Category: blaze media

The Trump administration has revoked the visas of more than 50 Mexican officials and politicians for alleged connections to various cartels. More officials are likely to lose their visas as the administration looks to both cut off the cartels and increase pressure on the Mexican government to take a harder line against the criminal elements within the country.

‘This situation occurs in a complex binational context.’

In a statement to Reuters, a senior U.S. State Department official said that visas held by foreign officials can be revoked “at any time” if the official is engaging in “activities that run contrary to America’s national interest.”

Mexico is not the first Latin American country to have officials lose their U.S. visas. According to the Guardian, more than 20 judges in Brazil have had their visas revoked, and 14 politicians and businessmen in Costa Rica have lost their visas.

Only a few Mexican officials have publicly stated that their visas have been revoked, as visa records are private under U.S. law. The governor of Baja California, Marina del Pilar Avila, stated in May that both she and her husband had their visas revoked. In a post on X, she wrote that “this situation occurs in a complex binational context.”

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Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / Contributor via Getty Images

Her husband, Carlos Torres Torres, is a former member of the House of Deputies, the lower house of Mexico’s Congress. Both Torres and Avila are members of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Morena party.

These visa crackdowns are part of a wider Trump administration policy of taking a hard line against the criminal elements in South and Central America. In addition to increased diplomatic pressure on Mexico and other Latin American countries, the administration has deployed Navy assets to the Caribbean and conducted lethal strikes on boats being used by cartels to smuggle drugs.

Despite reports that many of the Mexican officials who have lost their visas are members of the ruling Morena party, the U.S. State Department told Reuters that the U.S. has “a good working relationship” with the Mexican government and “look[s] forward to continuing to advance our bilateral relationship in the interest of the America first foreign policy agenda.”

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​Mexico, Cartels, Visas, Politics 

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is sharing the wealth with U.S. allies in Europe and NATO.

Since late 2024, Zuckerberg’s tech giant has made Llama — its own large language model — available to foreign countries within the Five Eyes security partnership between the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Now, Meta is expanding the access to other countries while partnering with advanced-AI military contractors.

‘We’re building for completely on-device deployment of AI.’

Wearable products, AI programs, and other tools are being shared with allies in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea, in order to enhance “decision-making, mission-specific capabilities, and operational efficiency,” Meta wrote.

The technology includes a partnership with Anduril, Palmer Luckey’s industry-leading augmented reality defense company.

Calling the effort the “largest of its kind,” Meta’s partnership is meant to equip soldiers with enhanced decision-making capabilities. This is apparent with Anduril’s recently released EagleEye, an AI/AR warfighter helmet.

RELATED: ‘Swarms of killer robots’: Former Biden official says US military is afraid of using AI

EdgeRunner AI is used on a military laptop. Image provided to Blaze News courtesy of EdgeRunner

EagleEye represents the best of what the video game world has to offer, brought to life.

Not only does the helmet display directional mapping as if belonging to a gamer dropped into a first-person shooting game, but it also provides a form of X-ray vision that allows users to see allies and enemies on the map through coordinated data.

The AR tech also utilizes spatial audio and frequency detection to alert operators of hidden threats. Rear and flank sensors also ensure that the allied soldier is not ambushed.

Anduril’s Lattice AI is also making waves, and it too looks like something gamers will recognize.

Using data from drones, sensors, and satellites, it creates a real-time 3D battlefield map. The program boasts a wide range of deployable formats, including detecting battlefield threats or intrusions on border security.

In November 2024, Meta opened-sourced its Llama model for the U.S. military and its contractors to build upon. That move is now paying off, as Meta will now share what the company EdgeRunner has built, a closed-ended chatbot for soldiers.

RELATED: ‘Insane radical leftists’ are gone: Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey reunite for US military project

Anduril Lattice battlefield software. Photo by John Keeble/Getty Images

EdgeRunner AI is essentially a search function for soldiers; it can be run as a local program on almost any consumer-grade device, and according to Meta, it can be used to identify safe locations for aircraft or even accurately translate languages.

“This is all part of our joint effort to ensure the warfighter has access to advanced AI technology at the tactical edge,” an EdgeRunner spokesperson told Return. “What’s especially unique about our work with Meta is that we’re building for completely on-device deployment of AI, meaning it’s running locally on your laptop, workstation, or smartphone, disconnected from the cloud.”

This method avoids the necessity for uninterrupted cloud connectivity, which helps keep the data out of the enemy’s hands, too.

The AI program has an all-encompassing goal and is specifically designed to be adaptable to different job titles. This means it will be coupled with logistics, maintenance, and combat roles.

Meta is spreading its footprint worldwide and said because of this, it hopes allies will deploy the AI ethically, responsibly, and in accordance with “relevant international law and fundamental principles.”

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​Return, Zuckerberg, Meta, Anduril, Palmer lucky, U.s. military, Department of war, America, Nato, Allies, Tech 

Left-wing activists have expressed their outrage at what they say is an act of erasure against the queer community by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on political murals.

Abbott had given cities 30 days to remove political murals from public spaces, and the Texas Department of Transportation reiterated the order to the city of Austin.

‘An absolute breach on freedom of speech and a breach on our queer history.’

The city agreed to remove the Pride rainbow crosswalk on Fourth Street as well as a Black Lives Matter mural on Eleventh Street. They were at risk of losing state and federal funding if they didn’t comply with the order.

But local activists are incensed.

“It feels like a slap in the face to the community,” Austin Pride president Micah Andress said to KTBC-TV. “I don’t understand why this is political. It’s a rainbow crosswalk. It’s certainly not a safety hazard.”

Andress wants the city to resist the order and keep the crosswalk.

“If we’re as progressive as we say we are, and we have all the protections that the city says we do, we should be protecting this,” Andress said. “We shouldn’t be erasing it. We’re not going anywhere. We’ve always been here. We’ll always be here.”

“It is an absolute breach on freedom of speech and a breach on our queer history,” said Veronica Jones, a resident of Austin.

“It’s just important for every community, no matter what you believe, to have a space where you can be your authentic self and be celebrated,” said Chris Collier, another resident. “I would hate to see this block become any less colorful.”

RELATED: Drag queens outraged after rainbow crosswalk is obliterated by Gov. DeSantis: ‘Our pride is being erased’

Others are upset at the removal of the Black Lives Matter street mural.

“Just because they want to erase something from the street, it doesn’t erase the sentiment, it doesn’t erase the message,” said Austin Justice Coalition founder Chas Moore. “The message remains the same, that Black lives matter, Black artists matter.”

A similar order in Florida garnered the same responses from drag queens in Miami Beach.

“Our pride is getting erased just like that,” said a drag queen named CC Glitzer. “It’s very painful.”

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​Pride crosswalks, Abbott vs crosswalks, Lgbtq crosswalk, Public murals, Politics 

The United States has been cracking down on drug trafficking and other illegal activities in the Western Hemisphere, specifically targeting Venezuela in recent months. Trump has consistently announced airstrikes against “narcoterrorist” boats, and Tuesday saw the most recent tactical strike.

Trump announced on Tuesday on Truth Social that the Department of War carried out an airstrike against a vessel off the coast of Venezuela, killing those aboard.

‘The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold.’

“Under my Standing Authorities as Commander-in-Chief, this morning, the Secretary of War, ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility — just off the Coast of Venezuela,” he said in the post.

Trump explained the reason for the strike and its aftermath: “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route. The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed.”

