co-founded Until Freedom with Mallory and Linda Sarsour — the Islamic activist who told fellow radicals earlier this year to “abolish Israel.”

On the transition page for the mayor-elect, who said in 2020 that the NYPD “is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” Linen is listed among the radical leftist members of Mamdani’s committee on the criminal legal system.

Until Freedom said in response to the appointment, “This is a testament to our decades of work advocating on behalf of black and brown communities and our expertise in gun violence prevention, legislative advocacy, and criminal justice reform. We are building something different.”

The news that an apparently unrepentant convict will advise New York City’s incoming mayor did not sit well with Benny Boscio, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, who told the New York Post, “It is both disheartening and deeply disturbing that individuals who are convicted felons and have a history of breaking the law are being given the opportunity to help shape the future of New York’s criminal justice system.”

“The men and women who risk their lives every day to enforce the law have been shut out from this process entirely,” added Boscio.

“It’s just another appointed adviser that has a questionable past, which is in line with some of his other recent appointees who were anti-police and establishment,” retired NYPD Chief of Department John Chell told the Post. “The optics and reality here point to a potential erosion of public safety in New York City.”

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​New york city, Zohran mamdani, Crime, Democrat, Democratic city, New york, Leftism, Mysonne linen, Convict, Politics 

Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Texas) put the rumors to rest and finally announced her bid for the U.S. Senate with a campaign video that will make Americans laugh now — and may leave Republicans laughing later.

Crockett has reportedly been weighing whether to continue serving Texas in the House of Representatives or to pivot and pursue higher office in the Senate. The rising star of the Democratic Party finally made her decision official on Monday, the last day to file for the 2026 race.

‘She’s a very low-IQ person.’

In the highly anticipated announcement, her campaign released a video of Crockett stoically looking off into the distance, blinking slowly, then crossing her arms and smiling briefly. The video has been edited to have a vintage, film-like effect reminiscent of prominent politicians who came before her.

But rather than outlining her campaign promises or articulating her vision for Texas, Crockett stands there with a voice-over of President Donald Trump repeatedly berating her for being “low-IQ.”

RELATED: CNN brutally fact-checks Jasmine Crockett for peddling debunked ballroom hoax

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

“How about this new one they have, their new star, Crockett?” Trump says in the video. “How about her? She’s the new star of the Democrat Party, Jasmine Crockett. They’re in big trouble.”

“You have this woman, Crockett, she’s a really low-IQ person,” Trump says. “I watched her speak the other day, and she’s definitely a low-IQ person. … She’s a very low-IQ person.”

While the highlight reel of Trump’s insults against Crockett is hilarious, it may prove to be a mistake many other Democrats have made to their detriment.

RELATED: Jasmine Crockett’s jaw-dropping defense of criminals: ‘They literally are trying to survive’

Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images

Democrats have a habit of focusing their entire campaigns on defining themselves as the anti-Trump choice rather than actually focusing on a set of policies their voters might find compelling.

During the 2024 presidential election, former Vice President Kamala Harris tailored her campaign to be about Trump and not about the American people. Partly as a result, voters rejected her resoundingly.

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​Donald trump, Jasmine crockett, Texas, Texas senate race, Collina allred, 2026 primaries, Texas democrat, Low iq, House democrats, Senate democrats, Politics 

Director David L. Cunningham brought some old-school Disney magic to his latest project.

The Hollywood veteran recalled how Walt Disney often appeared on camera to personally introduce the projects closest to his heart, putting his unmistakable stamp on them.

‘By taking out the hardship and the risk, you diminish the courage that Mary and Joseph had, their faith, and so much of the sacrifice.’

So when Cunningham envisioned a fresh, authentic take on the Christmas story, he wondered if another icon could do the honors. And, as fate would have it, his producing partner knew Kevin Costner personally.

The busy film legend agreed to join the project, with one caveat.

“He insisted on bringing his story into it … and the pieces fell together,” Cunningham tells Align.

‘Unifying celebration’

“Kevin Costner Presents: The First Christmas,” debuting Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC before hitting Hulu the following day, does more than put the Christ back in Christmas.

The special lets Costner share some personal anecdotes regarding the earliest days of his acting career, including how he participated in a Christmas story production with less than Hollywood-style results.

He improved over time, of course.

“The First Christmas” introduces us to Mary and Joseph, a young couple facing incredible hardships along with the most important pregnancy … ever.

