Category: blaze media

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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​News, Washington, Seattle, King county, King county department of adult and juvenile detention, Illegal immigration crisis, Illegal immigration, Immigration crisis, Immigration, Corrections officers, Jail, Politics 

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.

RELATED: Haunting play ‘October 7’ lets Hamas terror survivors speak

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 

You may not know Steve Eisman’s name, but you should. He was the investor who bet against Wall Street in 2008 and won big — to the tune of $800 million, with a current net worth in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion. If you saw “The Big Short,” Steve Carell played him as Mark Baum.

Americans are past living paycheck to paycheck. They’re living loan to loan.

These days, Eisman hosts “The Real Eisman Playbook” on YouTube. And like in 2007, he’s warning again — this time about the fragile state of the American consumer.

He isn’t alone. In a recent episode, Eisman spoke with Lakshmi Ganapathi of Unicus Research, who shares her grim view of the U.S. economy. Their conversation, combined with the data, paints a picture more alarming than most headlines dare admit.

Consumers are broke

“If you deduct the AI expenditures,” Eisman said, “… the U.S. economy is not even growing, really, 50 basis points, outside of AI.” In plain English: Without the artificial-intelligence boom, growth would be nearly flat at around 0.5% growth — likely even lower — not the 3.8% the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported for the second quarter of 2025.

Ganapathi didn’t mince words either. “Consumers are broke,” she said. “The monthly budget math no longer works.”

That’s what happens when Washington spends decades pretending math doesn’t matter. During COVID, federal “stimulus” checks poured roughly $800 billion into households. The cash wave briefly made millions look creditworthy — even as the underlying economy collapsed.

“Subprime consumers became prime,” Ganapathi explained. With reporting on student-loan and credit-card delinquencies suspended, millions suddenly looked like perfect borrowers. Credit scores soared to 700 and 800.

“They got a check that made them look richer than they actually were,” Eisman noted.

Banks then bundled those inflated loans into asset-backed securities — the same shell game that fueled the 2008 meltdown. The illusion of “prime credit” returned, this time wrapped in COVID relief and moral hazard.

The debt pyramid

Ganapathi described auto loans now stretching to 84 months — seven years — at 22% to 23% interest, which is credit-card territory. Americans collectively carry $1.2 trillion in card debt and $676 billion in car loans.

Add mortgages and student loans, and the numbers turn grotesque. Americans owe $20.83 trillion on homes, with an average interest rate of 6.37% on a 30-year note, and $1.81 trillion on student loans. We pay roughly $1.6 trillion a year in interest alone.

And since Washington nationalized student lending under Obama, it can now garnish wages indefinitely. “If you file for bankruptcy,” Eisman said, “your student loan stays with you.” A debt you can never escape — courtesy of your government.

The federal government owes $38 trillion but somehow pays a third less in interest. Fairness, D.C.-style.

Kicking cans and eating debt

Ganapathi noted that 90-day-plus credit-card delinquencies have doubled since 2021. Consumers are defaulting on car loans. Banks, desperate to avoid repossession losses, simply “modify” the loans and call them current — the same can-kicking that defines Washington’s budget process.

At this point, 69% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Nearly a quarter of them now use “buy now, pay later” services to pay for their groceries.

RELATED: Jerome Powell proves the Fed’s ‘independence’ is a myth

Photo by Douglas Rissing via Getty Images

Yes — groceries.

Eisman spelled it out: People are literally financing food. They buy a week’s worth of groceries, then spend the next two or three months paying for them — often at interest rates that can hit 36% after a single missed payment.

Americans are past living paycheck to paycheck. They’re living loan to loan.

The illusion of prosperity

This is the real economy hiding beneath Washington’s sunny numbers — an economy where debt props up demand and borrowed time props up debt. It’s 2008 in slow motion, but this time it’s ordinary households, not hedge funds, holding the toxic paper.

When the middle class needs “by now, pay later” to eat, the “strong economy” line collapses into farce.