RELATED: Liberals pounce to defend drug cartels after Trump reveals strike on drug-running gang members near Venezuela

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Trump’s post about the airstrike comes days after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the creation of a “new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force” in USSOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility. The mission of the task force, according to Hegseth, is “to crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe.”

USSOUTHCOM, or U.S. Southern Command, is one of 11 combatant commands under the Department of War. USSOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility includes the land mass of Latin America south of Mexico, the waters adjacent to Central and South America, and the Caribbean Sea. It is also responsible for securing the Panama Canal, according to its website.

“The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold,” Hegseth added.

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​Politics, Pete hegseth, Donald trump, Venezuela, Secretary of war, Department of war, Ussouthcom, Drug trafficking, Dto 

Drone defense systems are far more developed than the average person may be aware of.

In December 2024, there were estimates of over 5,000 reports of drone sightings off the East Coast of the United States, including huge clusters in New Jersey.

‘We’re going to start to see the increasing development of … directed-energy weapons or high-powered microwave systems.’

Despite the mass confusion surrounding the mystery drones, citizens were told there existed no national security threat and even, at times, that what they saw was probably just a plane.

However, the Joe Biden administration did not seem to let Americans know at the time that the Department of Defense (now Department of War) is far more equipped to handle drone swarms than is commonly understood.

This was made apparent by Jake Adler, the biotech entrepreneur behind the clay-based hemostatic Kingsfoil. The young businessman revealed to Blaze News that drone warfare has prompted the use of direct-energy weapons that are being quickly developed to lower defense costs.

The ongoing threat has resulted in a type of “escalation tax,” Adler explained, in which the constant use of drones has necessitated the creation and deployment of cheaper defense mechanisms.

Adler referred to companies like Allen Control Systems, which have taken massive strides in developing new methods of knocking drones out of the sky. Some companies are even using microwave technology.

RELATED: Chinese informant allegedly alerted FBI to Wuhan lab leak in early 2020: Report

A RADIS radio detection intervention system of the German armed forces. Photo by TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP via Getty Images

ACS’ Bullfrog system is fairly simple: an autonomous weapon targets unidentified aerial vehicles and blows them away with high-caliber rounds, all while being exceptionally portable, at just 165 pounds for some models.

Then there’s Epirus, which offers “long-pulse high-power microwave systems with AI and advanced electronics to protect and sustain civilization.”

Simply put, Epirus uses energy weapons to neutralize dozens of drones at a time and has successfully completed trials in which it took out 49 of 49 and 61 of 61 targets successfully and simultaneously.

“We’re going to start to see the increasing development of countermeasure systems coming from companies like Eperis, which are doing directed-energy weapons or high-powered microwave systems,” Adler noted. “So we’re kind of seeing the development of novel platforms that can more effectively knock down, you know, a hundred drones for five cents.”

The use of these systems tied into Adler’s broader point that the neutralizing of drone threats forces a reliance on human fighters.

RELATED: The government is monitoring your feces — to protect you, of course

A Chinese drone used by Polish Army soldiers during a training exercise. Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Adler’s company Pilgrim has been focusing on bolstering soldier capability in the battlefield, and in addition to its medical technology, he has long looked to target another sensitive area: sleep.

‘Warfighters have really bad sleep,” Adler offered. “A great deal of them are sleep-deprived. One of the challenges is that you’re taking an 18-year-old … and putting them into a highly stressful environment where the expectation is, realistically, very limited sleep. And that’s sort of around the age where sleep patterns are still getting reinforced, right? So you’re kind of disrupting the natural evolution or really the natural growth of the brain, which can kind of create challenges around combat effectiveness [and] accuracy.”

This “laundry list” of externalities that are affected by sleep are on Adler’s to-do list, and he has looked to get away from the use of pharmaceuticals (stimulants and sedatives) in order to tackle those issues.

Through a previous project called NeuSleep (now officially on pause), Adler had soldiers use a sleeping mask equipped with brain stimulation and monitoring devices for heart rate, blood oxygenation, and sleep stages. The device would stimulate the brain to modify sleep patterns, allegedly making three-hour naps feel more like five or six hours of sleep.

“We’d be able to monitor if you were in REM or if you’re in light sleep. … We could basically shock you and improve your sleep quality. The joke that we had internally was that we were shocking people to sleep, which didn’t really get very far in terms of marketing,” he laughed.

Adler, like many others, solidified the idea that the Trump administration has placed increased emphasis on developing its network of companies that place high importance on advanced technologies for the individual and treat the soldier as the focus.

Companies like Pilgrim, Anduril, and EdgeRunner AI are moving at light speed, and the general populace is blissfully unaware. Systems that are in place to protect citizens are now under scrutiny from young entrepreneurs who have signaled that a lot of military and defense tech is slow-moving or out of date, and they want to do something about it.

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​Return, Drones, Anduril, Energy weapons, China, Department of war, Microwaves, Trump, Tech 

Allie Beth Stuckey, BlazeTV host of “Relatable,” is receiving praise from across the internet after she debated 20 so-called “liberal Christians.”

Last month, Stuckey participated in the latest installment of Jubilee’s “Surrounded” series. The format is simple: Stuckey presents four “claims,” and participants take turns debating her until a majority of the participants vote that opponent out. Rinse and repeat for 20 minutes for each claim.

‘Allie Beth is a much better debater than I ever thought.’

These are the four “claims” that Stuckey presented:

The Bible says that marriage is only between one man and one woman.Abortion is a grave moral evil.Empathy can be toxic and lead to sin.Progressivism and Christianity are at odds.

Most of the counter-arguments to Stuckey’s claims were not novel. But what made this Jubilee debate different from previous installments was, for the most part, the respect that participants showed Stuckey through their disagreements.

Not only did most of the participants debate Stuckey with respect, but most of them sought to understand Stuckey’s positions. And unlike previous Jubilee debates, none of Stuckey’s interlocutors melted down or reduced the debate to personal attacks and mudslinging.

Of course, most of Stuckey’s opponents held their ground — as did she. But Stuckey still managed to find common ground with many of them — and a few even ended up agreeing in principle with her claims.

Comments on the debate video were filled with praise, not only for the respect demonstrated between Stuckey and her interlocutors, but for Stuckey’s command of scripture and Christian theology and the grace that she showed each and every person.

Here are just some of the highlights:

“The difference between Christian’s debating Christian’s vs Christian’s debating non Christian’s is crazy. This was the most respectful debate on jubilee I’ve ever seen.””I’m not very religious and don’t know who any of this people are, but I have to confess this woman made me actually rethink my stands in abortion …““Allie just demonstrated 1 Peter 3:15 so well. This woman was prepared to give a defense and did so with gentleness and respect.““Allie Beth Stuckey was clear, understood her positions well, was winsome, respectful, humble, and stood her ground. Even if you disagree with her, she provided an excellent model for civil debate and represented her positions well.““Im not a religious person but… This was probably the most respectful debate episode I’ve seen on this channel and totally enjoyed it.““Allie Beth is a much better debater than I ever thought.““If you compare this to literally any other surrounded where both sides are not explicitly Christian this might be one of the best advertisements for Christianity as a baseline position of all people regardless of political belief I have ever seen.““Even with any disagreements, This is what a debate should look like.““This is probably the realest sermon these folks have had in a minute. Conviction has entered the chat.”

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​Allie beth stuckey, Liberal christians, Progressive christians, Empathy, Abortion, Same-sex marriage, Christianity, Christian, Faith 

Liberal media are pushing their latest narrative that Antifa does not actually exist — and is much less of a threat than right-wing terrorist groups.