“The intent was to try and find a unifying celebration of the story,” Cunningham says. “Let’s all get behind what matters the most. Jesus was brought into this world in this amazing way. … The goal wasn’t to put a spin on something but to revisit the ancient texts and try to honor it as much as possible.”

Not too ‘cozy’

“The First Christmas” pushes past misconceptions about the holiday, blending polished dramatic beats with commentary bringing critical context each step of the way. That approach worked well with the material, the director says, comparing the expert commentary to “miniature podcasts” that pop in between dramatic elements.

“We didn’t want a theological, wag-your-finger thing,” he notes, but he also wanted to remove the “cozy interpretations” many have of the Nativity.

“By taking out the hardship and the risk, you diminish the courage that Mary and Joseph had, their faith, and so much of the sacrifice,” he says.

“There’s nothing wrong with having the cozy little Nativity, with the angels looking on, but let’s go back and revisit this and say, ‘Hey, what does the Scripture say and why?’”

The special features “talking head” interstitials from voices stateside and beyond, echoing Christianity’s global reach and impact.

“The West doesn’t have the corner on the [Christian] market,” Cunningham says, noting a spiritual rise in Brazil and other nations in recent years.

Sticking to the text

Cunningham is no stranger to faith-based productions, starting with one of his earliest projects: 2001’s “To End All Wars.” The film recalled the fact-based story of Japanese POW camp captives who embraced God to both endure and forgive their captors.

Those experiences have given him insight into Christian projects that connect with the masses and, more importantly, ring true.

“When a biblical movie works, it sticks to the text,” he says with a chuckle. “It also helps to have people who are leading the charge who believe in it.”

Cunningham studied faith-based films in film school, noting how the industry “lost the plot” over the years regarding Christian projects.

“We felt as Christians that somehow entertainment and Hollywood was of the devil. We didn’t want anything to do with it,” he says. “We just walked away from one of the most influential platforms there is.”

RELATED: 12 American-made Christmas gift ideas

Russell Moccasin

Cinematic revolution

That, of course, has changed dramatically over the past 20-odd years, from “The Passion of the Christ” to 2023’s “Sound of Freedom.” The clunky, low-budget stories of the recent past have been replaced by slick, soulful projects that reflect both faith and a dramatic upgrade in craftsmanship.

He name-checks “The Chosen” creator Dallas Jenkins and Jon and Andrew Erwin for being part of this cinematic revolution.

Cunningham also used his personal experiences to help inspire and shape “The First Christmas,” echoing what Costner brought to the project. He recalls his own days as a young father, with all the fear and uncertainty that came along with it.

“I’m walking out the door with this child. … We had a car seat ready to go,” he says of his earliest hours as a parent. “Can you imagine a young couple in a cave when infant mortality was through the roof? Now you’re being born into this world that’s incredibly brutal and cruel. You’re a young couple, and by the way, that’s the Son of God.

“No pressure,” he says.

​Entertainment, Abide, Faith, Abc, The nativity, Kevin costner, Kevin costner presents: the first christmas, David l. cunningham, Television, Christmas, Align interview 

More than two months have passed since President Trump unveiled his Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict — arguably the most consequential Middle East peace initiative in decades.

Foreign policy insiders predicted failure. Yet since October 10, the plan has held through volatility and uncertainty, confounding critics of the president, Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel deserves a fulsome defense from everyone committed to law, order, and truth.

The plan has done more than reduce the fighting. It has underscored Israel’s actual aims from the start: Eliminate Hamas, free the hostages, and ensure that Gaza never again serves as a launchpad for mass murder — not destroy the Palestinian people.

Still, the “genocide” libel endures. It may be the most destructive falsehood leveled against Jews in modern history.

Less than three months after the October 7, 2023, terror attacks, South Africa — a country collapsing under corruption and poverty — accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice. That case continues, with a final ruling unlikely before 2028.

Meanwhile the libel spreads. Radical activists, anti-Western NGOs captured by ideological agendas, pseudo-intellectual academics, and hollow institutions such as the International Association of Genocide Scholars push it relentlessly.

IAGS illustrates the problem. It requires nothing more than a $30 fee to join. The group has been flooded with frivolous “members,” including Adolf Hitler, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine, along with a host of non-experts. Yet major media outlets still treat its anti-Israel resolutions as credible, impartial assessments of genocide — the gravest crime in human history.

