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The controversy surrounding the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia escalated on Friday when he was released to be with his family, and the Trump administration immediately took action.

Garcia has been the focus of high-profile litigation after he was deported to a prison for terrorists in El Salvador based on claims from the Trump administration that he was a member of the infamous MS-13 criminal gang.

‘We have said it for months and it remains true to this day: he will never go free on American soil.’

After much legal wrangling, Garcia was returned to the U.S., but the government immediately obtained an indictment based on new allegations of his involvement in a multi-state human trafficking operation.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyer Sean Hecker said Friday that he was released from Putnam County Jail in Tennessee.

“Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free,” he said to WZTV-TV.

“He is presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government’s vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law,” he added. “He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process.”

Hecker was likely referring to a Supreme Court ruling that said the government needed to give Garcia some due process rights before deporting him.

That due process came in the form of a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that notified Garcia that he might be deported to Uganda within 72 hours. In addition to that, Garcia was ordered to reported to the Baltimore ICE office on Monday.

The government had previously told a court that they had plans to deport him to a third country apart from the U.S. and El Salvador.

RELATED: Judge orders release of Garcia — but DHS vows that ‘he will never go free on American soil’

In June, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin promised that Garcia would never be set free in the U.S.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a dangerous criminal illegal alien. We have said it for months and it remains true to this day: he will never go free on American soil,” she wrote.

Garcia and his wife have denied that he’s a member of the criminal gang.

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A 62-year-old woman is healing from her injuries after a massive alligator attacked her and dragged her into the woods in Florida.

The woman from Fort Myers was hiking on a remote trial with two other people at the Bird Rockery Swamp Trail in Naples on Sunday morning when the alligator attacked.

‘We were doing a wet walk, and the gator jumped out and grabbed her.’

The Collier County Sheriff’s Office said officers responded to a frantic call about the attack at about 9:40 a.m.

“Hello, we’re out here, and our friend just got attacked by an alligator,” the witness said.

The report said the trio had been hiking on a watery portion of the trail and did not notice the large alligator. It latched onto the woman’s leg, and one of the other hikers tried to help her as the alligator tried to drag her away.

Eventually she was freed but suffered serious injuries.

“We’re out of the water. We were doing a wet walk, and the gator jumped out and grabbed her,” the witness said on the emergency call.

RELATED: Florida man runs over 11-foot alligator with his truck after seeing it dragging his elderly neighbor into pond

The woman was airlifted to Gulf Coast Medical Center for treatment of the injuries on her leg and arm. Her condition was not released.

Florida Gulf Coast University assistant biology professor Christina Anaya told WFTX-TV that it is the time of the year that female alligators can be aggressive if they are disturbed.

“Mating season is between April and June, so this is about the time the hatchlings are out — and females protect them for well over a year,” Anaya said.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said that trappers removed an alligator from the area.

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The surprise Aug. 21 announcement by FBI Director Kash Patel of a settlement with 10 whistleblowers came before at least some of them had agreed to anything, but ultimately it could indicate that the bureau is ready to make restitution for punishing employees who legally disclosed malfeasance, sources told Blaze News.

Patel’s announcement made on X before noon Eastern on Aug. 21 was greeted with cheers, elation, and relief on the social media platform.

‘The next step is for the whistleblowers and their lawyers to carefully review and sign the agreements.’

“Breaking: agreements have been reached with 10 FBI Whistleblowers (and counsel) to include a combination of backpay, security clearance, and reinstatement,” Patel wrote in a post viewed more than 1.3 million times.

— (@)

The key whistleblowers who suffered some of the worst treatment by the FBI under President Joe Biden knew little to nothing about it when Patel announced that deals were in place.

“No one has reached a deal,” Kyle Seraphin, former FBI special agent and now a podcast host, wrote Friday on X. In an earlier post, Seraphin wrote, “No deals have been reached, no offers put in writing, no agreements have been signed.”

Several administration and congressional sources told Blaze News that was the situation on Thursday when Patel made his announcement, but there is reason for hope in the more than 24 hours since.

Clare Slattery, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), echoed Patel’s announcement that the FBI would “provide varying forms of compensation” to the whistleblowers.

“Indeed, Senator Grassley has been in direct contact with the DOJ and FBI for months advocating for these whistleblowers and assisting in negotiations,” Slattery said Aug. 21. “In light of the director’s announcement today, the next step is for the whistleblowers and their lawyers to carefully review and sign the agreements.”

Patel did not name any of the 10 whistleblowers or detail the terms of the agreements.

All 10 whistleblowers are represented by Virginia-based Empower Oversight, including former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend and long-suspended FBI Special Agent Garret O’Boyle. Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, said Friday he could not comment on Patel’s announcement.

What’s at stake includes years of back salary and benefits such as retirement plans, health insurance and vacation, restoration of security clearances, and potential reinstatement to FBI employment.

It’s not clear whether settlements would include compensation for loss of reputation, wrongfully denied health benefits, or, as in O’Boyle’s case, the FBI refusal to pay previously agreed-upon moving expenses.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently reached a settlement with an FBI whistleblower who exposed the FBI for weaponizing the security-clearance process against supporters of President Donald J. Trump, those who opposed COVID-19 shots, and employees who expressed intent to attend Jan. 6 protests at the U.S. Capitol.

“The FBI security clearance process was completely secret, with generally no oversight from the inspector general or Congress. That’s an environment ripe for abuse and easily taken advantage of,” Leavitt said in a statement on Aug. 1.

Steve Baker contributed to this report.

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​Politics 

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has removed the painted rainbow crosswalk outside of the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which was painted in memory of the 49 people killed at the site in 2016.

And Democratic state Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith is not happy.

“We’ve just discovered that the Florida Department of Transportation in the middle of the night ripped the rainbow colors off of this city crosswalk. They illegally vandalized city property without providing the city of Orlando notice or getting their approval to remove this rainbow crosswalk that was painted here,” Guillermo Smith said angrily in a selfie video.

“Not only to remember the lives of the 49 mostly LGBTQ people of color who were murdered, but also to keep the pedestrians and visitors who have come here year after year to pay their respects to those lives who were taken here,” he continued.

“I cannot believe that the DeSantis administration has engaged in this hostile act against the city of Orlando,” he added.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray was not a fan of the sidewalk in the first place and disagrees with Guillermo Smith, who also hopes the city of Orlando sues the state of Florida.

“You know what’s ridiculous is painting rainbow flags on crosswalks. Okay. Do we need that? Do we need to celebrate somebody else’s sexuality?” Gray asks, answering himself, “I don’t have to celebrate your sexual preference and have it there for all time.”

Want more from Pat Gray?

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

​Upload, Video, Camera phone, Video phone, Free, Sharing, Youtube.com, Pat gray unleashed, Pat gray, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Ron desantis, Florida, Pulse nightclub, Lgbtq, Lgbtq agenda, Lgbt activism 

A former school “counselor of the year” in Colorado now faces accusations of sexually assaulting a student over 100 times — and threatening to kill herself if the victim reported the sexual abuse, authorities said.

On Tuesday, the city of Fort Collins released a statement saying its police department got a tip in July 2025 that a former Poudre School District counselor had an inappropriate relationship with a student while employed with the district.

‘These allegations are deeply troubling.’

Following an investigation, detectives identified the suspect as 40-year-old Cassandra Poncelow, who was a district employee between 2007 and 2024.

“The investigation revealed that Poncelow had an inappropriate relationship with a student for several years and sexually assaulted the student on multiple occasions off campus,” the statement reads. “When the crimes occurred, the victim was a juvenile; however, the victim is now an adult.” KCNC-TV reported that the victim was a girl.

According to court documents obtained by KUSA-TV, the student met Poncelow at her high school counseling office.

Citing the arrest affidavit, KUSA reported that Poncelow hosted “sleepovers” at her home with the alleged victim.

The guidance counselor also had “unsupervised” visits with the alleged victim in Poncelow’s office at school, according to court documents.

RELATED: Ex-middle school teacher slapped with felony charges over accusations of shocking student sex scandal

The accusations reportedly were first sent to Safe2Tell, a resource for students, parents, school staff, and community members to anonymously report “concerns regarding their safety or the safety of others.”