However, despite their new talking points — which BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales points out they’ve all adopted eerily at the same time — they’ve been reporting on Antifa’s existence for years.

“It’s so interesting. Just like with everything else that the left wants to pretend isn’t happening, it’s not happening. Antifa isn’t a thing,” Gonzales mocks on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“However, one slight problem for them: The internet is forever,” she adds, before pulling up an ABC News article from 2021 with the headline, “After a year of protests, Portland residents have waning patience for antifa.”

The subhead read, “Rose City Antifa is one of the nation’s oldest active antifa groups.”

“Oh, okay, so back in 2021, we were actually not just talking about Antifa was a thing; we were actually dating how old the nation’s oldest active Antifa group was, because that’s how much of a thing we all could admit that they were,” Gonzales says.

ABC News then released a special on “Nightline” in 2021 interviewing members of Rose City Antifa, where they did not show the members’ faces and altered their voices.

“The use of violence is a tactic of how we keep our communities safe,” one of the members told the interviewer.

“The use of violence is there to maintain safety for us and make sure that when people like Proud Boys or Nazis or fascists come to our city and want to do that harm, then we are not allowing that,” the member said.

“There are a lot of reasons why people would engage in property destruction. I think that one of the reasons that people will break windows is a lot of times like symbolic of the way that the city will protect things of material value but not its people,” they added.

“It’s just symbolic,” Gonzales comments. “The vandalism is just symbolic.”

“Reason that out in your head, why it makes you a fascist or a communist to, you know, believe in things like property rights. It’s kind of the opposite. But these people, they just said it themselves,” she continues.

“But now we’re supposed to believe it doesn’t exist,” she adds.

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​Free, Video, Sharing, Video phone, Camera phone, Upload, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Antifa, Left wing reporting, Leftists, Portland oregon, Portland antifa, Rose city antifa, Abc news, Dateline 

The iconic MTV network is shutting down several channels in the U.K., prompting many to lament the demise of the last of its music-only channels after 44 years.

MTV was launched in 1981 and revolutionized the music industry by airing music videos 24 hours a day and later developing the MTV Video Music Awards. It has since lost viewership and relevance, and the U.S. all-music channels closed in 2011.

‘Music videos were being commoditized, and they went for the logical choice: maximum money with a global brand.’

On Friday MTV said it was shutting down five channels: MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live.

MTV in the U.S. had phased out music videos over many years after the rise in popularity of reality television shows. MTV HD will continue broadcasting some reality TV programs including “Teen Mom” and “Geordie Shore.”

Former MTV video jockey Adam Curry suggested in an emailed statement to Blaze News that the network chose the path to its demise after ignoring the rise of the internet.

“The writing was on the wall when the game show ‘Remote Control’ broke the 1.0 rating barrier in 1988. MTV Networks had already purchased BET and launched VH1. Music videos were being commoditized, and they went for the logical choice: maximum money with a global brand. I can’t blame them,” Curry wrote.

He recounted how he registered the MTV.com website in order to help publicize his show during his time as a video jockey. He was one of the first to run a website from his home server.

“At the time, MTV’s legal counsel told me they had no interest in the internet, because they had registered the AOL keyword. LOL,” he continued. “Later MTV Networks sued me over the domain name, and I countersued. We settled … out of court, and I have no further comment on the matter.”

Blaze News reached out to MTV for comment.

RELATED: MTV reality show star is sick to his stomach and feels violated after armed men tried to burglarize his Hollywood home

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Other former video jockeys also commented on the announcement.

“End of a trailblazing, once upon a time, one of a kind era,” wrote Jasmine Dotiwala on social media. “MTV, the world’s first 24-hour music broadcaster, is to stop showing rolling pop videos in the UK after almost 40 years when it closes five channels at the end of the year.”

“We need to support these artists, and we all need to dance again and listen to music,” said Simone Angel to the BBC. “And I know we do that online in our own little bubbles, but MTV was the place where everything came together. So it really does break my heart.”

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​Mtv to shut down, Music television, Entertainment, End of mtv era 

The Department of War has implemented new rules concerning press privileges and news-gathering at the Pentagon.

Even though the policy concerning reporter access is far less restrictive than an earlier version — the draft of which was floated last month — liberal publications have thrown fits and refused to acknowledge the new rules in exchange for press credentials.

‘Pentagon access is a privilege, not a right.’

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell emphasized last week that reporters and publications do not have to agree with the new “common-sense media procedures” but “just to acknowledge that they understand what our policy is.”

Despite acknowledging that press credentials are conditioned on an understanding of the rules, not an agreement with them, the Pentagon Press Association characterized the rules as a form of intimidation, going so far as to suggest that they dishonor American military families.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth used an emoji to wave goodbye on Monday to the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Washington Post when they pushed the PPA’s framing and pronounced on X that they were not going to sign the agreement by the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

Matt Murray, the Post’s executive editor, who received Hegseth’s pixelated adios, stated, “The proposed restrictions undercut First Amendment protections by placing unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information.”

Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s editor in chief, who has pushed his weight in fake news, and NYT Washington bureau chief Richard Stevenson similarly complained that the rules violated their teams’ First Amendment rights.

The Associated Press, Breaking Defense, CNN, Newsmax, Reuters, Task & Purpose, and the Wall Street Journal are among the other publications that have indicated they will not agree to the new policy by deadline.

After bidding the liberal publications farewell, Hegseth noted for edification of “DUMMIES” in the media that the new rules are, in essence, that reporters can no longer roam free through the halls of the Pentagon; members of the press must wear visible badges; and the “credentialed press [is] no longer permitted to solicit criminal acts.”

RELATED: Hegseth restores warrior ethos after years of woke Pentagon rot

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Hegseth added that “Pentagon access is a privilege, not a right.” Blaze News reached out to the Pentagon for clarity about that statement.

Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson noted that “despite good faith negotiations with representatives of the Pentagon Press Association, reporters would rather clutch their pearls on social media than stop trying to get warfighters and DOW civilians to commit a crime by violating Department-wide policy.”

“We stand by our media policy,” continued Wilson. “It’s now up to them whether they’d like to report from the Pentagon or their newsroom.”

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​Pentagon, Department of war, Defense department, Defense, War, Hegseth, New york times, Washington post, Npr, Media, Liberal media, Fake news, Politics 

Last week, a social media post went viral showing that a remarkable number of H-1B visa holders — brought to the U.S. ostensibly because American citizens already living here do not have the necessary skill sets in certain American industries — listed residential addresses as their “place of work,” according to government data. Upon further investigation, Blaze News discovered that not only were these claims true, but the legality of this loophole is strained, to say the least.

In a recent Blaze News column, Matt O’Brien, the deputy executive director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, argued that the H-1B program, and with it the de facto “work from home” proviso, has always benefited corporations and foreigners at the expense of American workers.

‘Executive branch officials intrude into Congress’s lawmaking authority by interpreting statutes in an unreasonably broad fashion.’

But are H-1B visa holders legally allowed to work from home? What is the legal basis?

RELATED: Project Firewall: DOL targets visa sponsors in unprecedented H-1B enforcement crackdown

Photo by MEGA/GC Images

Experts have raised concerns that government agencies likely do not have the authority to permit foreign nationals on nonimmigrant visas to work remotely. “There are numerous provisions throughout the H-1B statutes requiring employers to specifically identify all worksites where alien employees will be performing labor. These provisions were intended to ensure effective worksite enforcement, to protect American workers from unlawful competition, as well as to protect foreign workers from exploitation,” O’Brien explained.