This campaign demands a serious response. Legal experts and clear-minded observers should dismantle the genocide libel once and for all. The arguments are so straightforward that only bad faith can obscure them.

After the October 7 massacre — which, proportionally, represented the loss of roughly 50,000 American lives — Israel acted in self-defense against an enemy openly committed to exterminating every Jew in the country. Calling Israel genocidal in this context is not simply wrong. It inverts reality and rewards Hamas.

Israel also facilitated massive humanitarian aid to Palestinians throughout the war — more than 2 million tons since the fighting began. That record alone destroys the claim of genocidal intent. No nation at war has ever delivered aid on that scale to a population governed by its enemy.

RELATED: Hamas floods the feeds to sway clueless Westerners

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Israeli forces have fought with precision to reduce civilian casualties while targeting Hamas operatives. The challenge has been immense. Hamas hides behind civilians, embeds fighters in hospitals and schools, and uses civilian infrastructure as shields. Even so, Israel repeatedly issued advance warnings of airstrikes and troop movements to limit harm. Genocidal regimes do the opposite: They hunt civilians and slaughter them deliberately. Gaza has seen none of that conduct from Israel.

The International Court of Justice should weigh these facts carefully when it rules in the South Africa-Israel case. Israel’s position is strong, which explains why radical actors want to rewrite the rules of genocide to fit their narrative.

The Genocide Convention remains a respected, almost sacred document. It should guide the final judgment. Attempts to stretch or dilute it through political lawfare threaten justice itself.

For now, Israel deserves a fulsome defense from everyone committed to law, order, and truth. The future of international law, counterterrorism strategy, and the conduct of modern warfare may hinge on how the world judges Israel’s actions. The stakes could not be higher.

​Trump, Gaza, Hamas, Benjamin netanyahu, Israel, Peace plan, Opinion & analysis, Israel-hamas war, Ceasefire israel hamas 

An estimated 80% of people hate their jobs. They fantasize about quitting in a blaze of glory, hurling their lanyards across the office like a frisbee, and riding off into the sunset to raise goats, bake sourdough, or at least remember what eight hours of sleep feels like.

Sean Carlton was one of them.

‘Nobody wakes up one morning ready to raise animals and turn them into food.’ Change begins with one thing you can actually change. Lower one bill. Learn one skill.

The difference is that he didn’t stay. Two years ago, he and his wife, Alexys, walked away from their corporate careers and bought an acre of land in West Virginia. The experience also prompted Carlton to write “Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You” — a book that reads like both a confession and a call to arms.

The Carltons didn’t step into a new job, but into a new way of being. They rolled the dice with no promise of a soft landing, and in doing so they exposed something uncomfortable: Many of us aren’t trapped by circumstance so much as by the stories we tell ourselves about what we are allowed to want.

Sean Carlton

Questioning ‘normal’

Carlton is no professional commentator or pundit. “Exit Farming” is a cri de coeur from the American cubicle.

So when asked what exactly he means by “systems that farm you,” he doesn’t reach for theory. He answers with the simplicity of a man who finally recognized the shape of his own confinement.

“Systems farm people by taking more from you than they give back while convincing you this arrangement is normal,” he says.

Work dictates your hours. Debt dictates your decisions. Health care dictates your fears. Even your phone becomes, in his words, “the delivery system for apps that track you, profile you, and sell what they learn.”

It might sound melodramatic. It isn’t. It’s simply Monday morning in America, with millions waking up already weary of the hours ahead.

Slow and steady

But Carlton insists the way out is rarely a dramatic jailbreak. It’s the slow, steady act of starving the system’s influence. You “bring one thing at a time back under your control.” Lower an expense. Learn a skill. Build a sliver of income that doesn’t depend on a single institution. These small shifts break the spell. Every small act of independence starves a machine that has grown used to feeding on your time, your attention, your identity, even your sanity.

Of course, independence comes with a price, and Carlton tallies it honestly and without self-pity. One of the most striking sections in the book addresses the loss of family once he stepped off the expected path. Not through screaming matches or slammed doors, but through slow erosion: “Phone calls got shorter. Conversations turned tense.”

Disapproval had less to do with the specifics of his life than the simple fact that he no longer fit the template.