The Colorado Department of Human Services in April 2023 allegedly received a report of a guidance counselor sexually assaulting a student. The alleged sexual abuse began a “few years” before DHS was tipped off, according to KUSA.

However, Poncelow stayed on as a district guidance counselor until she resigned Sept. 6, 2024.

KUSA reported, “When asked whether Poncelow was disciplined or put on leave related to the Safe2Tell report or the DHS report in April 2024, the district said they could not share personnel matters ‘due to state and federal privacy laws.'”

The school district informed KUSA that Poncelow worked at one elementary school, three middle schools, three high schools, and one career tech center.

In April 2023, police questioned the alleged victim after the accusations surfaced, and the alleged victim was “surprised” by the accusations and denied having a sexual relationship with Poncelow, according to court documents.

The criminal case was closed due to insufficient evidence to support the allegations, according to law enforcement.

However, the case was reopened last month when the alleged victim came forward to authorities, claimed to have been sexually assaulted more than 100 times, and said the sexual assaults occurred at Poncelow’s home, according to the affidavit.

The alleged victim added to police that Poncelow threatened self-harm if the student told anyone about their relationship.

According to the arrest report, Poncelow told the alleged victim, “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill myself.”

Poncelow allegedly felt shame about the alleged sexual relationship, police said.

According to the arrest report obtained by KCNC, the guidance counselor allegedly told the student, “Our physical and sexual relationship was not OK. Lack of boundary, not OK. The power difference, not OK. It was wrong.”

The Fort Collins Police Services stated, “Detectives are concerned there may be more victims or witnesses of additional criminal behavior related to Poncelow.”

RELATED: School employee makes shocking confession to police about sexually abusing student: Court docs

According to jail records, Poncelow was booked into the Larimer County Jail. She was charged with felony counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, criminal attempt to commit sexual exploitation of children, aggravated sexual assault on a client by a psychotherapist, and sexual assault.

“We are actively working to support the victim and ensure accountability, knowing that cases like this deeply affect not only those directly involved but the entire community. Our priority remains centered on the victim’s well-being and the thoroughness of this investigation,” said Lieutenant Sara Lynd, head of the Fort Collins Police Services Crimes Against Persons Unit.

According to the Denver Gazette, Poudre Schools said the allegations are “deeply troubling.”

“Poudre School District is aware that Cassandra Poncelow, a former employee in the district, was arrested following a Fort Collins Police Services investigation into allegations involving a minor,” the statement reads. “These allegations are deeply troubling.”

The statement adds that “the district has fully cooperated with law enforcement throughout the investigation. The safety and well-being of our students are our highest priority.”

The statement concluded, “Because this is an active investigation, and to protect the privacy of those involved, we are unable to share additional details.”

Poncelow was honored as Colorado’s 2016 “counselor of the year” by the Colorado School Counseling Association and was a finalist for the American School Counselor of the Year award in 2018, according to the Coloradoan.

Anyone with information regarding the case is urged to contact Detective Cole Giandomenico at 970-221-6558, or Larimer County Crime Stoppers at 970-221-6868.

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​Child sex abuse, Child sexual assault, Child sex crimes, Teacher arrested, Teacher sex scandal, Guidance counselor, Crime, School counselor, Colorado 

The Department of Justice released several transcripts and audio recordings of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, 63.

The senior Trump administration official met with Maxwell and her lawyer, David Oscar Markus, over two days in July at the federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, where she was previously held while serving her 20-year sentence.

‘Except for the names of victims, every word is included. Nothing removed. Nothing hidden.’

Maxwell, who was moved to a minimum-security federal prison in Bryan, Texas, earlier this month, was convicted in 2021 for trafficking minors for sex as Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator and confidante.

Transcripts and audio recordings from their meeting revealed that Maxwell still does not believe that Epstein committed suicide in 2019. When asked to speculate about who might have killed him, she stated she did not know.

She claimed that Epstein did not have a client list, and she was unaware of him previously being accused of blackmailing or extorting anyone, suggesting that his death was unrelated.

RELATED: Clinton appointee blocks DOJ push for Epstein transparency

Photo by Florida Department of Law Enforcement via Getty Images

“In prison, where I am, they will kill you, or they will pay — somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary,” Maxwell said. “That’s about the going rate for a hit with a lock today.”

Maxwell insisted that she never witnessed President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton do anything inappropriate. She rejected claims that Clinton traveled to Epstein’s island.

She noted that she met Trump before Epstein and believed the two were “friendly like people are in social settings,” but added, “I don’t think they were close friends.”

“President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me. And I just want to say that I find — I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him, and I’ve always liked him. So that is the sum and substance of my entire relationship with him,” she said.

Maxwell also insisted that she did not introduce Epstein to Prince Andrew and called claims that Epstein worked for or communicated with an intelligence agency “bulls**t.”

“That is a flat untruth,” she said.

RELATED: Ghislaine Maxwell opposes unsealing of grand jury testimony requested by Pam Bondi

Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Blanche stated that the interview files were released “in the interest of transparency.”

“Except for the names of victims, every word is included. Nothing removed. Nothing hidden,” he remarked.

Markus applauded the DOJ’s decision to publish the files. He claimed that Maxwell was “innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted, in this case.”

“She never committed or participated in sexual abuse against minors, or anyone else for that matter. In fact, the government has admitted that it did not even consider her a conspirator during the extensive investigation into Epstein in the Southern District of Florida. The only reason she was ever charged is that she served as a scapegoat after Jeffrey Epstein died in prison,” Markus stated.

“We are thankful to the Department of Justice and to Todd Blanche for making these tapes and transcripts public so that people can judge for themselves. We are also grateful to the president for his continued commitment to the truth in this matter and for refusing to cave to the mob,” Markus added.

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​News, Jeffrey epstein, Epstein, Ghislaine maxwell, Maxwell, David oscar markus, Todd blanche, Epstein files, Epstein list, Politics 

President Donald Trump said he would fire a governor of the Federal Reserve if she refused to resign over mortgage fraud allegations.

Governor Lisa Cook is under investigation by the Department of Justice after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte released documents substantiating the claims.

‘When someone commits mortgage fraud, they undermine the faith and integrity of our System. It does not matter who you are — no one is above the law.’

On Friday, Trump told a reporter that he would take action if Cook did not resign.

“Yeah, I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign. What she did was bad,” the president said. “So I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign.”

Pulte posted documents that allegedly show that Cook took a loan on her home in Michigan and declared it her primary residence, and then two weeks later designated her out-of-state condominium as her primary residence as well.

“When someone commits mortgage fraud, they undermine the faith and integrity of our System. It does not matter who you are — no one is above the law,” Pulte wrote. “We have sent a Criminal Referral to the Department of Justice with regard to the allegations against Ms. Cook, and the DOJ should go wherever the facts may lead them.”

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts responded to the president’s statement on social media.

“President Trump cannot illegally fire independent Fed Board members. Anyone can see he is trying to find a scapegoat for his failure to lower costs for Americans,” Warren wrote.

The president has been lambasting the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell, for refusing to lower interest rates. He has threatened to fire Powell despite the chairman saying that he would not step down if asked by Trump.

If Cook were to resign and Trump appointed a successor more in line with his wishes, he could more easily influence the policies at the Fed.

RELATED: Fed Chair Powell defies Trump, keeps interest rates unchanged despite good economic reports

Cook responded to the allegations Wednesday.

“I learned from the media that FHFA Director William Pulte posted on social media that he was making a criminal referral based on a mortgage application from four years ago, before I joined the Federal Reserve,” Cook said in the statement.

“I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously as a member of the Federal Reserve, and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts,” she added.

Cook said she had “no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet.”

Cook was the first black woman to serve as a Federal Reserve governor and was nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2022.

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​Trump to fire lisa cook, Fed gov lisa cook, Lisa cook mortgage fraud, Trump vs fed reserve, Politics 

The arrest of an illegal alien on the streets of Washington, D.C., this week outraged many on the internet — that is, until authorities revealed the charges that had been filed against the suspect.

A reporter captured the arrest on video. It shows ICE agents surrounding a man outside a car. When the man tries to make a run for it, the agents grab him and take him down to the ground. He begins to wail and cry as the arrest continues.

‘This man’s screams next to our supposed monuments to freedom should haunt all of us.’