Nevertheless, upon review of the laws surrounding H-1B regulations, Blaze News discovered that there are no mentions of “remote work” that would explicitly permit or forbid H-1B holders to work from home.

Rather, the H-1B “work from home” phenomenon can apparently be traced to a last-minute change made in the final days of the Biden administration after Trump won the 2024 election.

On December 18, 2024, the DHS filed the “H-1B Modernization Final Rule,” which took effect three days before Trump was sworn in to office. This lengthy document reveals a months-long deliberative process in which Biden officials relaxed H-1B enforcement standards to explicitly permit remote work — all under the pretext of “modernization.”

In the final rule, the DHS officially declares that remote work in “higher education, nonprofit research, or government research” would be permitted: “Work performed ‘at’ the qualifying institution may include work performed in the United States through telework, remote work, or other off-site work.”

These rule changes do not mention the names of other industries, such as the technology sector, indicating that the changes apply only to a discrete subset of H-1B-qualified positions.

The final rule also shifts from “where” duties should be “physically performed” to focusing on “the job duties” more generally. For example, when considering whether to approve an exemption for the number of H-1B visas, capped at 65,000 per year, the rule says that United States Customs and Immigrations Services “will focus on the job duties to be performed, rather than where the duties are physically performed.”

The final rule further revealed that an unnamed H-1B “advocacy group” lobbied USCIS to make the rules more permissive for remote work: “An advocacy group and a joint submission supported the proposal and stated that H-1B regulations should focus on duties performed rather than location of work performed.”

When a commenter raised an issue about an ambiguous loophole in the final rule that might lead to “fraud and abuse,” the DHS issued a flat denial that relied heavily on prepositions: “Congress chose to exempt … noncitizens who are employed ‘at’ a qualifying institution, which is broader than being employed ‘by’ a qualifying institution.”

Not only is this consequential loophole predicated on a subtle difference in prepositions; the response does not address the commenter’s concern about preventing fraud and abuse.

RELATED: White House’s H-1B proclamation sparks confusion and backlash

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Another potential problem with this final rule is whether federal agencies in the executive branch have any legitimate authority to issue it at all since it seems to bypass congressional authority.

As O’Brien told Blaze News, “Remote work for H-1B workers [is] pure executive overreach. Remote work is permitted by Department of Labor regulations. However, those regulations do not trace back to any statutory source of authority as they should. Neither the initial H-1B legislation nor any of the subsequent amendments (the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998, the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act, and the H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004) mention remote work.”

The final rule is apparently an improvement upon a longer-standing regulatory interpretation of the law by the Department of Labor, which works in concert with USCIS and the DHS on the enforcement of H-1B regulations. In a 2008 fact sheet, the DOL apparently regards “place of employment” as “a location where the worker spends most of his/her work time.”

This interpretation does not appear to be explicitly exclusive to “work from home” employment situations, although, again, a review of the statute yielded no direct reference to remote work for H-1B nonimmigrant workers.

This indicates that USCIS and the DHS, under Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas, appear to have effectively rewritten legislation.

“Executive branch officials intrude into Congress’ lawmaking authority by interpreting statutes in an unreasonably broad fashion,” O’Brien added.

“While Congress is certainly not immune from turning bad policy into law, at least it generally does so publicly, after considerable debate. But remote work, like employment for H-1B spouses, has never been debated by the representatives of the American people; it was simply imposed by executive fiat,” O’Brien continued.

This apparent “executive fiat” from the Biden administration raises several issues that warrant more attention, not least among them the seeming senselessness of immigrants to the United States performing remote work. This “modernization” rule thus encourages an increase in H-1B visa immigration at a time when immigration seems to make less sense from a business perspective.

Blaze News contacted the DHS for comment and was referred to the White House. The White House did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

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​Politics, H-1b visas, India, Matt o’brien, Work from home, H-1b nonimmigrant workers, Dhs, Dol, H-1b modernization final rule, Mayorkas, Uscis, Immigration and nationality act, Biden, Trump 

Conservative commentator Benny Johnson is the latest target of left-wing political violence, after facing threats in a disturbing copycat plot inspired by the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

George Isabel Jr. has been arrested and accused of threatening to make “orphans” of Johnson’s children only days after Charlie’s assassination.

“Benny’s a well-known media personality carrying a message very similar to Charlie’s, grounded largely in faith and love of country. Just days after Charlie’s assassination, Benny received a letter at his home, where he and Kate are raising their beautiful, beautiful young family,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement following the threats.

“The author of this letter made it very clear that he hated Benny because of his views and he wanted Benny dead. This was a coward hiding behind a keyboard who thought he could get away with this,” she said.

“You are not going to get away with threatening people in this way,” she continued, adding that Isabel is being charged federally with mailing threatening communications.

And Johnson isn’t taking it lying down either.

“To the parents out there,” Johnson tells BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler, “this is a movement about ensuring that you can raise your kids in safety and security, whether it’s from terroristic threatening of left-wing violence, which happened to me specifically in name when this individual, George Isabel Jr., said that he would blow my head off in an open field just like Charlie Kirk and watch my blood splatter on the concrete, or whether it’s from terroristic threatening of homicidal criminals who get let out of jail time and time again and scare you and your children out of the parks and off the streets.”

“What America First is is a movement of pro-family. And why is that important? Because actually, Liz, as you know, the things that make you happy in life are having a relationship with God, falling in love, getting married, having children,” he continues.

And the reason the left hates those who have prioritized family and God, he says, is because “these people are miserable.”

“They are godless. They often don’t have families,” he adds, noting that the man who allegedly sent him death threats will be made an example of in order to stop the incessant fighting against the pro-family movement.

“You can’t have a pro-family movement of people if parents are being terroristically threatened,” he says.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Free, Video, Sharing, Video phone, Camera phone, Upload, Youtube.com, The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Benny johnson, Leftist threats, Left wing violence, Charlie kirk, Charlie kirk assassination, Attorney general pam bondi, President trump, The trump administration 

A high-profile Democrat has announced her candidacy for the Senate in a high-stakes bid to flip the upper chamber in the 2026 midterms. With the blessing of Democrat leaders and a lengthy track record in government, if elected, Janet Mills would be the oldest freshman senator ever.

Mills, the 77-year-old, term-limited governor of Maine, joined a crowded Senate race to challenge Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins.

‘Maine Democrats are locked in a bruising fight between Chuck Schumer’s out-of-touch establishment and Bernie Sanders’ far-left radicals.’

Mills made her Senate campaign announcement on Tuesday on social media. “I’m running for Senate to defeat Susan Collins and give Maine people someone who will stand up for them in Washington,” Mills said in an initial post.

In another post, Mills added, “I’ve never backed down from a bully and I never will. Donald Trump is ripping away health care from millions, driving up costs, and giving corporate CEOs massive tax cuts. And Susan Collins is helping him. My life’s work has prepared me for this fight — and I’m ready to win.”

RELATED: Trump berates Dem governor refusing transgender order: ‘You better comply — otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding’

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Mills’ campaign launch video highlights her clash with President Trump at a meeting with state governors at the White House in February. Trump threatened to pull federal funding from Maine if the state refused to comply with an executive order about men competing in women’s sports, to which Mills replied, “See you in court.”

According to Fox News, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrat leaders see Mills as the best candidate to flip the seat in 2026.