When asked how Americans can balance honoring their families with refusing to, as he puts it, “participate in systems that drain your energy and compromise your values,” his answer is as clean as it is compelling: “If a relationship survives you making choices that improve your health, your time, or your stability, then it survives. If it falls apart the moment you stop living the way they prefer, then it was already conditional.”

It’s a hard truth, but Carlton refuses to dress it up. Long before any institution closes a door on us, we’ve already built the cell ourselves. The ancients understood this well: People cling to the comfort of captivity, obeying expectations set by those who would rather see them worn down than transformed.

RELATED: An artist and farmer cultivates creativity

Stacy Tabb

Work with consequences

There’s also a spiritual undercurrent to his critique of modern work culture. Carlton never lapses into sermonizing, but his diagnosis reads like a measured moral warning. Modern work “follows you home,” he notes. It takes evenings, weekends, and whatever fragments of peace remain. It erodes sleep, attention, and the mental steadiness that previous generations recognized as the bedrock of a healthy life.

Americans worship productivity with almost religious devotion, even though the devotion always seems to cost them more than they can spare. Two-thirds of the workforce is burned out, but the cult of busyness marches on. Another day, another dollar … but also another headache, another email chain, and another reminder that coffee can only do so much.

When asked whether “exit farming” is a return to older ideas of work and stewardship, he rejects romantic myth-making. “Exit farming isn’t about finding something spiritual,” he says. “It’s about doing work where the consequences are real.” If you don’t feed the animals, “they suffer and then they die.” If you don’t tend the crops exactly as needed, the season is lost before it begins. Nothing waits for permission. Nothing reschedules itself for your convenience. This realism is its own kind of grounding. And you don’t need a farm to reclaim it, but only work that doesn’t demand the erosion of dignity as its hidden price of admission.

Grow one thing

The final question in the book’s conversation is the one most Americans are actively wrestling with: What about those who feel trapped? Trapped between institutions they no longer trust and a life of greater self-reliance that feels too big, too frightening, too foreign?

Carlton’s reply is the opposite of theatrical bravado. “Nobody wakes up one morning ready to raise animals and turn them into food.” Change begins with one thing you can actually change. Lower one bill. Learn one skill. Grow one thing you eat often. Build one dependable relationship. Reduce one vulnerability. These are small, almost humble acts. But they mark the beginning of a life that no longer runs on someone else’s terms.

Over time, he says, these small adjustments stop being adjustments. They become a different kind of life, one that is sturdy enough to withstand the failures of the systems around it.

That’s the heart of “Exit Farming.” It isn’t about rejecting society or romanticizing hardship, but about reclaiming stability in a country where stability has become a cruel joke. It’s not about storming out in some “Office Space” fantasia with a baseball bat.

It’s about one couple choosing a different path and showing that others could do it too. Not through dramatic destruction, but through the refusal to be drained of the very things that make a life worth living — time, purpose, and peace.

​Align interview, Exit farming, Lifestyle, Sean carlton, Work, Homesteading 

An elementary school teacher has been placed on administrative leave after police said they found thousands of files containing child sex abuse material in his possession.

Pleasantview Elementary teacher Martin Waskowski was arrested on Wednesday in Vermont after Border Patrol agents identified him as a suspect at the Highland port of entry.

One device contained more than 12,000 files appearing to be child sex abuse material, according to a preliminary review.

Waskowski was re-entering the U.S. from Canada when he was nabbed in a records check by law enforcement, according to a federal complaint.

A search of his cell phone allegedly revealed images and videos of adult men committing sexual acts with prepubescent boys.

Michigan State Police then searched his home, where they confiscated computers, hard drives, and an iPad.

One device contained more than 12,000 files appearing to be child sex abuse material, according to a preliminary review.

Waskowski had been a teacher at the elementary school in Eastpointe for three years and had been a long-term substitute as well.

He allegedly confessed to police that he had collected the child sex abuse material for approximately 20 years, and said that he knew the behavior was wrong, had tried to stop, but had not sought treatment to stop.

He was charged with possession and transportation of child exploitation materials. He was released under supervision and location monitoring.

District officials said they put him on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

RELATED: 29-year-old man charged with 196 felonies related to possession of child sex abuse material

“Prior to this formal notification, the District had no knowledge of, nor had it received any allegations related to, this individual,” reads the statement from the district.

Waskowski is scheduled for a preliminary court hearing on Dec. 23.