The man yells in Spanish, “Please, I’m not a criminal. I work here; I want to be with my family,” according to WRC-TV reporter Aimee Cho, who posted the video Wednesday; the clip has garnered 7.3 million views.

Many online responded emotionally to the video.

“This doesn’t make D.C. safer. It’ll just make people not come to D.C. The cruelty is always the point,” wrote Jessica Tarlov, the liberal co-host of “The Five” on Fox News.

Tarlov later deleted the post when it was revealed that the suspect had been hit with heinous charges.

“I didn’t know he was — the DHS memo on him came out hours after the video,” Tarlov wrote. “Wouldn’t ever defend such a person! Hopefully you guys will only go after these types versus hardworking folks that have committed no crimes! Will delete my original tweet.”

ICE identified the suspect as David Perez-Teofani, who allegedly crossed the U.S. border illegally three times. He also had been charged with one count of indecent liberties with a child under the age of 13 and aggravated sexual battery.

RELATED: Bakery owners found guilty of harboring illegal aliens after immigration raid

Others were similarly horrified by the video — presumably without knowing the charges against the suspect.

“What a deep spiritual wound in the fabric of the country and its history we’re making today, as we destroy hard-working law-abiding American families who, by every rational measure, could be handed a work permit for the benefit of all,” responded journalist Pablo De La Rosa.”This man’s screams next to our supposed monuments to freedom should haunt all of us,” said one user.”The cruelty is the point,” replied the popular “Republicans Against Trump” account. “This may be a sickening video of a family being torn apart, but at least prices are continuing to go up while companies hire less and less people. Perhaps Trump’s policies aren’t actually making anything better,” replied researcher Derek Martin.

Josh Gerstein of Politico wrote “#Newnormal” before following up later with the statement about the charges.

In addition, ICE criticized prosecutors for dropping the case against Perez-Teofani, but Steve Descano — the commonwealth’s attorney for Fairfax County, Virginia — accused ICE of misrepresenting the actions of the prosecutor’s office.

In an interview with WRC-TV, Descano said the mother of the victim and the victim stopped communicating with police, and as they were the only witnesses, prosecutors were forced to drop the case. He also pointed out that they could still prosecute him if the witnesses decided to contact police again.

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​Dc illegal alien arrest, Liberals embarrassed, David perez-teofani, Video illegal alien arrest, Politics, Washington dc, Ice, Ice agents, Illegal immigrant, Illegal alien, Illegal aliens, Crime 

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled on Friday that he may consider cutting interest rates in the near future.

During a speech at an annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell hinted at the possibility of changes to interest rates at the next September meeting due to a “shifting balance of risks.”

‘I personally believe the Fed could cut a full percent and still not have policy unleash inflationary pressures, but I don’t foresee a cut that substantial in September.’

He contended that the Federal Reserve’s “restrictive policy stance” has been “appropriate to help bring down inflation and to foster a sustainable balance between aggregate demand and supply.”

Powell blamed “higher tariffs” for introducing “new challenges” to the U.S. economy and “tighter immigration policy” for causing an “abrupt slowdown in labor force growth.” He contended that both factors have impacted demand and supply.

“Over the longer run, changes in tax, spending, and regulatory policies may also have important implications for economic growth and productivity,” Powell claimed. “There is significant uncertainty about where all of these policies will eventually settle and what their lasting effects on the economy will be.”

RELATED: Powell’s tight money policy is strangling the US economy

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

He argued that “risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside.” Powell called it a “challenging situation” given that the Fed’s “framework calls for us to balance both sides of our dual mandate,” referring to the labor market and price stability.

However, he indicated that with the policy rate “100 basis points closer to neutral” compared to last year and stability in labor market measures, the Federal Reserve may “proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance.”

“Nonetheless, with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” Powell said.

RELATED: Trump orders Labor Statistics chief to be fired over revisions in weak jobs report

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged Powell to drop interest rates.

“He should have cut them a year ago. He’s too late,” Trump said Friday afternoon in response to Powell’s speech.

Blaze Media contributor Carol Roth told Blaze News, “Reading between the lines, it certainly sounded like Powell was signaling a higher likelihood of a September rate cut, something that the market had already been expecting. In terms of the Fed’s stated ‘dual mandate,’ the pendulum seems to be swinging to more concern over the labor market than inflation, although certainly not ignoring inflation, but rather wanting to avoid a stagflation scenario,” Roth said.

“Powell is definitely late to a rate cut, both in terms of supporting the economy and giving the Fed room in terms of future ability to raise rates in the face of any potential spikes in inflation,” Roth continued. “While 25 basis points (one quarter of a percent) is the likely size of a cut, it probably isn’t enough to be meaningful in terms of consumer or business behavior — it seems more symbolic. I personally believe the Fed could cut a full percent and still not have policy unleash inflationary pressures, but I don’t foresee a cut that substantial in September.”

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​News, Jerome powell, Powell, Federal reserve, Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Carol roth, Interest rates, Economy, Trade, Tariffs, Labor market, Politics 

Months after scrapping its digital service tax in the face of threats from President Donald Trump, Canada’s liberal government has caved once again.

This time, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney — who put on quite the show about defying the U.S. while campaigning for office earlier this year — announced on Friday that Canada is dropping retaliatory tariffs on a number of American products in hopes of improving both relations with the White House and outcomes in future trade talks with the United States.

Canada was one of the only countries in the world that retaliated against Trump’s tariffs, imposing three rounds of retaliatory measures, reported the Globe and Mail. These measures included a 25% tariff on roughly $21 billion of American goods including orange juice and motorcycles and a 25% tariff on American cars.

Citing Trump’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, “substantial trade actions” on the Canadian lumber industry, Trump’s reciprocal and sectoral tariffs, and recent deals struck between the U.S. and other countries, Carney noted that “the breadth and depth of the changes in U.S. trade policy have become more fully apparent.”

“Under the new U.S. approach, countries must now ‘buy access to the world’s largest economy’ through tariffs, investments, unilateral trade liberalization, and policy changes in their home markets,” said the prime minister.

Carney attempted to put a positive spin on the situation, stating that as a result of America’s reaffirmation that Canadian exports to the U.S. that are compliant with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement won’t be subject to IEEPA tariffs, the “actual U.S. average tariff rate on Canadian goods is 5.6% and remains the lowest among all its trading partners, and more than 85% of Canada-U.S. trade is now tariff-free.”

RELATED: Trump’s policies are stifling transgender activists in Canada, and there’s nothing they can do about it

STEFAN ROUSSEAU/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

In the interest of preserving what Carney framed as “the best trade deal with the United States,” the prime minister said that effective Sept. 1, Canada will remove all of its tariffs on American good specifically covered under the CUSMA.

Canada, like the U.S., will, however, retain tariffs on steel, aluminum, and automobiles.

‘He is showing extraordinary weakness.’

“The United States is the world’s largest, most dynamic economy, and Canada is one of its most important commercial partners,” said Carney.

“Canada is the second-largest foreign investor in the U.S., and many of our companies are essential to the complex supply chains that drive American competitiveness,” continued the prime minister. “Canada is embarking on a transformation of our military and security capabilities to defend Canadians — investments that will create multiple opportunities for new defense and security partnerships.”

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he had a “very good call with Prime Minister Carney of Canada yesterday morning,” that “we want to be very good to Canada,” and that the removal of the tariffs was “nice.”

Canadian Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre mocked Carney, calling the tariff removal “another capitulation and climbdown by Mark Carney,” reported Canadian state media.

“Today, he removed even almost all the tariffs on the United States and got none lifted for Canada,” said Poilievre. “He is showing extraordinary weakness.”

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​Canada, Us, Tariffs, Trump, Retaliatory, Trade, Carney, Politics 

A protest against Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has sparked an embarrassing controversy for a liberal protester who thought she would fight fire with fire but instead offended nearly everyone.

An image of the sign was shared on social media Thursday by the official account of the Arlington Republican Party, where it quickly went viral with millions of views. It targeted Earle-Sears, the Republican gubernatorial candidate and a black conservative.

‘If a black voter … strays from liberal dogma, she will be the target of the most vicious and hateful, often racially tinged attacks by white progressives.’

The protest sign emphatically stated in all caps, “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain.”

Earle-Sears responded via a statement on social media.