“Maine Democrats are locked in a bruising fight between Chuck Schumer’s out-of-touch establishment and Bernie Sanders’ far-left radicals,” National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director Joanna Rodriguez said in a statement in the wake of Mills’ announcement, according to Fox News.

Fox News reported that Mills’ Tuesday announcement comes after an apparent early launch on Friday. Her campaign posted and quickly deleted that announcement, according to the outlet.

Other Democrat candidates in the race include Graham Platner, Jordan Wood, Dan Kleban, Carmen Calabrese, and Natasha Alcala. Phillip Rench is running as an independent.

Collins, who handily won re-election in several races since she first won the Senate seat in 1996, has not formally announced her intention to run for a sixth term as of this writing.

Blaze News contacted Mills and Collins for comment but did not receive a response.

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​Politics, Janet mills, Maine, Trump, Senate, 2026 midterms, Chuck schumer, Graham platner, Susan collins 

President Donald Trump designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization in the wake of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination by a radical assassin who allegedly etched Antifa slogans into his bullet casings.

In the interest of obliging Trump and finally destroying Antifa, the Justice Department and the FBI have evidently appealed to the expertise of some of those Americans who chronicled Antifa terrorists’ crimes, analyzed their tactics, and identified their supporters while authorities previously sat on their hands.

‘It was surreal.’

Antifa is an anarcho-communist militant group that has long threatened lives and property throughout the Western world.

In a show that debuted on Oct. 8 titled “Unmasking Antifa: The Dark Truth Behind Its Well-Funded Network,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck took a deep dive, “shattering the myth” that Antifa is leaderless and decentralized.

“We analyzed the Antifa network,” Beck said with regard to his show last week. “And we went from the street thugs, to the support groups, eventually to the funding.”

Beck added, “To say the FBI was interested in this might be an understatement.”

Just days after the show’s initial broadcast, Beck received a knock on the door from the FBI.

RELATED: Leftists try to shut down Turning Point USA at Rutgers for criticizing Antifa professor

Photo by Niels Wenstedt/BSR Agency/Getty Images

“Let’s just say the FBI is turning over every single stone,” continued Beck. “It is so clear to me that they are exploring all angles of this, and they are talking to anyone and everyone that can give them any kind of information.

“How do I know?” Beck asked. He then immediately began to explain why he is confident that federal authorities are serious about Antifa this time.

Beck indicated that he was informed in a phone call Saturday that FBI Director Kash Patel wanted to send some agents over to speak with him.

“I’m like, ‘The direct —? FBI agents?’ ‘Yes, you said some things that they need to talk to you about,'” continued Beck, recalling the conversation. “‘Well, good things or bad things?’ ‘They’ll be over.'”

The Blaze Media co-founder indicated that he, his wife, and his head researcher, Jason Buttrill, spent nearly two hours on Saturday sharing insights into the leftist terror enterprise with a trio of FBI agents in Beck’s living room.

“It was surreal,” said Beck. “At one point, I talked to them for about 15 minutes just going over the Tides Foundation. And saying, ‘If you understand Tides, you’ll understand how difficult your job is going to be.’ And this is information that I first gave on Fox years ago.”

Reflecting on the bureau’s newfound interest in stamping out leftist terrorism, Beck noted, “Finally, we have an administration and an FBI director that is willing to go in deep. Not surface. But deep. I could only imagine what we could have avoided if anyone in an administration would have done this in 2011.”

— (@)

This is not the first time in recent weeks that Beck’s reporting has created headaches for leftist extremists and their alleged benefactors.

Beck hosted counterterrorism expert Ryan Mauro on the Sept. 17 episode of the “The Charlie Kirk Show” and discussed the findings of Mauro’s Capital Research Center report concerning the funding of U.S.-based groups potentially engaged in terrorism by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

Days later, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s office reportedly issued a directive to U.S. attorneys’ offices in at least three states and several cities instructing federal prosecutors to prepare probes into Soros’ group.

Following his meeting with the FBI agents on Saturday, Beck suggested that Antifa members and their enablers ought to be concerned right now because “the FBI is deadass serious.”

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​Glenn beck, Fbi, Federal bureau of investigation, Antifa, Leftist, Left, Terrorism, Beck, Antifascist, Terrorist, Fto, Kash patel, Politics 

Police in Miami Gardens, Florida, told WTVJ-TV they got word of a possible home invasion in the 3000 block of Northwest 204th Terrace shortly before noon Monday.

Police said three individuals — one armed with a rifle — entered the home, the station said.

‘I guess he was defending his daughter from the three people who went inside.’

However, as one of the intruders opened a bedroom door, a victim opened fire, hitting one of the intruders in the arm, WTVJ reported.

The two other intruders fled the scene, the station said, and Miami-Fire Rescue airlifted the wounded subject to Aventura Hospital.

The wounded individual’s condition is unknown, WTVJ noted, and no other injuries were reported.

RELATED: Florida man sees back door of mom’s home left open. So he goes inside, hears strange noises — and grabs a gun.

A man who lives at the house told the station that he and others who were inside at the time of the home invasion are OK, but he didn’t want to comment further.

A teenager who didn’t want to be identified added to WTVJ that she watched from her bedroom window as three people ran inside the house — and when just two of them ran back out.

“I saw them shooting toward the porch, then running to the car, then the father shot four times,” the teen told the station. “It was loud, it was right there, across the street, boom, boom, boom, boom.”

The teen added to WTVJ that two men who were inside the house also ran outside: “He was standing outside of the house. He was defending the house. He said, ‘That’s my daughter; I have no money,’ so I guess he was defending his daughter from the three people who went inside.”

A woman who lives down the street added to the station that after she heard gunshots, she saw a car speeding by and someone with a face covering: “I saw the car zooming, and the guy was running behind the car, and I thought he was running after the car because I saw him with a gun in his hand. I was shocked. I was surprised.”

WTVJ said the search for the two other subjects is ongoing.

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​Crime thwarted, Home invasion, Intruder, Miami, Florida, Florida crime, 2nd amend., Guns, Gun rights, Self-defense, Intruder wounded, Miami gardens, Armed intruders, Shooting, Crime 

An anonymous whistleblower claimed that a Washington corrections department illegally hired unqualified immigrants as corrections officers.

According to Fox News Digital, the individual wrote to the Criminal Justice Training Commission in August, stating that the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention violated a state statute that requires all peace officers and corrections officers to be United States citizens, lawful permanent residents, or recipients of deferred action for childhood arrivals.

“It has come to my attention, that, over the past several years, the King County DAJD has knowingly hired individuals as corrections officers who do not meet these legal requirements,” the letter to the commission read.

The whistleblower claimed that in some instances, individuals with temporary work visas or expired work authorization were hired to guard detention centers.

“This practice not only undermines the integrity of Washington’s criminal justice system but also presents significant legal and security concerns,” the whistleblower remarked, urging the commission to investigate the claims promptly.

The number of unqualified hires could exceed 100, according to the whistleblower, SeattleRed’s “The Jason Rantz Show” first reported.

RELATED: How many immigrants have actually left the country?

Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

“The scale of this problem cannot be overstated. It is estimated that well over 100 corrections officers currently employed by DAJD may fall into this questionable status,” the whistleblower reportedly stated. “Some estimates place the number closer to 130 officers.”

“If the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission (WSCJTC) revokes their certifications, these individuals would be unable to continue serving as corrections officers,” the statement continued. “The loss of this many staff would place the County’s jail system on the brink of collapse, with the very real possibility of forcing the closure of a jail due to unsafe staffing levels.”