Eastpointe is a suburb of Detroit, with about 34,000 residents.

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​Child sex abuse material, Elementary school teacher, Teachers with child porn, Crime, Martin waskowski 

Democrats deny what mountains of evidence have long shown: Terrorist groups traffic in illegal drugs.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) recently insisted, “There is no such thing as a narco-terrorist,” as he defended his opposition to the Trump administration’s war on narco-terrorism in the Caribbean. He accused the administration of trying “to make this look like it’s ISIS or Al-Qaeda,” ignoring that ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and similar groups have long run profitable drug operations with local and transnational cartels. These alliances increased revenue, financed attacks, fueled violence, and deepened existing conflicts.

Maduro’s narco-terrorist regime threatens regional stability and US national security. Trump’s war on narco-terrorism meets that threat head-on.

Narco-terrorism did not originate with the Trump administration. It was the subject of my 1990 book, which documented how governments around the world used the drug trade to fund and advance terrorist activity. For more than three decades, Washington looked away. That era has ended.

On November 16, the U.S. Treasury designated Venezuela’s Cártel de los Soles — run by Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and key figures in his illegitimate regime — along with Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, as foreign terrorist organizations. Treasury should have added Colombia’s National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, or ELN), a Marxist paramilitary and major drug-trafficking force that controls both sides of the border and works closely with Maduro.

When I began researching narco-terrorism in 1986, I assumed political groups across the spectrum could use terror and drug trafficking to advance their aims. The evidence showed otherwise. Marxist-Leninist and Islamist regimes, movements, and militias initiated, expanded, and ultimately dominated this trade.

Venezuela’s slide into narco-terrorism dates to 2005, when Hugo Chávez expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. After Chávez died in 2013, Maduro took control of both the government and the drug enterprise, tightening his partnership with Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, under the so-called Axis of Resistance. The goal is to counter U.S. influence in Latin America and the Middle East while enriching the regime.

Maduro’s alliance with Iran and Hezbollah runs deep. He offers sanctuary and support for their narcotics networks, money laundering, weapons pipelines, and terrorist smuggling throughout the region.

RELATED: Turns out that Hegseth’s ‘kill them all’ line was another media invention

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal — a former three-star Venezuelan general under Chávez and Maduro and a former member of Cártel de los Soles — described the strategy bluntly in a letter to President Trump. “The purpose of this organization is to weaponize drugs against the United States,” he wrote. “The drugs that reached your cities through new routes were not accidents of corruption nor just the work of independent traffickers; they were deliberate policies coordinated by the Venezuelan regime against the United States.”

This collaboration, built over decades, helped millions of Americans fall into addiction and contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Maduro’s narco-terrorist regime threatens regional stability and U.S. national security. Trump’s war on narco-terrorism meets that threat head-on and is perfectly just.

​Venezuela, Drug trafficking, Cartels, Opinion & analysis, Narcoterrorists, War, U.s. navy, Nicolas maduro, Donald trump, Hugo chavez, Drug enforcement administration, Iran, Hezbollah, Marxists 

In another massive win for MAHA, a federal vaccine advisory committee voted on Friday to end the recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine within hours of birth.

“I try to thank God every day for RFK Jr. being in the position that he’s in as secretary of HHS. And today was one of many reasons why I am so grateful for his leadership,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

The birth dose will now only be recommended for infants whose mother has tested positive for hepatitis B.

However, the left is predictably freaking out.

“Contrary to the leftist hysteria that you undoubtedly are hearing on social media, they didn’t say you’re not allowed to give it to your baby. They didn’t say you should never give it to your baby. They simply suggested, instead of giving this to a minutes-old baby, you could just wait until the baby is 2 months old for the first dose,” Gonzales explains.

“That’s literally all that they are suggesting. … I feel like they should have gone further. So, it’s just funny to hear all of the leftist hysteria, like, ‘We want to vaccinate the babies when they’re seconds old. We don’t want to wait until they’re 2 months. Are you kidding? That’s a lifetime. We want to get them as soon as possible,’” she continues.

“It’s a weird cult. It’s cultish behavior,” she adds.

And Gonzales points out that it “seems very silly” when you realize that as a society, we’ve been OK with injecting “every minutes-old baby with a hepatitis B vaccine regardless of their exposure, risk, or anything like that.”