“I’m disgusted, but not surprised,” she wrote.

“I’m the sitting Lieutenant Governor, second in command in the former Capitol of the confederate states,” she continued. I’m an immigrant, a Marine, and above all, a human being. There is no place for this disgusting hatred in our Commonwealth. Anyone who doesn’t condemn this sign is complicit in approving it.”

Matthew Hurtt, the chairman of the Arlington GOP, excoriated the sign in a statement to Blaze News.

“As chairman of the Arlington GOP and longtime resident of Arlington, I’m disappointed but not surprised a progressive white woman expressed racist sentiment toward Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears,” he wrote.

“This leftist activist said the quiet part out loud,” Hurtt added. “If a black voter — especially a strong and patriotic immigrant and principled conservative like Winsome Earle-Sears — strays from liberal dogma, she will be the target of the most vicious and hateful, often racially tinged attacks by white progressives.
Do better, Democrats.”

Another video on social media video showed someone telling the woman that her sign was attracting negative online attention. She shrugged it off.

RELATED: Liberals unleash wave of vicious ‘racist and sexist’ attacks over a tweet from Biden’s OMB nominee

Many people on social media responded with scorn and ridicule to the offensive sign.

“Beneath contempt,” replied Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

“It never stops being shocking how progressives morph into full blown racists when it comes to speaking about any minority who is conservative,” Meghan McCain responded.

“Combine this ignorance of history with the far left posturing that tries to create a uni-cause that brings the disparate agendas and activists of the left, and you end up with bigotry of the worst sort,” Hugh Hewitt said. “This is an example of why Democrats are circling the drain in so many places.”

“I can’t believe no one there told her how racist her sign is. Wth,” another critic said.

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​Arlington gop protester, Arlington liberal protest, Racist liberals, Politics, Attack on winsome earle-sears 

Competition has always been cutthroat in the AI development space, but until now, the companies at the frontier have always been similar in one way — they are companies run by people. Now, however, the artificial intelligence community is facing a potential seismic shift with Elon Musk’s new venture Macrohard.

A “tongue-in-cheek” wordplay on xAI’s competitor Microsoft, Macrohard will purportedly be a software company entirely run and managed by AI, threatening to make software companies as we know them obsolete.

‘It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!’

On Friday, Elon Musk explained the idea of the venture in an X post: “Join @xAI and help build a purely AI software company called Macrohard. It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real! In principle, given that software companies like Microsoft do not themselves manufacture any physical hardware, it should be possible to simulate them entirely with AI.”

RELATED: The countdown to artificial superintelligence begins: Grok 4 just took us several steps closer to the point of no return

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

One user on X explained that this was a groundbreaking evolution in AI. “If successful, Macrohard isn’t competing with Microsoft — it’s dissolving the very need for software corporations as human institutions,” the account said.

“The joke hides the scar[y] truth: ‘Macrohard’ = the first AI-native megacorp. And whoever builds it won’t just disrupt Microsoft — they’ll render the whole concept of a software company obsolete.”

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the trademark application was filed on August 1, 2025. The application is currently awaiting assignment to an examining attorney but has met the minimum requirements to move forward. However, the official licensing process may take up to 13 months to complete, according to the USPTO website.

While the official venture trademark application was made earlier this month, Musk appears to have had the idea for the name for years. In 2021, Musk posted, “Macrohard >> Microsoft.”

Microsoft did not respond to Return’s request for comment.

​Tech, Microsoft, Macrohard, Uspto, Artificial intelligence, Ai, Software companies, Xai 

President Donald Trump’s effective crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital is beginning to catch the attention of his political opponents.

Trump told reporters Friday that he has received calls from Democrats across the country asking him to clean up their cities the same way he did in Washington, D.C. In early August, Trump took bold action by federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department and deploying the National Guard, quickly reducing violent crime across the city.

‘Half of them got mugged and they don’t want to get mugged again.’

“When we’re ready, we’ll go in and we’ll straighten out Chicago just like we did in D.C.,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “Chicago is very dangerous. … I hate to see what’s happened to Chicago. Chicago was our greatest city, actually.”

“We’ve already had calls from other cities, quiet calls, calls from Democrats,” Trump added. “‘We’d love you to come here,’ because they’ve lost control of their cities.”

RELATED: Trump to patrol DC streets alongside law enforcement amid crime crackdown

When asked which Democrats specifically extended the invitation to the president, Trump declined to specify.

“I’m not going to say because I don’t want them to lose their elections,” Trump said. “But we’ve had calls from Democrats and calls from people generally: ‘We’d love you to come here.’ Because we’ll straighten out the problems.”

Trump clarified that Chicago “will probably be next” after D.C.’s crime is under control, followed by New York City.

RELATED: President Trump’s DC crime crackdown is getting results

“The people in Chicago … are screaming for us to come,” Trump said.

“African-American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, ‘Please, President Trump, come to Chicago.’ … I think Chicago will be our next, and then we’ll help with New York,” he continued.

Trump also highlighted the media’s hypocritical coverage of the crime crackdown, pointing out that even his harshest critics are benefiting from the administration’s efforts.

“A lot of these people that you see on television, including the people in this audience, they’ll say bad things about me,” Trump said, pointing to the reporters. “And then they’ll say, ‘Thank God he’s here.’ Because half of them got mugged, and they don’t want to get mugged again.”

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​Donald trump, Trump administration, White house, Oval office, Fake news media, Mainstream media, Washington dc, Crime, Washington dc crime, National guard, Metropolitan police department, Chicago, New york city, Politics 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is continuing its efforts to deport the most dangerous, violent criminal illegal aliens from the United States.

ICE issued an immigration detainer against Noel Gerardo Niz-Marroquin after he was accused of assaulting a pregnant woman in Florida this week, according to a Friday press release from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by Blaze News.

‘What kind of depraved individual beats on a pregnant woman?’

Niz-Marroquin, a 19-year-old illegal alien from Guatemala, illegally crossed the southern border on March 14, 2022, and was subsequently released into the country by the Biden administration, the press release stated.

ICE placed a detainer against Niz-Marroquin to ensure that he would “not be released into American communities to terrorize more innocent victims.” This action follows his arrest and charges of aggravated battery against a pregnant woman due to an altercation that took place over the weekend.

During the incident that resulted in his arrest, the victim stated that she used a kitchen knife to defend herself. She claimed that Niz-Marroquin repeatedly beat her.

RELATED: ‘Flood the zone’: ICE fires back at Boston Mayor Wu’s sanctuary defiance

Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Niz-Marroquin, who sustained non-life-threatening stab wounds, was treated at a nearby hospital before being transferred to the Martin County Jail. He is being held on a $20,000 bond, according to WOFL.

“What kind of depraved individual beats on a pregnant woman?” a senior DHS official stated. “Criminal illegal aliens who endanger and victimize the most vulnerable in our society must never be allowed to remain free to harm American citizens. ICE’s swift actions to issue an arrest detainer ensure this individual is never allowed to terrorize American communities again.”

RELATED: Illegal alien accused of killing 3 dodged deportation, stayed in US claiming fear of India; DHS slams Newsom’s ‘asinine’ rule

Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The DHS noted that 70% of ICE arrests are “illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.”

“ICE continues to prioritize the arrest and removal of violent offenders and criminal aliens who pose the greatest threat to public safety,” the press release read. “DHS law enforcement is protecting American communities every day from another senseless tragedy like this taking place in another town, to another family.”

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​News, Illegal immigration, Illegal immigration crisis, Immigration crisis, Immigration, Department of homeland security, Dhs, Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice, Florida, Ice detainer, Politics 

The story surrounding Caitlin Clark’s mysterious injury keeps evolving, yet Clark has been physically active while she’s supposedly in recovery.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock believes that like other female sports stars before her, she may be suffering from a mental health decline.

“Caitlin Clark has disappeared and vanished. She doesn’t talk to reporters. We’re getting no legitimate information from anybody in the Indiana Fever organization. This is the biggest star in sports, and other than a Sue Bird podcast, we hear nothing,” Whitlock says.

“And so, in my view, they’ve put out some information to throw us off the trail. This is part of the cover-up of, like, there’s something weird going on with Caitlin Clark. … I don’t think this is all physical,” he continues.