RELATED: The fraud crippling American trucking: ‘Ghost’ carriers and ‘NO NAME GIVEN’ driver’s licenses issued to foreigners

Photo by Linda Davidson/Washington Post/Getty Images

The WSCJTC “provides training and certification after agencies hire and verify that individuals meet all employment and eligibility requirements under state law,” the commission told Blaze News, noting that employers are responsible for determining employment eligibility.

“WSCJTC is conducting an open investigation into King County’s hiring practices for individuals who do not meet state eligibility requirements. WSCJTC will initiate a decertification case against any individual who is not qualified for certification under state law,” the commission continued. “WSCJTC immediately expelled four King County corrections academy recruits after King County confirmed they did not meet eligibility requirements.”

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Jean Raspail’s “The Camp of the Saints” is one of those books you can’t mention at a dinner party without setting off a minor war. It’s been denounced, suppressed, and maligned as a hateful screed. And yet half a century after its publication, the book still pops like a gunshot. Why? Because it asks the question that polite society has done its best to avoid: What happens when a civilization loses the will to guard its own front door?

The novel is a fable, a satire, and a warning all at once. The plot is blunt: A massive flotilla of migrants sails toward France from India, while Europe’s leaders wring their hands, draft statements, and find ways not to act. The cast is drawn as caricatures — professors, journalists, bureaucrats, priests — each one a stand-in for the institutions that once anchored Europe but now serve as props for its decline. Raspail spares no one.

The poor on the ships are less his subject than the powerful on shore, who offer nothing but dithering and moral preening while their house is overrun. The book is brutal, unsubtle, and deliberately offensive. But it is also piercing, because it forces the West to confront its soft underbelly: its allergy to boundaries, its addiction to slogans, and its inability to say “no.”

If we want to preserve a middle class, we must demand that corporations train and hire our own graduates before importing replacements from abroad.

And it is why, surprisingly enough, it has something to say about our current debates over H-1B visas and high-tech immigration. Raspail describes hordes of the destitute; the H-1B program is designed for highly skilled engineers, scientists, and doctors. But dig deeper than the press releases, and you find the same theme: institutions playing make-believe, telling one story to the public while the true story unfolds in reality.

When the H-1B program was created, the pitch was simple. America, the world’s technological powerhouse, occasionally needs access to rare and exceptional skill sets. If a rocket company needs an aeronautical genius from Stuttgart, or a cancer lab needs a researcher from Mumbai, the law allows a narrow pipeline. The point was never to replace American workers but to supplement them, filling critical gaps while American talent pipelines caught up.

The reality, though, is something far different. Today, the H-1B program is dominated not by Nobel-caliber minds but by giant outsourcing firms and labor brokers who game the lottery system. They flood the application pool with tens of thousands of petitions, scoop up a massive share of the slots, and then rent those workers back to American companies at cut-rate wages. The result is not a pipeline for the “best and brightest,” but a labor arbitrage racket that undercuts American graduates while enriching a handful of consulting firms.

Even the most prestigious American firms have been caught using the H-1B program to displace their own workers, sometimes requiring those workers to train their replacements before letting them go. It’s the sort of ritual humiliation that would have made Raspail nod grimly: a civilization too weak to defend its own workers in its own labor market.

RELATED: Jean Raspail’s notorious — and prophetic — novel returns to America

Photo by Pascal Parrot/Sygma/Getty Images

Instead of nuclear physicists and neurosurgeons, we see armies of mid-level coders and IT staff — exactly the sort of roles American universities and trade schools could produce en masse if companies invested in them. Instead, corporations cut costs by importing cheaper labor, then spin it as a story of global competitiveness. The rhetoric is lofty; the practice is tawdry.

Here is where Raspail’s cold mirror matters. In his novel, Europe’s leaders never call things by their proper names. They drown reality in euphemism. The same is true today. Politicians and CEOs alike sell H-1B as a meritocratic jewel box, while insiders know it has become a vehicle for mass importation of mid-tier labor at discount prices. The tech lobby, one of the most powerful in Washington, spends lavishly to ensure that every attempt at reform is softened, delayed, or gutted. And so the system persists: a Potemkin policy that serves shareholders at the expense of citizens.

A visa program that actually admitted only the truly exceptional — the researcher on the cusp of curing a disease, the engineer pioneering a new material — would be defensible. A program that functions as a corporate back door for cheap labor is not.

Raspail also reminds us that admission is not an end, but a beginning. Those who come on visas should be expected to adopt the language, the civics, and the loyalty that make one a part of the American project. This is not cruelty; it is hospitality with standards. But when the bulk of visas are funneled through outsourcing firms, newcomers are less citizens-in-waiting than contract labor in transit, beholden not to America but to their sponsoring firm. That is not how you build a nation. That is how you hollow one out.

The truth is that the H-1B program, as currently run, is less a gate than a hollow archway — grand in appearance, flimsy in substance. It is sold as a crown jewel of American competitiveness, but in practice, it erodes wages, weakens training incentives, and mocks the idea of meritocracy. It is the sort of policy that Raspail would have recognized immediately: a symbol of a civilization that cannot even defend its own professionals in its own industries.

The armada in “The Camp of the Saints” is fiction, exaggerated and harsh. But the deeper theme — the failure of nerve, the surrender of sovereignty, the refusal to tell the truth about what is happening at the gates — is all too real. Today, it is not fleets of the poor but paper armies of visa applications, filed by corporate giants and labor brokers, that wash up at our shores. And our leaders, much like Raspail’s, prefer to hide behind euphemisms rather than face what they’ve allowed.

Literature earns its keep when it clarifies the stakes. “The Camp of the Saints” does not flatter; it does not console. It strips away illusions and forces us to see how quickly a civilization can collapse when it forgets to defend itself. Our immigration debate, particularly around H-1B visas, is in desperate need of that same clarity. If we want genuine excellence, we must close the scam pipelines and admit only those whose skills are verifiably rare and indispensable. If we want to preserve a middle class, we must demand that corporations train and hire our own graduates before importing replacements from abroad. Raspail’s novel insists on candor. It shows what happens when a nation replaces hard choices with soft lies.

​Tech, Politics, Culture 

As the government officially enters the second week of the shutdown, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota has a clear message to Democrats.

In a video obtained exclusively by Blaze News, Emmer ripped into Senate Democrats for putting partisan politics over the American people. Ever since Democrats refused to pass the Republicans’ clean, nonpartisan funding bill before the September 30 deadline, Congress has been in a stalemate.

‘All these Democrats are putting their political issue ahead of the American people.’

“The Democrats in the U.S. Senate have now voted ‘no’ on reopening the government seven times,” Emmer says in the video obtained by Blaze News. “… You’ve got over 400,000 Minnesotans who rely on SNAP to support themselves. Our air traffic controllers aren’t going to get paid. Our Customs and Border Patrol [sic] isn’t going to get paid.”

Notably, President Donald Trump’s administration has made attempts to minimize pain for those affected by the shutdown, such as making sure our military service members don’t miss their paychecks on October 15.

RELATED: Democrats feign outrage as Trump administration shutdown layoffs hit: ‘They seem to be enjoying it’

In the video, Emmer is seen standing in the United States Capitol near the Senate chamber, where over a half-dozen votes to reopen the government have been blocked by Democrats. Emmer also points out the harsh contrast between the two spending bills proposed by the respective parties.