America’s consumers are tapped out, overleveraged, and fresh out of illusions. The only question left is how long the lenders — and leaders in Washington — can pretend otherwise.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Debt, Consumer debt, Credit card debt, Layaways, Groceries, Car loans, Loans, Inflation, Debt culture, Borrowed money, Steve eisman, Lakshmi ganapathi, Student loan debt, Interest rates 

Trump derangement syndrome is real. But it isn’t just about Donald Trump’s personality. Yes, he can be blunt and reckless with words. Still, the hatred aimed at him runs far deeper. It’s about what he represents — a direct challenge to the class that has ruled the West for decades through its bureaucracies, media networks, and cultural institutions.

Trump is an intolerable nuisance to a long-entrenched ruling elite. That class has spent years trying to drive him from power — through lawfare, propaganda, and, in the ugliest moments, open calls for violence. The same machine that tried to destroy him also works to crush anyone who resists its authority, from conservative governments abroad to immigration agents at home.

The left’s obsession with Trump comes from fear, not outrage. The new ‘Hitler’ endangers the networks that have empowered bureaucracies and weakened nations.

The network arrayed against Trump stretches across the Anglosphere and Western Europe: managerial states, political parties, NGOs, universities, and press conglomerates. The coordination isn’t perfect, but the pattern is unmistakable. Wealthy woke donors bankroll rioters and leftist institutions that push radical ideology. Bureaucrats cooperate with those same groups to expand state control. The Democratic Party benefits from the alliance and feeds it with public funds.

When leftist politicians or media figures foment violence against Trump supporters or ICE agents, their allies rush to justify it. Inside this international power bloc, there are truly no enemies to the left, no matter how destructive their behavior. Disorder is a feature, not a flaw.

Why they fear Trump

Trump has become the focal point of their rage because he can actually hurt them. Leaders such as Slovakia’s Robert Fico or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán defy the global left, but their small states can only resist the order. They can’t reshape it. The United States can.

Trump’s policies have done what no other Western leader dared attempt: strip money and legitimacy from the bureaucracies, NGOs, and “diversity” programs that prop up the global left.

He has halted tax-funded pipelines to ideological nonprofits, rolled back DEI patronage systems, and ordered federal agencies to eliminate regulations that shield entrenched interests. His vice president’s message to European leaders — stop censoring dissent or lose respect in Washington — cut to the heart of the Western establishment’s cultural monopoly.

Whether Trump acts from conviction or sheer defiance makes no difference. He’s fighting a war the left thought it had already won. His outrage at the Nobel Committee’s sneer that he lacked “courage and integrity” reflects something larger: a refusal to bow to the same institutions that now feign moral superiority while protecting their own corruption.

Trumpism without Trump?

Would the rage end if Trump left the stage? Only if his replacement posed no threat to the system he exposed.

The establishment would happily return to a “normal” presidency — a compliant Democrat like Kamala Harris or a “centrist” Republican such as Mitt Romney or the late John McCain — anyone who accepts the fiction of a “world community” managed by unelected elites. What they cannot tolerate is another president determined to dismantle their structure of privilege.

RELATED: If Trump labels Antifa a foreign terrorist organization, here’s what he can do next

Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images

Even a more “tactful” successor, like Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would face the same fury if he pursued Trump’s agenda. The problem has never been Trump’s manners. The left tolerated Joe Biden’s corruption, mendacity, and incompetence because his handlers advanced their goals. They will never tolerate another president who threatens their control.

The real source of the hysteria

The left’s obsession with Trump comes from fear, not outrage. The new “Hitler” endangers the power networks that have enriched them, empowered bureaucracies, and weakened nations. If Trump had simply appeased the deep state, rewarded Democrat constituencies, and welcomed the illegal aliens who serve as future voters, their derangement would have vanished overnight.

Instead, the anger has become a warning to anyone who might follow in his footsteps: Defy the ruling order, and the machine will destroy you. Trump derangement syndrome isn’t a psychological problem — it’s a political weapon wielded by a class terrified of losing its grip.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Antifa, Trump, Donald trump, Trump derangement syndrome, Deep state, Leftism, Leftists, Democratic party, Democrats, Trumpism, Jd vance, Kamala harris, Marco rubio, Nobel peace prize, Diversity equity inclusion, Ngos, Robert fico, Viktor orban, Censorship, European union, Dissent, Slovakia, Hungary 

Frances Staudt is a high school athlete in Washington state who refused to play against a basketball team with a trans player — and has now been silenced for standing up for her own safety and beliefs.