“Since 1991, they have had a universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for the first dose within 24 hours of birth,” she says, explaining that hepatitis B “spreads through contact with blood, semen, or other body fluids from an infected person.”

“Your risk [of] infection rises if you have sex without a condom with multiple sex partners or with someone who’s infected with hepatitis B; share needles during the use of drugs injected into a vein; are born male and have sex with men,” she explains.

“I don’t know about you guys — my babies are not going to, like, crazy drug orgies,” she adds.

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​Video, Free, Sharing, Video phone, Upload, Camera phone, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Hep b, Hepatitis b, Hep b vaccination, Maha, Make america great again, Make america healthy again, Rfk jr, Vaccine, Anti vaccine 

Growing up during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, I remember when socialism was a universal punch line. It stood for failure, repression, and economic ruin.

Not any more. Today, socialism is the ideological spearpoint of the left. Many young Americans now insist that socialism is the cure for the affordability crisis squeezing them. They believe it with a fervor that would have stunned earlier generations.

The evidence is overwhelming, and the verdict is final: Socialism fails everywhere it is tried. Now imagine that system fused with an all-seeing AI.

New polling from Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute’s Emerging Issues Center shows that a majority of likely voters ages 18 to 39 want a Democratic Socialist to win the White House in 2028.

Nearly 60% of young Americans say they support more government housing, a nationwide rent freeze, and government-run grocery stores in every town.

These numbers aren’t anomalies. They reflect a deeper reality: Many young Americans know little about socialism’s actual history, consequences, or track record — and they have been conditioned to believe it can fix the challenges in front of them.

One reason for that ignorance is uncomfortable but obvious. It’s not only the schools — it’s the parents. According to the polls, parents were the most influential voices shaping their children’s support for Democratic Socialism. More than half of respondents said their parents held a favorable view of it.

That alone explains a great deal. And unsurprisingly, more than half also said teachers and professors viewed Democratic Socialism favorably. After decades of ideological drift, even parents who grew up after the USSR’s collapse now believe socialism “might work.”

Based on my own experience teaching in public schools, that rings true. Most of my colleagues openly sympathized with the socialist cause and were hostile to free-market capitalism.

This didn’t happen by accident. It reflects a long march beginning in the Progressive Era. My own postgraduate experience at a prestigious teaching college felt less like preparation for the classroom and more like a Cultural Revolution struggle session — conformity required, dissent punished.

As the public education system drifted leftward, it taught generation after generation that socialism is benevolent and capitalism is predatory. The result is predictable. Many young people now see the free market as the enemy, not the mechanism that lifted billions out of poverty. Cronyism and the explosion of government power only blur the picture further.

Layer onto this the collapse of basic literacy and numeracy. When students can’t read well, struggle with math, and can’t write a coherent paragraph, they are more vulnerable to ideological manipulation — and more likely to lean on machines to think for them.

So it shouldn’t shock anyone that almost half of young Americans surveyed want an advanced AI system to create society’s laws, rules, and regulations. Nearly 40% want that AI system to determine human rights and control the world’s most powerful militaries.

RELATED: Almost half of Gen Z wants AI to run the government. You should be terrified.

Yurii Karvatskyi via iStock/Getty Images

How did this happen? Watch how many parents are glued to screens, outsourcing daily life to devices. Is it any wonder their children grow up thinking technology is omnipotent?

Parents should start with something simple: a family movie night featuring the “Terminator” franchise. Let the kids see where blind faith in machines tends to lead.

Better yet, teach them the truth about socialism. Teach them what it does to human beings. Share the books, documentaries, and testimonies exposing socialism’s century of famine, repression, forced labor, and mass murder — horrors still unfolding in Cuba and North Korea.

The evidence is overwhelming, and the verdict is final: socialism fails everywhere it is tried. Now imagine that system fused with an all-seeing AI — a surveillance state that Stalin could only dream of. The thought of an AI-run socialist regime is not dystopian fiction. It is what many young Americans say they want.

They should be careful what they wish for.

​Opinion & analysis, Socialism, Artificial intelligence, Heartland institute, Rasmussen reports, Poll, Gen z, Millennials, Total state, Totalitarianism, Education, Indoctrination, Progressive era 

Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show has been extended for one more year, according to a statement from the ABC television network.

The show was taken off the air in September after Kimmel implied that the suspect in the assassination of Charlie Kirk had been a member of the pro-Trump MAGA movement. The show was returned to broadcast after about six days.