Whitlock believes mental issues are a far more common reason for female athletes to “disappear” than the physical issues the public is sold.

“You remember Simone Biles, Tokyo Olympics in 2021, due to COVID, withdrew from the final team event because of pressure. You remember Naomi Osaka, 2021 French Open, withdrew because of pressure, dealing with media, and fan abuse,” Whitlock explains.

“Do you remember Ronda Rousey — gets her butt kicked UFC 193, 2015, admits she was suicidal after losing to Holly Holm. Raven Saunders, shot-putter 2016 Rio Olympics — mental health deteriorated, considered suicide. Serena Williams — several occasions depression and later postpartum depression,” he continues.

“This is commonplace. I’m not ridiculing; I’m not belittling. I’m throwing it out there for you to consider. These women trying to be men in sports, trying to deal with all the pressure that comes with carrying a lead, negotiations for TV rights, living up to your responsibilities to Nike as a spokesperson, dealing with the social media pushback and feedback and toxicity and negativity that goes along with it,” he says, “they tap out.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Upload, Video, Camera phone, Video phone, Free, Sharing, Youtube.com, Fearless with jason whitlock, Fearless, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Caitlin clark, Caitlin clark injury, Indiana fever, Womens sports, Womens basketball, Wnba 

The Christian faith has been a guiding light in America’s story, from the courage and conviction of our nation’s founders to the vibrant communities of today. But it’s far more than a historical cornerstone. Faith remains a vital force today, uniting people through shared values, hope, and a deep love for the principles that make America extraordinary.

Today, a renewed hunger for faith is stirring across the nation. From rising Bible sales to growing interest in spiritual content, people are seeking connection and meaning like never before. Blaze Media is thrilled to meet this moment with our “Sunday Revival” series, bringing inspiring Sunday services from prominent pastors directly to your screen, fostering faith and community wherever you are.

Starting this Sunday, August 24, BlazeTV+ subscribers can access full church services on demand every Sunday at 8 a.m. ET, available under the “Sunday Revival” show playlist.

Sunday’s launch will offer church services from:

Prestonwood Baptist Church, led by Pastor Jack GrahamWorld Outreach Church, led by Pastor Allen JacksonLakepointe Church, led by Pastor Josh HowertonGodspeak Calvary Chapel, led by Pastor Rob McCoy

To offer the most enriching experience for our audience, we plan to expand this lineup with additional services featuring America’s most trusted Christian leaders.

It is our sincerest hope that you will join us on Sunday mornings for worship and teaching that grounds us in truth and reminds us of where our hope lies despite the world’s brokenness.

If you’re not already subscribed, go to BlazeTV.com/revival and use promo code REVIVAL to get $20 off your subscription.

To get a taste of our “Sunday Revival” series, check out the trailer below.

​Blazetv, Jack graham, Allen jackson, Josh howerton, Rob mccoy, Christianity, Christian, Bible, God, Jesus, Jesus christ, Worship, Sunday revival 

By now we’ve all seen the video. An Indian man driving an 18-wheeler on the Florida Turnpike attempts an illegal U-turn, carelessly pulling his rig across two lanes of traffic. A minivan traveling at highway speed crashes into the trailer, killing all three of its occupants.

The horrific August 12 accident has dominated headlines and social media for the past week and seems to have struck a very raw nerve in Americans across the country.

It’s about stopping a system that endangers the public, destroys good jobs, and shows open contempt for the skill and sacrifice of America’s truckers.

Hardest to forget is the face of the driver, one Harjinder Singh. Thanks to driver-facing camera footage obtained and released by the trucking industry YouTube channel “Bonehead Truckers,” we can watch Singh up close as he makes his fatal decision.

It’s shocking to observe that Singh fails to check for oncoming traffic before executing his dangerous maneuver. More shocking still is the utter lack of emotion he displays in the seconds after the minivan has plowed into his trailer.

Even once he exits his cab and surveys the carnage, Singh remains unnervingly expressionless. In a widely circulated photo of Singh standing outside his truck and staring into the camera, he appears to show no remorse or emotion of any kind. In fact, he looks almost defiant.

License to kill

A careless — and seemingly uncaring — illegal immigrant worker destroying the lives of three Americans. The incident immediately went viral. The facts of the case, once they emerged, only added fuel to the fire.

While Singh was driving under a California-issued commercial driver’s license, he was in the United States illegally, crossing from Mexico back in 2018. Washington state illegally issued him a CDL first, which California unquestioningly honored when Singh went to work for a company based there. Republicans and Democrats quickly began to fight over who should take the blame for Singh remaining in America.

According to California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), his state may have issued Singh a “limited-term, non-domiciled” CDL in 2024, but it was the Trump administration that allowed him to stay in America in the first place.

Department of Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin countered that the first Trump administration rejected Singh’s work authorization in 2020, only to have President Biden grant it in 2021. A spokesman for Newsom then retorted that Singh’s work permit was renewed this April.

For his part, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) placed the blame squarely on Newsom and his state’s sanctuary policies.

— (@)

Blame to spare

But DeSantis is as much to blame for the highways of America becoming death traps as is Newsom, or a number of other governors. Picking on Newsom or DeSantis misses the point, although they could be doing more to clean up their respective state DOTs and DMVs.

Gavin Newsom’s DMV and DOT in California have been egregious on this issue and remain defiant in enforcing President Trump’s executive order on enforcing English language proficiency.

Research by American Truckers United shows that these two states are among at least 10 that, after President Biden’s 2021 “Trucking Task Force,” issued an unusually high number of “limited-term” or “non-domicile” CDLs to recent arrivals — many with questionable work credentials or, like Harjinder Singh, through sob stories designed to avoid deportation.

Florida, in particular, has seen a major CDL bribery scheme, in which hundreds of licenses were sold for cash without exams or skill tests. The state also harbors a cottage industry of substandard trucking schools. One graduate, Jean Marie St. Lot, a recent immigrant from Haiti, admitted after a deadly 2021 Texas crash that his three-week course had taught him nothing about winter driving.

No English, no problem

California has its own network of poor-quality schools, some even offering classes in Punjabi, despite the federal requirement that commercial drivers be proficient in English. That’s why President Trump’s April executive order reinstating the English language proficiency rule was so significant.

Since June, the DOT has sidelined 1,500 illiterate drivers, according to Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. But with over 400,000 new CDLs issued in the year after Biden’s task force — many to drivers who couldn’t meet basic standards — removing 1,500 is barely a start. Singh himself was pulled over in New Mexico just weeks before his fatal Florida crash.

It was not until after the fatal crash that Singh’s command of English was put to the test. According to the DOT, Singh “failed the [ELP] assessment, providing correct responses to just two of 12 verbal questions and only accurately identifying one of 4 highway traffic signs.”

‘Shortage’ scam

This outrage goes beyond one illegal alien with a fraudulent CDL. The entire industry is being hollowed out by foreign drivers who lack training, language skills, and often legal status.

The American Trucking Association has fueled this crisis for decades, peddling the false narrative of a “driver shortage” to justify endless subsidies for CDL mills. Instead of raising pay to retain drivers, mega-carriers embraced turnover rates above 100%, cycling through cheap recruits while pocketing taxpayer money.

Today, that model is reinforced by NGOs and nonprofits aligned with Biden-era immigration policies.

Tax haul

Writing at her Substack, Highway Veritas, independent trucking industry researcher Danielle Chaffin notes that the system deliberately channels taxpayer dollars into programs for “fresh recruits” — immigrants, refugees, foster youth, and “justice-involved individuals” (what we used to call ex-convicts) — who qualify for federally funded workforce schemes. More recruits mean more subsidies, which keep the churn alive.

Who benefits? Recent arrivals often go to work for their fellow immigrants, who have built huge networks of small trucking companies by exploiting every available loophole.

Many haul freight for Amazon through its Relay subcontracting system, where pay is far lower than what American truckers once earned. The results are predictable: tragedies like the Austin crash this March, when Ethiopian driver Solomun Araya — licensed only four months — plowed into stopped traffic, killing five, including all four members of a young family with children, and injuring 12 others.

RELATED: Highway to hell: Mass influx of foreign-born truckers cause carnage on American roads

Gina Ferazzi/Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

Off the hook

These small carriers are often “chameleon carriers,” changing names and registrations to dodge regulators, sometimes literally scribbling new numbers on taped-up paper signs. They collapse one LLC when violations pile up and reappear under another the next day, with the same trucks and the same drivers.