Staudt recalls that on February 6, 2025, a biological male from another high school brutalized her teammates “using his biological advantage” and “clearly and intentionally” overpowered his competition.

“I was incredibly distraught at the fact that nobody would step in on our behalf, including the staff, coaches, referees, and parents from both sides. This is due to the sheer fact that in our society, we have been pushed to be silent and bow down to the demands to accept what we know to be untrue,” she wrote in a statement following the incident.

Because of Staudt’s reaction, she was “met with allegations of discrimination” and “threats made by other players and a grown man.”

“It was obvious there’s clear biological differences between girls and boys,” Staudt tells Glenn, recalling the first time she saw the male on the court.

Staudt also recalls there was a lot of “roughness on the court” and “pushing girls down and nothing that a normal girl” would have been able to do.

When Staudt first decided to sit out, she tells Glenn that no one really seemed to care. However, when she became upset seeing the male hurt girls on her team, “people really started having issues.”

When she went to the principal, he refused to “misgender” the individual, who was 18 when she was 15.

“When I was 15 years old, the 18-year-old man was in my own locker room. That is quite the opposite of safe and supported that I should be able to feel,” she says.

Staudt has filed a lawsuit and is waiting to hear back, hoping it will be in her favor.

In the meantime, she’s going to continue speaking out on behalf of young women everywhere — and she credits the late Charlie Kirk for her courage.

“I was an incredible fan of Charlie Kirk,” she tells Glenn. “I think he was an amazing man, and I think he’s given me a voice to speak out and given me courage, and I think that it’s important, although we are young, to speak up for what we believe in.”

“It’s important. I’ve had those values instilled by my family as well, and my parents, and I think it’s very important. He did not die in vain. I think that we need to make our country proud, and we are going to be the future of America, and we need to start acting like it,” she adds.

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The mysterious deaths of four people, including two children, at a home in San Francisco may have been a result of financial distress the family underwent in recent months.

Police said the bodies were found on Wednesday at the residence at Monterey Boulevard at about 1:25 p.m., according to KRON-TV.

‘My brother and his two precious daughters were victims of a horrific crime.’

They were later identified as 57-year-old Thomas Russell Ocheltree, his daughters 12-year-old Alexandra Ocheltree and 9-year-old MacKenzie Ocheltree, as well as 53-year-old Paula Truong. Neighbors and relatives said the couple was married and the kids were their children.

Police did not release much information on the investigation and indicated the remains were being investigated by the medical examiner.

Bob Ocheltree, the brother of the deceased man, appeared to suggest in comments to KRON that Truong was the cause of the deaths.

“My brother and his two precious daughters were victims of a horrific crime,” he said Friday. “Our family is shocked and devastated, as you can imagine.”

A person close to the family told KRON that they owned several successful businesses in San Francisco, including a luxury auto repair shop and a number of Vietnamese coffee shops. The person knew the family for about a decade but wished to remain anonymous.

The person added that the family had faced financial hardship, and records showed that they took out a $2.2 million loan against their home in 2022. The home went into foreclosure in 2024.

RELATED: Remains of 4 dead infants found abandoned in recently vacated house, police sources say

The incident was called “suspicious” by the San Francisco Police Department, which turned the investigation over to its homicide unit.

Police said there was no threat to the public and the incident was an isolated event.

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​San francisco murder, Family murdered, Children murdered, Ocheltree family, Crime 

After the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal, President Trump was thrown into the hot seat by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who asked the president whether or not he intended to pardon her himself.

“You know, I haven’t heard the name in so long. I can say this: that I’d have to take a look at it. I would have to take a look,” he responded, asking Collins, “Did they reject that?”

“She wanted to appeal her conviction. They said that they were not going to hear her appeal,” Collins answered.

“I see. Well, I’ll take a look at it. I will speak to the DOJ. I wouldn’t consider it or not consider it; I don’t know anything about it. I will speak to the DOJ,” he answered.

“I have a lot of people who have asked me for pardons. I call him Puff Daddy, has asked me for a pardon,” he added.

“But she was convicted of child sex trafficking,” Collins interjected.

BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler isn’t impressed by Collins’ line of questioning.

“Kaitlan Collins was obviously trying to set President Trump up by asking whether he would pardon Ghislaine Maxwell because she wanted to be outraged by the idea that Trump would pardon Ghislaine Maxwell,” Wheeler says on “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

“I don’t think he will pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, but I think it was not a question that was asked in good faith by CNN. It was an attempt to trick Trump into appearing to go soft on Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein,” she continues.

“So CNN, as always, can be completely discounted,” she adds.

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Actor Martin Sheen vehemently criticized President Donald Trump in an unhinged screed during a live taping of “The Best People” podcast with Nicolle Wallace.

The far-left actor also bashed the president’s Cabinet before he said he wanted to give Trump some advice, and instead launched into his tirade.

‘There’s no heroes in there. There’s no music. There’s no laughter.’

“The big guy in the White House, if he would take some personal advice — you got to realize, sir, that you are the biggest nothing in the world. And sir, you stop there. You stop listening to all these people around you, these sycophants, who are encouraging you to be your nonhuman self,” he said.

“Stop fussing with your hair, and don’t worry about your tie. And stand up straight and speak clearly, not from your throat. Speak from your heart and start being human,” he continued. “That’s what you were made for, not golf. So there you are, Mr. President. With all due respect, sir.”

He said he could imagine a meeting of Trump’s cabinet members to have the smell of “ego and fear and false worship.”

Sheen added, “There’s no heroes in there. There’s no music. There’s no laughter. There’s no self-effacement. There’s no joy in that room.”

The actor not only endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, but he turned up at a pro-Harris campaign event to sing “America the Beautiful” for the cameras.

RELATED: Bette Midler gets slapped with vicious backlash after offering ignorant solution to baby formula crisis

Photo by SAMUEL CORUM/AFP via Getty Images

He was also among those arrested at a climate change protest organized by Jane Fonda on Capitol Hill in 2020.

“We are called to find something in our lives worth fighting for, something that unites the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh,” he said in his speech, “something that can help us lift up this nation and all its people to that place where the heart is without fear.”

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​Martin sheen, Celebrities against trump, Nicolle wallace, Donald trump, Politics 

Republicans in North Carolina are bringing the state into the redistricting fight between President Donald Trump and Democratic lawmakers.

They announced a vote for Monday to change the state’s map for the U.S. House districts.

‘We are doing everything we can to protect President Trump’s agenda, which means safeguarding Republican control of Congress.’

The Republican leaders said in a press release that the efforts in California to redistrict that state and counteract the redistricting in Texas led to their decision.

“President Trump delivered countless victories during his first term in office, and nine months into his second term, he continues to achieve unprecedented wins,” Republican Senate Leader Phil Berger said.

“We are doing everything we can to protect President Trump’s agenda, which means safeguarding Republican control of Congress,” he added. “Picking up where Texas left off, we will hold votes in our October session to redraw North Carolina’s congressional map to ensure Gavin Newsom doesn’t decide the congressional majority.”

House Redistricting Chairmen Brenden Jones and Hugh Blackwell, both Republicans, released a joint statement endorsing the policy.

“We’re stepping into this redistricting battle because California and the radical left are attempting to rig the system to handpick who runs Congress,” they wrote. “This ploy is nothing new, and North Carolina will not stand by while they attempt to stack the deck. President Trump has called on us to fight back, and North Carolina stands ready to level the playing field.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) fired off a response from his social media account soon afterward.

“Oh look, another lap dog Republican desperate to suck up to Trump. The GOP is rigging elections and trying to cover it up with lies. Americans are not that stupid, Phil,” he wrote.

“This started in Texas — and if North Carolina gives in, CALIFORNIA PATRIOTS WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR AMERICA,” he added.

RELATED: Resurfaced video of Democrat admitting the real reason leftists want immigration is going viral

Democrats in New York have announced their intention to redistrict as well, but that effort would not be in time to affect the 2028 elections.

“There’s a phrase, ‘You have to fight fire with fire.’ That is a true statement of how we’re feeling right now,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said in August.

“And as I’ve said, another overused but applicable phrase, ‘All’s fair in love and war,'” she added. “That’s why I’m exploring with our leaders every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible.”