‘Why do the TV Syndicates put up with it? Also, totally biased coverage. Get the bum off the air!!!’

On Monday, Variety reported that sources confirmed the contract deal would keep Kimmel on as the host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” until at least 2027.

Many took the decision as a defiant statement against the wishes of President Donald Trump.

“These days, it’s notable whenever a major media company ignores Trump’s pressure and stands with talent. So let’s note that Disney has renewed Jimmy Kimmel’s contract for another year,” CNN media analyst Brian Stelter said.

Kimmel appeared to reference the president in a post confirming the deal on Instagram.

“I am pleased to announce another no-talent year!” he wrote, using an insult Trump had used against him and his show.

Stelter went on to claim that Disney, the parent company of ABC, caved to pressure from some viewers who canceled their Disney Plus accounts to protest Kimmel’s cancellation.

“It was clear that Kimmel was the big winner of that episode,” he added. “He gained more power and leverage from the outrageous episode of government censorship.”

RELATED: Jimmy Kimmel’s wife has cut off family members over Trump: ‘We’re not aligned anymore’

Kimmel has been hosting the show since January of 2003.

He has used the entertainment platform to bash Trump, his policies, and his supporters. The president has responded by issuing fiery insults on social media.

“Why does ABC Fake News keep Jimmy Kimmel, a man with NO TALENT and VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS, on the air?” the president wrote in November. “Why do the TV Syndicates put up with it? Also, totally biased coverage. Get the bum off the air!!!”

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​Trump vs jimmy kimmel, Jimmy kimmel live, Trump vs the media, Kimmel’s charlie kirk comments, Politics 

Almost five years after the pipe bombs were found on January 6, the alleged pipe bomber has been caught.

“We’re learning a lot more, a lot more,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments. “And the more we learn, the more it stinks.”

The suspect is 30-year-old Brian Cole Jr., who lived in Woodbridge, Virginia, with his mother — and is described as a loner who had anarchist leanings and worked for his father’s bail-bond company.

“This isn’t just any bail-bonds company, OK? This is a company that has worked to free illegal immigrants from ICE facilities. So, this is a bail-bonds company with an agenda. And it happens to be a radical, liberal, leftist agenda because we also find out the family company also sued President Trump and DHS over illegal immigration and asked Biden — the Biden DOJ — to address racism,” Gonzales explains.

“They hired Black Lives Matter and George Floyd’s lawyer, Benjamin Crump, to address racism. … So, this family that this man worked for, family company, had a whole hell of a lot of social justice activism as it turns out,” she continues, joking, “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

And according to FBI Director Kash Patel, none of the evidence now coming to light is new. Rather, it was hidden.

“The prior administration sat on the evidence for four years. There wasn’t any production of new evidence from five years ago. Here’s what we did. We went out to the country, brought in our experts, and Deputy Director Bongino led the charge and said, ‘We are going to look at every single piece of evidence again,’” Patel said in a segment on Fox News.

“We looked at 3 million lines of evidence. We went back and looked at the cellphone tower data dumps. We went back and looked at the providers and what information they provided pursuant to search warrants at the time and asked questions such as, ‘Why weren’t all the phone numbers scrubbed, and why weren’t they connected, and why wasn’t there any geolocational data done?’ Now, that is either sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence, and neither of which is acceptable for this FBI,” Patel added.

In a separate interview on Fox News, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino lamented that he did not know “what the hell this prior leadership team was doing outside of targeting political opponents, weaponizing the FBI, destroying its reputation, embarrassing agents that are doing really good work out there.”

“It’s almost like they were intentionally trying to decimate faith in institutions. It’s horrifying,” he added.

“I do think that there were a lot of people in the Biden regime that were completely incompetent. But you cannot tell me that a whole group of investigators had all of the same evidence and somehow couldn’t get from point A to point Z,” Gonzales comments. “I just, I have a hard time believing that.”

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​Free, Camera phone, Upload, Video, Video phone, Sharing, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Pipe bomber, January 6 pipe bomber, Left wing activism, Bail bond, Fib cover up, Kash patel, Black lives matter, Dan bongino 

A Tennessee man who responded with anger to new restrictions on food stamp benefits went viral on social media as the Trump administration clamps down on fraud.