As Chaffin puts it in her excellent piece on chameleons, “The trucking industry remains one of the few places in America where a company can get shut down for killing someone … and be back in business tomorrow.”

Transportation Secretary Duffy has opened an investigation into the flood of questionable CDLs. But focusing on drivers alone won’t solve the crisis. The real culprits are the companies — often foreign-owned — that exploit corrupt licensing systems, cut corners on training, and then feed cheap labor into supply chains for corporate giants like Amazon.

The truck stops here?

Americans are sick of watching their loved ones die on roads made dangerous by this racket. This isn’t about which governor governs worse or about empty grandstanding over immigration policy. It’s about stopping a system that endangers the public, destroys good jobs, and shows open contempt for the skill and sacrifice of America’s truckers.

As this essay was going to print, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took to X to signal how seriously the administration takes this problem:

— (@)

Welcome news for this trucker, and no doubt for many others. I thank Secretary Rubio for honoring the work of so many trucking advocates who have been discussing these issues for years now.

But be aware: Turning off the flow doesn’t do very much about the hundreds of thousands of ill-trained, often illiterate, and dubiously licensed replacement “truckers” who are already here.

We look forward to seeing Secretary Duffy work with presumptive new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration head Derek Barrs to remove these dangerous operators from our industry. They are a clear and present danger to the lives of American motorists, and they must be taken off the road for good.

​Trucking industry, Truck drivers, Florida turnpike crash, Lifestyle, Auto safety, Cdl, Donald trump, Gavin newsom, Ron desantis, Harjinder singh, Accident, Highway to hell 

President Donald Trump’s administration is strengthening its vetting of foreign nationals in the United States.

On Thursday, the State Department announced plans to review all of the more than 55 million current visa holders. Those individuals are subject to “continuous vetting” to ensure that they are permitted to be in the U.S., the department told the Associated Press.

‘[A quarter] of the country is foreign but the corporate class says we still need more.’

The audit will include looking for indicators of potential ineligibility, including overstays, criminal activity, public safety threats, and ties to terrorist activity. In the event the State Department determines an individual is ineligible, their visa will be revoked, and if they are currently in the U.S., they could be subject to deportation.

“We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance indicating a potential ineligibility,” the department stated.

The State Department has already revoked “more than twice as many visas, including nearly four times as many student visas, as during the same time period last year,” a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

RELATED: ‘A more direct solution’: State Department rolls out key strategy to prevent foreigners from overstaying their welcome

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“There is no national sovereignty in a country with 55 million people on visas and another 50 million illegals without them. Our entire system is a joke,” BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre wrote in a post on social media.

William Wolfe, the executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, responded to MacIntyre, stating, “100 million must go back.”

Since the 1970s, the U.S. has “on a roughly one-to-one ratio, traded an aborted American citizen baby for an imported foreigner,” Wolfe noted.

Charlie Kirk, founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, stated, “55 million legal. 20 million illegal. [A quarter] of the country is foreign but the corporate class says we still need more. Their ‘need’ will never be satisfied. They must be completely ignored and never taken seriously again.”

RELATED: Rubio takes action to prevent more foreigners from ‘endangering American lives’ with big rigs

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The same day that the State Department announced its plans to review all visa holders, Secretary Marco Rubio declared an immediate pause on “all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers.”

“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Rubio stated.

His announcement came after a crash in Florida last week involving an illegal alien truck driver. The driver made an illegal U-turn, which caused the trailer to jackknife and crush a minivan, resulting in the death of all three passengers inside.

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​News, Immigration crisis, Illegal immigration crisis, Immigration, Illegal immigration, Visas, State department, Department of state, Marco rubio, Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Visa holders, Visa, Foreign nationals, Politics 

What Jack Huttner misses most is the feeling that he and his ragtag band of activists, the SHAD Alliance, “could do anything.” The SHADs — shorthand for Sound-Hudson Against Atomic Development — were among the more visible of the 1970s environmentalists who took on energy modernity head-on. In Shoreham, New York; Seabrook, New Hampshire; Avila Beach, California; and dozens of other sites across the country, the SHAD Alliance and groups like it channeled the passions of young adulthood to deliver a simple message: No nukes.

By the late ’70s, resisting nuclear power had become a cultural fever, and at Shoreham, 60 miles east of New York City, the SHADs waged one of the era’s great battles. As New York Times coverage from June 4, 1979, depicts, the Shoreham protest drew an estimated 15,000 people airing their discontent with the building of a new nuclear power plant on the banks of Long Island Sound. From among the 15,000 demonstrators, police arrested more than 600 for breaching the construction site and, according to the Times, bombarding utility company workers with “dirt, stones, and soda cans.” At Seabrook, 50 miles north of Boston, similar scenes had played out in 1977 and 1978, with 10,000 protesters on hand and more than 2,000 arrested.

Compounding the environmental drawbacks of purging our grid of nuclear power, the alternatives bring dire geopolitical risks.

Emblematic of the cultural milieu from which the protests sprang, folk singers like Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie (Woody’s kid) were mainstays, enlivening the demonstrations with song. The anti-nuclear movement had by then become the rallying point for the counterculture — a magnet for activists without a cause.

As the Washington Post described amid the June 1978 Seabrook demonstrations, the core of the movement was “made up in part of antiwar activists who dropped out of middle-class life during the Vietnam war days and moved to the hills of New England and elsewhere.” One protester told the Post that the anti-nuclear movement was a feminist and lesbian issue. “The struggle against the rape of our earth by rich, white males,” she said, “is the same struggle as the struggle against the rape of our bodies and the rape of our lives.” Another admitted that he joined the movement not on account of environmental concerns, but for the “feeling of camaraderie and good vibrations.”

RELATED: Nuclear energy is clean and safe, so why do climate doomsayers ignore it?

Photo by Giannis Alexopoulos/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Seeger’s lyrics offer a window into the cloudy thinking of the day. For Seeger and the activists he inspired, humans had gone too far along the path to transforming nature. Driven by greed and conformity (give “Little Boxes” a listen), we’d become, in Seeger’s eyes, detestable. To Seeger, nuclear power was something of a culmination of our worst bourgeois impulses, emerging out of the war machine and promising a future of ever-greater consumption. Despite the fundamental differences in the technologies that enable them, Seeger slipped between opposition to nuclear weapons and opposition to peaceful nuclear energy without drawing any distinction. Splitting the atom, for Seeger, was a violation of the natural order.

Seeger’s perspective was consonant with that of academic Paul Ehrlich, who said in the 1980s that the achievement of nuclear fusion would be like “giving a machine gun to an idiot child” and of once-prominent environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin, who asserted that fusion technology would be “the worst thing that could happen to our planet.” Seeger, though, captured in his music the emotional foundations of nuclear resistance, invoking, if somewhat clumsily, both Hamlet and the book of Genesis in his song “Talking Atom”:

The question is this, when you boil it down:
To be or not to be!
That is the question
Atoms to atoms, and dust to dust
If the world makes A-bombs, something’s bound to bust.

Victory secured

Five decades on, it appears that Pete Seeger and Jack Huttner’s SHADs have won the long game.

Though certainly an international phenomenon, 1970s anti-nuclear activism has had particularly lasting effects in the United States. Between 1970 and 1990, the U.S. installed 95 gigawatts of nuclear power at plants in more than 20 states. But the eventual victory of the anti-nuclear activists had long since been sown. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, planned nuclear capacity additions began to slow in the late 1970s and were truncated further by fear surrounding the incident at the Three Mile Island plant in 1979. While the incident gave the movement wider visibility, it is crucial to note that it was in full swing well before Three Mile Island, as the Post’s 1978 coverage of Seabrook shows. By inculcating the American public with images of nuclear hellscapes, capitalizing on ignorance, and mastering procedural slowdowns, the movement ensured that the nuclear industry’s flowering would be brief. From 1979 through 1988, 67 power plant plans were canceled.