“I’m standing in the rotunda. Behind me is where the Senate should be right now, voting to reopen the government,” Emmer says in the video. “Instead, seven times now they have voted no.”

The Republican-led spending bill is a bipartisan bill that continues funding the government at current spending levels through November 21. There are no ideological line items or anomalies in the GOP bill, whereas the Democrat bill is full of them. Emmer calls out Democrat Sen. Tina Smith, who shares his Minnesota constituency, for voting against every effort to keep the government open.

“You want to put illegals back on taxpayer-funded health care benefits while at the same time gutting our rural hospital fund of $50 billion that we created just this summer,” Emmer says of Smith.

RELATED: ‘PAY OUR TROOPS’: Trump unveils creative solution to minimize military’s shutdown pain

Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“All these Democrats are putting their political issue ahead of the American people,” Emmer continues in the video. “This is insane, and it’s wrong.”

“Our message is clear. Democrats: Reopen the government. Let’s get back to work. Put the people before your politics. Stop hurting Americans. Let’s get back to work and finish the job that we were all sent here to do.”

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​Tom emmer, Majority whip, House republicans, Senate republicans, House democrats, Senate democrats, Government shutdown, Donald trump, Tina smith, Trump administration, Schumer shutdown, Snap, Customs and border protection, Air traffic control, Continuing resolution, Minnesota, Politics 

Twelve years ago this week, the federal government shut down over a fight that should have mattered more than any budget squabble in modern history: Obamacare.

In 2013, House and Senate conservatives — led by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — refused to fund Barack Obama’s budget unless the pending health care law was stripped of its most ruinous provisions. They warned it would crush Americans with skyrocketing premiums and limited choice.

Instead of begging Democrats for a short-term continuing resolution, Republicans should force the debate they’ve been avoiding.

They were right. And today, watching those predictions come true, the defeat still stings. Democrats always stay united on health care. Republicans, even now, act as if the issue doesn’t exist.

The lost fight

In that 2013 showdown, Republicans held the stronger hand. They controlled the House and could have passed a full funding bill minus Obamacare. The law was still unpopular, the website was collapsing, and millions were losing coverage.

Democrats had already lost more than 60 House seats and a generation of state-level power because of their support for the 2009 law. The “dependency” phase hadn’t yet taken hold, but the costs were already exploding — premiums jumped 47% in the first year alone.

Yet GOP leaders sabotaged their own side. After Cruz’s 21-hour Senate filibuster demanding a defund vote, the Republican establishment turned its fire inward.

John McCain scolded Cruz from the Senate floor for comparing the fight to World War II and calling it a “great disservice” to veterans. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dismissed the strategy as “not a smart play.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) warned against risking a shutdown “doomed to fail.”

Instead of hammering Democrats for creating unaffordable health care, the GOP obsessed over process. The pressure worked. On October 17, Republicans surrendered unconditionally — and Obamacare became untouchable.

At the time, I wrote:

If we are resigned to letting go of the Obamacare fight in the budget, there is no way it will ever be repealed, even partially repealed. By 2017 … there will be over 30 million people either willingly or unwillingly dependent on Obamacare. Even if it’s barely workable, it will be the only care they have. We cannot repeal it.

That prediction also came true.

Failure by surrender

Twelve years later, after winning full control of government, Republicans still couldn’t repeal the law. Now, even with a new GOP trifecta, they’re struggling to stop Joe Biden’s insolvent expansion of it.

On paper, Democrats should have the weaker hand today. They control no chamber of Congress and are threatening a shutdown to preserve health care subsidies no one voted for.

Yet they’ve managed to frame the fight around the “cost of health care” — a problem created entirely by Obamacare itself. Republicans’ silence only amplifies the lie.

Democrats are betting that voters no longer remember why premiums exploded or why subsidies now cover nearly every enrollee. They’re counting on a GOP that can’t articulate the obvious: Obamacare made health care unaffordable and fueled the broader inflation strangling families.

Even the Washington Post recently admitted in an editorial that “the real problem is that the Affordable Care Act was never actually affordable.”

A second chance

Republicans now have the opportunity they squandered a decade ago. With control of the White House and Congress, they can finally make the case for repeal and for genuine, market-based reform.

They can remind Americans that we’re paying Cadillac prices for catastrophic coverage — massive deductibles, 33% denial rates, and bloated UnitedHealth plans protected by federal subsidy. They can expose the system for what it is: a monopoly masquerading as compassion.

RELATED: Smash the health care cartel, free the market

Photo by JDawnInk via Getty Images

Instead of begging Democrats for a short-term continuing resolution, Republicans should force the debate they’ve been avoiding. Health care can’t be fixed by tinkering at the edges. It must be freed from Washington’s grip.

Twelve years ago, Republicans claimed they lacked the leverage to stop Obamacare. Today, Democrats have no leverage at all — and they’re the ones complaining about the costs of their own creation.

God doesn’t hand out many second chances, especially in politics. Republicans just got one. They’d better use it.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Obamacare, Affordable care act, Affordable care, Healthcare, Health care prices, Republicans, Democrats, Congress, Ted cruz, Filibuster, Mike lee, John mccain, Mitch mcconnell, Barack obama, Budget, Cadillac insurance, Defeat 

Longtime CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour offered a lengthy apology for comments comparing the treatment of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas and the plight of the residents in the Gaza Strip.

Amanpour was reporting on the historic peace deal negotiated by President Donald Trump for Hamas to return hostages to Israel, both living and the remains of the dead. Even critics of the president have had to acknowledge his efforts to secure peace.

‘I regret also saying that they may have been treated better than many Gazans because Hamas used these hostages as pawns and bargaining chips.’

“Earlier live on air, I spoke about what a day of real joy this is, for Israeli families whose loved ones are finally being returned from two years of horrific Hamas captivity, and for civilians in Gaza, who have finally had a reprieve from two years of brutal, deadly war,” she wrote.

“I noted that for the hostages who are finally home, it will take a long time for them to recover mentally and physically. But I regret also saying that they may have been treated better than many Gazans because Hamas used these hostages as pawns and bargaining chips,” Amanpour added.

“It was insensitive and wrong,” she wrote.

“From speaking to many former hostages and their families, like everyone I’ve been horrified at what Hamas has subjected them to over two long years,” she continued.

“They’ve told me their stories of barely being able to breathe in the tunnels, not being allowed to cry, being starved and made to dig their own graves — and of course today, some of the hostages are coming back in body bags,” she concluded.

RELATED: New York Times writer mocked and ridiculed for regurgitating bizarre NPR claim against Israel

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

For some, Amanpour’s apology fell on deaf ears.

“This almost looks like an apology. But what you said didn’t surprise me even one bit,” replied former Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson Jonathan Conricus.

“You have been consistent in your systemic disdain for Israel,” he added. “So many masks have fallen since October 7, yours being one of the first ones to fall and reveal your true colors.”

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​Christiane amanpour, Apology, Israel vs hamas, Hamas hostage deal, Politics 

Bill & Ted are Waiting for Godot.

That was the pitch. I’m going to attend a matinee performance of “Waiting for Godot,” Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy in two acts, at the Hudson Theater on Broadway. After which I will review Bill S. Preston, Esquire’s and Ted “Theodore” Logan’s excellent adventure into the theatre (with a hard “re”) of the absurd.

Were I waiting for Godot, I’d pass the time pretty much the way I did during intermission: by deleting spam voicemails offering me personal loans and tax relief.