The new restrictions will apply to able-bodied people between the ages of 18 and 65 years who aren’t disabled and refuse to work at least 20 hours per week. They also do not apply to those who have children under the age of 14 years in their home.

‘I’m devastated, actually. … It helped me a lot. It got me $292 a month.’

While the new rules won’t likely appear terribly onerous to the taxpayers who have to work to fund them, some of the beneficiaries are outraged.

“That’s some bullsh**t,” Nelson Scott said to WZTV-TV. “Man, I’m devastated, actually.”

Scott is 38 years old, doesn’t have kids or a job, doesn’t go to school, and is not disabled. But he’s upset that his SNAP food benefits are imperiled.

“It helped me a lot. It got me $292 a month,” Scott said.

The new restrictions are being put into place by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the direction of President Donald Trump.

Scott argued that it was hard for him to find a job because he’s a felon.

“I would get one if y’all give me one. Y’all be felony-friendly and hire us,” he pleaded.

The video report garnered almost 200K views on social media, and many of the commenters were angry at Scott for trying to stay on food stamps while being able-bodied.

“AWWWWW! Poor baby has to go to work like the rest of us!!” one commenter said.

“That man is a great example of able-bodied. He needs to get a JOB,” another said.

“Get your lazy ass out of bed and get a job like the rest of us. I’m sick and tired of supporting these people. I started working when I was 12 years old. I’d work the fields with my Mexican best friend and his family every weekend for about $20 a day back in the mid 70s,” another user replied on the X platform.

RELATED: Woman goes viral after admitting to being on SNAP benefits for 3 decades

There are other exclusions from the SNAP regulations going into place. People who are in a drug or alcohol treatment program can continue to get the benefits, as well as those who are pregnant or receive unemployment benefits.

The work requirement can also be fulfilled by participating in a work training program or doing volunteer work.

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Police responded to a car crash at a grocery store late last week only to encounter a Florida man armed to the teeth, who warned he had a “dirty bomb,” according to authorities. The alarming dirty bomb remark triggered a lockdown of the area, police said.

Late Friday night, officers with the Haines City Police Department responded to reports of a vehicle crash at a Publix grocery store in Davenport.

‘Officers located a yellow plastic container secured with chains and locks with a radioactive warning label and immediately repositioned to a safe distance, shut down roadways, and requested assistance from the Bureau of Fire, Arson, and Explosives.’

Police said officers made contact with 43-year-old Benjamin Donald Johnson — a driver allegedly involved in the car accident.

Police said in a statement, “Officers were ultimately required to physically remove Johnson from the truck, at which point multiple firearms were observed in plain view.”

Police said while the suspect was being detained in the back of a patrol vehicle, an officer heard Johnson saying that there was a “dirty bomb” in his Chevrolet Silverado truck.

Police stated, “Officers located a yellow plastic container secured with chains and locks with a radioactive warning label and immediately repositioned to a safe distance, shut down roadways, and requested assistance from the Bureau of Fire, Arson, and Explosives.”

Police imposed a lockdown of the area near the vehicle in question for several hours “out of an abundance of caution” and to “ensure the safety” of anyone nearby.

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Before the bomb squad arrived, a Florida State Fire Investigator at the crime scene confirmed the container was “emitting positive radioactivity,” according to police.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and an FBI bomb technician launched an investigation into the possible dirty bomb.

According to police, investigators said a device was inside the yellow container. The investigators allegedly determined it was a moisture density gauge, which is “commonly used for soil testing, and contained less radioactivity than a medical X-ray.”

The statement said the container was transported to the Haines City Police Department, where it will be “further inspected” by members of the Florida Bureau of Radioactive Material.

Officers conducted a search of Johnson’s truck, and police said they found a “multitude of firearms and ammunition, firearm magazine speed loaders, thermal scopes, knives, a battering ram, night vision goggles, cannabis, and gummies, which tested positive for THC.”

Johnson told investigators he was in the area for work and had been living out of his pickup truck with his dog, police said.

The dog was transferred to a local animal control service.

Jail records from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office show that Johnson was arrested and charged with hoax weapon of mass destruction, false report concerning a bomb or explosive, resisting an officer without violence, unlawful possession of cannabis resin, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and use of a firearm under the influence of alcohol.

Police noted that Johnson’s prior criminal history revealed he had been arrested for possession of marijuana in Tennessee.

Police said the case remains under investigation.

The Haines City Police Department and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.

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