In the 20 years from 1996, not a single nuclear reactor came online in the U.S. In 2012, when there were 104 operating nuclear reactors, U.S. nuclear electricity generation capacity peaked at about 102 gigawatts. Today, only 93 reactors with a combined generation capacity of about 95 gigawatts remain in operation. Despite 10% of American reactors shutting down since 2012, nuclear has maintained a consistent share of total annual U.S. electricity generation (around 20%) through uprating, i.e., increasing generating capacity at existing reactors.

Even with uprating and re-licensing, nuclear power’s days could be numbered. U.S. reactors average more than 40 years of age, and crucial plants are being retired each year. The examples include California’s Diablo Canyon, which makes up 9% of the Golden State’s power but is slated for retirement. According to the EIA’s 2022 Annual Energy Outlook, nuclear’s contribution to U.S. power generation will be 50% lower than today by 2050. It is a tragic and ironic denouement, considering nuclear’s now-well-articulated energy advantages of density and dispatchability and its environmental advantage of being emissions-free.

But the strangling of nuclear energy directly causes innumerable problems.

The nuclear plateau and its subsequent decline is, one might argue, representative of the wider American economic stagnation. But far from being inevitable, as charges of “late-stage capitalism” would suggest, the great stagnation as represented by the nuclear stall-out is a product of evidence-be-damned cultural impulses — vibrations, as the 1978 Seabrook protester might say — aligned against human economic and technological advancement.

The SHAD-led action at Shoreham was perhaps the movement’s greatest triumph. Despite the investment of $5.5 billion and completion of construction and testing, Shoreham never opened. As the New York Times reported, “a lengthy dispute between the company and state and Suffolk County officials over emergency evacuation plans delayed issuance of a federal operating license until April 1989. By then, the company had agreed with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo to abandon the plant in exchange for rate increases and other financial compensation.”

The fate of the nuclear plant at Shoreham, the ruins of which can still be visited an hour east of the city, is an avatar of a persistent social plague.

From anti-war to anti-nuke to anti-house

While the SHADs concretized the movement with their siege of Shoreham, Connie Hogarth brought to the anti-nuclear fight a deeper philosophy, transcendentalism, that offered justification for the means. Like many of the anti-nuclear agitators, Hogarth earned her stripes in the anti-war movement, scoring her first arrest at a “die-in” outside the White House. Just two years after the U.S. was chased out of Saigon, Hogarth would find a more durable purpose waging what would become a lifelong crusade against nuclear energy.

Writing in the Times in 1977, Hogarth compared her arrest for trespassing at the Seabrook nuclear plant to Henry David Thoreau’s imprisonment for tax evasion. There was a moral imperative, Hogarth argued, to disrupt in any way possible the nuclear enterprise. Like Seeger, she did not distinguish between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, writing, explicitly, that both “are storing up the unthinkable potential for creating hell on earth.”

Hogarth’s career as a provocateur would endure far beyond Seabrook, with transcendentalist motivations underlying much of what she would accomplish — or, more accurately, prevent others from accomplishing. In 1979 she was arrested and imprisoned for 12 days for trespassing at New York’s Indian Point plant. Another dozen arrests would follow, as Hogarth acted out against a range of perceived injustices well into the 21st century. Though it would take four decades, Hogarth had the last laugh. Indian Point, which made up 13% of the Empire State’s power in 2019, was shut down in 2021, a year before Hogarth herself passed on at the age of 95.

Hogarth’s small-is-beautiful, back-to-nature, transcendental underpinnings continue to animate much of the anti-nuclear movement today, as they do the parallel social contagion that is commonly denoted as NIMBYism (Not in My Back Yard). While the fight against large-scale nuclear energy has come to a near-close, broader NIMBYism has become yet more prevalent — and damaging.

The recent Times profile of Marin County activist Susan Kirsch delves into the not-in-my-backyard psychology. Kirsch’s activism, like Hogarth’s, began with opposition to McNamara’s war and has been in search of a big wave to surf ever since.

Kirsch, now 77, is David Brooks’ archetypical bobo — the Bohemian turned bourgeoisie. She came of age when drifting from place to place railing against the powers that be didn’t preclude upward mobility. Once she’d had her fun, she settled into middle-class comfort, buying a house in what is now an unfathomably expensive zip code for all but the wealthiest Americans.

RELATED: Plugged in, checked out: The Dept. of Energy needs a reality surge

Photo by Walter Leporati/Getty Images

From that amenable perch, she has made life miserable, in her own small way, for others. With her personal pressure group Livable California, Kirsch has almost single-handedly prevented the development of new housing in her neighborhood, blocking one project for 18 years running.

As it was for Hogarth, smallness is a touchstone for Kirsch. “Using the language of centralized power is what charges me to do this,” Kirsch told the Times, “I think small is beautiful.” For Kirsch, unable to realize that she’s no longer the scrappy underdog, the fight is against what she sees as the tyranny of powerful outsiders. She wraps her opposition to development, the Times explains, in a “small c” conservative philosophy that a local government is better and more responsive to its citizens than a bigger one farther away.

In this perspective, of course, there is a kernel of truth. It’s natural to feel loyalty to your way of life and to want to uphold your aesthetic experience against the central planner’s bulldozer. Indeed, Kirsch’s strain of conservatism is consonant with some of the themes championed by English philosopher Roger Scruton and his environmental philosophy of oikophilia, or a love of one’s home. But approbation for Kirsch and her fellow travelers can only be but mild.

What began as a moral crusade to stop the napalming of villages and then channeled its attention against nuclear power has morphed into a banal procedural battle to secure community stagnation and the comfort of a privileged few. The error of those like Huttner, Hogarth, and Kirsch, who have gummed up our 21st-century economy, is that they have never trained a critical eye on their own beliefs. The anti-nuclear and anti-housing sentiments latent in today’s environmental movement are byproducts of Kirsch’s generation’s unbearable hubris. It is a generation that believes it never was, and can never be, wrong.

But wrong it is.

Stagnation’s cost

Myopia, complacency, and a curiosity deficit insulate Kirsch and her fellow travelers from the reams of evidence that their pet causes have harmful consequences that, if ever acknowledged, could only bring them shame.

Rather than unleashing the “hell on earth” Hogarth presaged, nuclear energy has now established a half-century record of extraordinary safety. While generating one-fifth of U.S. power and even higher proportions in countries like France, South Korea, and Japan, nuclear can be credited with reducing thousands of deaths annually that would otherwise have resulted from fossil-fuel-related air pollution and has caused almost no harm to human beings from the ostensible concern of radiation poisoning.

As Energy for Humanity explicates, the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdown caused by a tsunami has yet to show severe lasting harm in the population. No deaths have been attributed to radiation exposure, nor have radiation-induced changes in cancer rates surpassed the level required for statistical detection.

The 1986 Chernobyl accident, conversely, was a genuine disaster. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 28 emergency workers died in the first three months after the explosion from acute radiation sickness; two workers died in the explosion itself, and another emergency worker died of cardiac arrest. Lasting effects can be seen in Ukrainian mortality rates, which show that in radiation-contaminated areas, 26 people per 1,000 died in 2007, compared with 16 for the entire country.

Recent research, however, allays some of the gravest fears surrounding the long-term effects of radiation exposure. A 2021 study analyzing the genomes of 130 children conceived between 1987 and 2002 by at least one parent who had experienced gonadal radiation exposure related to the accident found no new germline mutations. And, hearteningly, two of the three engineers who volunteered to drain millions of gallons of water from beneath the burning reactor (an act of heroism dramatically portrayed in the 2019 HBO series) are still alive today. The third survived until 2005. When considering the tragedy of Chernobyl, it is important to recall that the disaster resulted from poor governance, not any inherent flaw in the technology.

Three Mile Island, far from marring nuclear’s record, confirmed its safety. As the Institute for Energy Research’s Paige Lambermont has written, the 1979 incident sparked public fear, but, as monitoring has proven, it never posed a real threat. “Because of cancer concerns following the accident,” Lambermont explains, “the Pennsylvania Department of Health maintained a registry of people living within five miles of Three Mile Island when the accident occurred. The 30,000-person list was kept up until mid-1997, when it was determined that there had been no unusual health trends or increased cancer cases in the area immediately surrounding the accident.”

Yet to this day, leading environmental groups like Greenpeace hold nuclear in the lowest regard possible. Greenpeace, in its own words, “has always fought — and will continue to fight — vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity.” The only solution, it argues, “is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.”