I’m sure that was also the pitch to bring together Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter to play Estragon and Vladimir, respectively. The marketing is right there. But the play itself — which has a couple of winks to the “Bill & Ted” trilogy — will keep you waiting for the Wyld Stallyns to show up.

Spoiler: They, like Godot, never do. Instead, Reeves and Winter are Estragon and Vladimir in full — waiting brilliantly.

Wither Wick?

It’s wild to watch an action-hero mainstay like Reeves pull off Estragon: weak, bootless (at times it’s one boot, other times it’s both), can’t remember yesterday or even parts of today, regularly beaten by thugs off stage …

There’s no sign of John Wick or Johnny Utah in his performance and certainly no Neo. If the play’s two acts were “The Matrix,” there’s no red pill to free him or Didi (his affectionate name for Vladimir) from it. If anything, it’s as if the companions have been damned by an overdose of blue pills.

“Who am I to tell my private nightmares to if I can’t tell them to you?” Estragon asks his friend, with whom he shares a waking nightmare.

Winter’s Vladimir compliments his Gogo (his nickname for Estragon). Not with kind words — there are many times when he’s quite brutal to his friend — but with warm embraces, his own coat, carrots and radishes, and ways to pass the time, as they wait for Godot, which Vladimir constantly has to remind Estragon that they’re doing.

For what purpose? Why are they waiting for Godot? No one knows.

1953: Pierre Latour and Lucien Raimbourg in the original Paris production of “Waiting for Godot.” Lipnitzki/Getty Images

Tunnel vision

Director Jamie Lloyd makes some great choices, from casting to staging and sound design. Every version of the play I’d seen before had kept the setting to Beckett’s minimal specifications. Act one opens on “A country road. A tree. Evening.” And in act two, we learn that some time has passed, hence, “The tree has four or five leaves.”

Instead of planting the tree on stage, Lloyd has the cast address the tree out somewhere in the audience. So I got to imagine the following happening somewhere above my face:

VLADIMIR
… What do we do now?

ESTRAGON:
Wait.

VLADIMIR:
Yes, but while waiting.

ESTRAGON:
What about hanging ourselves?

VLADIMIR:
Hmm. It’d give us an erection.

ESTRAGON:
(highly excited). An erection!

All the action happens in or around a huge tunnel that’s been built on the stage. The tunnel looks really cool — like something you could skateboard on — and it aids the physical comedy. Picture a barefoot Reeves running up a half-pipe only to slide down and pass out into sleep. At times, the tunnel appears to open and shut like the aperture of a camera, and its design is used to manipulate the sounds of the play, both the music and spoken lines.

The supporting cast is powerful. Pozzo, played by Brandon J. Dirden, is scary, imposing, and cruel — especially to his “pig” Lucky (played by Michael Patrick Thornton), who is in a wheelchair. I thought Lloyd chose to put the actor in a wheelchair, but it turns out Thornton is actually paralyzed in real life and uses one. So not a choice per se? — but it works. A lucky break.

Down in the hole

The first time I read “Waiting for Godot” was in high school. I have Brother Jeff — who was the sole Franciscan in a school of Marists — to thank for feeding me and the rest of our AP English class a bibliography of dread. So in addition to “Godot,” we read James Joyce’s “The Dead,” T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and other works that explored the meaninglessness and senselessness of life that I was not prepared for.

I may still not be prepared for it. It’s been 25 years since I graduated from Catholic school, and “Godot” still haunts me: “Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts on the forceps.”

Going into the Hudson Theater, I thought Lloyd might play up the “Bill & Ted” angle and set the play in a Circle K parking lot — you know, where the dudes encounter the phone-booth time machine and Rufus (George Carlin) for the first time.

But phone booths aren’t a thing any more, so I thought a more accurate contemporary version of “Waiting for Godot” would be Vladimir and Estragon texting each other their dialogue — “Nothing to be done 😢” — followed by two acts of doomscrolling.

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Phelim McAleer

The weight of waiting

The official Instagram account for the play shared a post that leaned into the year 2025 with a cute group chat between Estragon, Vladimir, and Godot. Godot is typing (as depicted with an ellipses), and the phone has existentially low battery life. But alas, none of the characters in the show has an iPhone — not even a beeper.

The play is a real nostalgia trip. Beckett’s masterpiece is over 70 years old, the leads were once teen heartthrobs, they’re wearing bowler hats, and it’s a throwback to a time when boredom was possible.

When was the last time you were bored — when you felt the weight of waiting?

Thanks to my phone, boredom is almost an impossibility. Before showtime, I scrolled — until I was told it was time to put my phone away. Were I waiting for Godot, I’d pass the time pretty much the way I did during intermission: by deleting spam voicemails offering me personal loans and tax relief. I could imagine purgatory doing nothing but this. What could be worse?

Well, “in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ethan Hawke and John Leguizamo performed in a Zoom version of ‘Godot.'” There’s your answer.

No play for young men

Ian McKellen as Estragon and Patrick Stewart as Vladimir. Robbie Jack/Getty Images

I think part of the greatness of “Godot” has to do with Beckett’s creation of characters that really take the form of the actors portraying them. Casting friends makes sense. I don’t know how close Pierre Latour and Lucien Raimbourg were when they were cast to perform the first presentation of “En Attendant Godot” in Paris in 1952. Maybe they were the Bill and Ted of their day?

On Instagram, actor Eric Stolz shares his memory of the 1988 production starring Robin Williams and Steve Martin: “I’ve often thought that Beckett would have loved that Production, the absurdity they embraced brought it into the realm of the Marxs [sic] Brothers, which to me is a great compliment.”

After going down the “Godot” rabbit hole, I found that the duo that really nailed it for me was Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. As much as I love Reeves’ and Winter’s performances, I have to admit my ageism. The boys — ages 61 and 60 — are just too young and fit for the roles.

McKellen and Stewart were in their 70s when they contemplated hanging themselves from that lone tree and argued over the salvation of the crucified thief in the Gospels. And it really works, because they’re old men. Vladimir has to piss uncontrollably, Estragon is senile, and they both stink like old men stink. Because they’re old men.

Vladimir and Estragon are excited over an erection — even if they have to hang themselves to get one — because they’re old and impotent. That joke’s been on my mind for 25 years — but now I realize that beyond the shock of the thought, the joke only really lands if we’re seeing old men deliver it. And while Keanu and Winter nail the back-and-forth — I literally loled — I don’t believe they’d need to commit suicide to get a hard-on.

I admit that I may have been influenced by a video I watched of Ian McKellen where he talks about “Waiting”:

But what are they waiting for? I think the play’s been so popular over the years because Beckett was the first person to realize that an awful lot of life is about waiting. You were probably all waiting to come tonight. Probably in the odd moments in the last week when you’ve been thinking [mimes looking at his watch]: Christmas, or birthday, or holiday, or examinations; waiting to go to college, waiting to meet the right person. My age, waiting for death. We’re all waiting. What we’re doing is passing time. Getting through. … And Godot’s just a bit of hope to make life a little better.

After the curtain call, when the house lights came up, an usher was waiting to speak to a woman in my row. Apparently the woman had been recording the performance on her phone. You won’t find her footage online. She was forced to delete it. The play runs through early January 2026. Don’t wait to see it. It’ll pass the time.

​Culture, Theater, New york, Plays, Samuel beckett, Bill & ted’s excellent adventure, Movies, Alex winter, Keanu reeves, Waiting for godot, Ian mckellen, Patrick stewart, Review