But the strangling of nuclear energy directly causes innumerable problems.

On the energy side of things, it has cost states like California a dispatchable (i.e., you can use it when you need it) power source and made them overly reliant on the variable output that comes from wind and solar facilities, leading to grid instability. Environmentally, the loss of nuclear perpetuates the use of more polluting fossil-fuel power sources and eats into natural ecosystems, due to exorbitant land demands for dilute wind and solar.

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The control room simulator at the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in Avila Beach, California.Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

According to 2017 research from Strata, the nuclear sites in the U.S. require an average of 0.901 acres per megawatt. Utility-scale solar, meanwhile, requires more than eight acres per megawatt. California’s Solar Star facility, the largest solar power generation site in the U.S., takes up more than 3,000 acres to reach its capacity of 580 megawatts. The Diablo Canyon nuclear facility has four times the capacity yet is sited on just 1,000 acres. Moreover, Solar Star’s power only comes on when the sun shines, while Diablo Canyon’s can be relied upon day and night. Put another way, Solar Star disrupts three times more natural space than Diablo Canyon does, but can only generate a quarter of the power of Diablo Canyon in the best of circumstances — hardly an environmental bargain.

The California housing blockade, similarly, yields perverse land-use outcomes. While NIMBYs tout low-density as low-impact, the opposite is true. Because of the stifling of developments like those Kirsch opposes in Marin County, more families find themselves settling in the warmer inland areas of the state, using additional power to cool their homes in the summer and additional fuel to commute by car to the economic hubs in the Bay Area. Throughout Southern California, and indeed much of the U.S., the same story is playing out.

The issues have become so pronounced in the Golden State that even Governor Gavin Newsom (D), not one to regularly upset the progressive coalition, has suggested that state energy regulators rethink the planned closure of California’s last remaining nuclear reactors and has directed ire against the anti-housing NIMBYs he says are “destroying the state.”

Compounding the environmental drawbacks of purging our grid of nuclear power, the alternatives bring dire geopolitical risks.

On this point it is instructive to look across the Atlantic to Germany. Germany, like the U.S., experienced massive anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s, but saw nuclear energy grow in importance nevertheless. As late as 2011, Germany got a quarter of its power from nuclear reactors. Following the Fukushima incident, however, Germany’s anti-nuclear movement seized the upper hand. As part of the country’s Energiewende, it has reduced nuclear power generation severely and planned to phase it out entirely.

But doing so has resulted in a paralyzing dependency on Russian natural gas. For the past decade, Germany has been the largest export market for Gazprom, a company in which the Russian state has a majority stake and effective control. Not exactly the position Germany would like to be in with Russia waging war just beyond NATO’s fringe.

The United States, likewise, could find itself dangerously dependent if nuclear energy isn’t a centerpiece of any planned transition to low-carbon energy. In the U.S. case, China would be the most likely beneficiary, as it supplies the bulk of the key materials that go into batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels. “The rapid deployment of clean energy technologies as part of energy transitions,” the International Energy Agency wrote in its 2021 report on key energy inputs, “implies a significant increase in demand for minerals.” Across a wide swath of these so-called energy transition minerals, China sits in the driver’s seat. In the rare-earths category, for example, China produces 60% of the world’s total and processes 90%. IEA describes China’s position vis-à-vis rare-earths as “dominance … across the value chain.”

So in addition to causing environmental harm by blocking nuclear, the ostensible anti-authoritarians like Hogarth and Greenpeace are playing the United States into the hands of some of the world’s most repressive regimes.

Compassion for Kirsch, Hogarth, and their somewhat quaint outlook gives way to horror when one considers their human and environmental costs: that California childhoods are spent in the back seats of cars despite the blessing of the world’s most salutary climate, that families are being broken and scattered across the inland West for want of living space, that the state’s inland desert ecology is being paved over for far-flung housing and plastered with miles of metal-and-glass solar arrays, that blocking nuclear provides de facto support to Moscow and Beijing.

The refusal to grapple with these issues makes anti-nuclear, anti-housing NIMBYism reminiscent of the set of concepts University of Cambridge researcher Rob Henderson has called “luxury beliefs.” Interestingly, the Post’s 1978 coverage of the Seabrook protest involved a similar angle, quoting a refreshingly self-aware recent Dartmouth grad who recognized that “it’s a luxury to be able to be concerned about nuclear power.” The way Henderson sees it, luxury beliefs are badges of identity that are worn by people who will never bear the cost of their implementation, but who can attain from them status among their in-groups.

Henderson’s characterization fits squarely upon the anti-nuclear, anti-housing outlook. For the bobos, performative transcendentalism remains en vogue. As Huttner’s longing for the good vibrations of the ’70s, Hogarth’s obituary, and the Kirsch profile reveal, activism on these issues is a defining feature, perhaps the defining feature, of the activists’ sense of self. They display as feathers in their caps the successful disruption of scientific, economic, and social advances. For an aging property owner in idyllic, temperate Marin County like Kirsch, stagnation is all upside.

For the rest of us, however, a better course must be charted: an approach to energy, environmental, and local development questions that holds space for the proper love of home but that recognizes the evidence of NIMBYism’s costs and rejects the divine right of stagnation.

By the light of a reasoned oikophilia, the twin veto crusades against nuclear and new housing wilt. Though the vibrations may say otherwise, the legalization of nuclear power and of residential density are perhaps the two most crucial planks in an agenda for improving environmental outcomes, improving the daily experience of Americans on the economic margins, and preserving the best elements of our shared home.

​Tech, Nuclear energy, China, Nimby, Oikophilia, Nuclear power, Environment, Environmental activism, Connie hogarth, Susan kirsch 

Edward Coristine, the young engineer known as “Big Balls” who previously worked for the Department of Government Efficiency, was beaten to a pulp during an attempted carjacking on Aug. 3 in the national capital.

According to the incident report, a group of around 10 juveniles approached the 19-year-old and his girlfriend, making clear their intention to steal Coristine’s vehicle.

Coristine pushed his girlfriend to safety, then squared off with the thugs, who piled on and left him bloodied on the roadside. Police apprehended two suspects at the scene — a 15-year-old male and a 15-year-old female of Hyattsville, Maryland — and charged both with unarmed carjacking.

Whereas President Donald Trump figured the incident was bad enough to finally bring an end to the lawlessness in Washington, D.C., federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department and deploying the National Guard, a Biden-nominated judge alternatively decided on Thursday it wasn’t worth keeping two of the suspected attackers in custody.

‘School and home, that’s it.’

Kendra Briggs, an associate judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, informed the female suspect that she would move to a youth shelter house and informed the male suspect that he would get to hang out at his mother’s home, reported the Washington Post, which was granted access to the Thursday hearing on the condition that it not reveal the identities of the suspects.

Up until this week, the suspects were being held at D.C.’s Youth Services Center, an 88-bed secure facility that keeps detainees under continuous supervision. Although the suspects will enjoy relative freedom, they will still be subjected to electronic monitoring and a 24-hour curfew.

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Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Biden judge decided to let the male suspect stay with his mother because the shelter house was supposedly too far from his school.

“I don’t want to put hardship on your family,” Briggs said to the apparent thug.

“School and home, that’s it,” said Briggs, whose nomination was opposed by Republican Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.). “The fact that this court is stepping you down from Youth Services Center is a serious step.”

‘The Law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these ‘minors’ as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14.’

The attorney for the male suspect boasted that to his knowledge, his client had not yet misbehaved at the Youth Services Center.

Prosecutors suggested that the female suspect, who faces trial next week for a separate case in Maryland, is a danger to the community and a flight risk.

Despite the prosecutors’ concerns and acknowledging that the female suspect had “major truancy issues,” the Biden appointee still decided to reduce her level of detention.

Briggs told the suspects that they are not allowed to possess weapons and are to stay out of other people’s vehicles unless they have permission from the owner.

The judge’s order flies in the face of Trump’s expectation.

Following Coristine’s attack, Trump noted, “Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released.”

“They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now!” the president continued. “The Law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these ‘minors’ as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14.”

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​Edward coristine, Big balls, Coristine, Washington, Dc, Crime, Juveniles, Youth, Kendra briggs, Briggs, Democrat, Judge, Leftism, District of columbia, Donald trump, Politics