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​Redistricting battle, Trump vs democrats, Newsom redistricting, Politics, North carolina 

President Donald Trump was snubbed from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize despite negotiating peace deals all over the world, and instead, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Machado won the prize for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

“Hold on,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says. “It says here it was ‘her struggle to achieve’ the ‘transition from dictatorship to democracy.’ Did she actually pull any of that off? Because as far as I can tell, the country is still being ruled by a dictator and carries out a whole bunch of human rights abuses.”

“And on top of that, they also are still sending a bunch of drugs to our country to kill our citizens. So this woman is in a struggle session, has not been successful, and they’re like, ‘Well, she tried, but she tried really hard, guys. She gets a participation trophy,’” Gonzales continues.

“I mean, this is just laughable at this point. I don’t know why anyone would take this seriously at all,” she adds.

In an attempt to justify why Trump didn’t win, the Nobel chairman explained, “In the long history of the Nobel Peace Prize, I think this committee has seen any type of campaign media attention. We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what for them leads to peace.”

“This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel,” he continued.

“Oh, okay,” Gonzales comments. “Like good old Barack Hussein Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in, what was it, 2009? Less than nine months after taking office his first term. Like, dude had not done anything yet, but the Nobel committee said it awarded him the prize for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

“And by the way, Obama actually himself admitted that he did not even deserve it,” she says, noting that under Obama, America was led into two wars.

“How many wars is America in under President Trump?” She asks, adding, “Oh, zero.”

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A Portland trauma hospital’s emergency helicopters were forced to divert, significantly adding to their travel time, when local anarchists threatened to “ground” aircraft with laser lights — a federal crime.

Oregon Health & Science University told KGW that several air ambulance vendors refused to land on the hospital’s helipad Saturday evening because of the planned attack. The threatened interruption to air travel added 45 to 60 minutes of travel time for these emergency helicopters.

‘If enough lasers are pointed at the aircraft, we think it will not be able to safely stay in the air for long enough to continue to pinpoint the source for law enforcement, and numbers will make it difficult to focus on a single person.’

“For most patients, that will be an acceptable delay. However, for some sensitive situations, such as unstable trauma patients, STEMIs and strokes, the delay could have real impacts,” OHSU stated.

Rose City Counter-Info, an online anonymous anarchist blog based in Portland, shared a flyer advertising the protest.

“You’re invited: Laser tag!” it read. “Every night for weeks, we are forced to listen to the threatening rhythm of helicopter blades as the federal regime spies on us.”

The flyer encouraged readers to “mask up” and “go to a park, a field, or some other public place” to point lasers at “cop copter[s]” at 9 p.m. on Saturday.

RELATED: If Trump labels Antifa a foreign terrorist organization, here’s what he can do next

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

“It won’t take many of us to ground the helicopters!” the flyer stated.

The blog post provided further instructions on how to evade law enforcement while engaging in this illegal act.

“If enough lasers are pointed at the aircraft, we think it will not be able to safely stay in the air for long enough to continue to pinpoint the source for law enforcement, and numbers will make it difficult to focus on a single person,” the blog post read. “Be ready to dispose of the laser if you need to — wear gloves and clean it with alcohol in case you have to toss it in a hurry. Consider taking precautions to keep DNA off of it as well.”

The Portland Police Bureau told Fox News that no laser incidents were reported that evening. However, the department said it did arrest one individual earlier in the week.

RELATED: Flyer posted on Antifa-affiliated website appears to call for laser attacks on police helicopters in Portland

Photo by Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images

The Department of Homeland Security vowed to stop “Antifa domestic terrorists” from taking over cities.

“We will bust their networks and bring every one of them to justice,” the DHS wrote in a post on X.

The website that shared the flyer has also recently doxxed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, posting photos of alleged officers and their alleged home addresses.

“We put together some posters for people to slap up around town. Name and shame these Gestapo clowns. No peace. No safety. Not welcome in our town,” one blog post stated.

​News, Portland, Oregon, Portland oregon, Portland police bureau, Department of homeland security, Anarchists, Antifa, Oregon health and science university, Oregon health & science university, Ohsu, Lasers, Laser, Laser attack, Politics 

On October 1, the U.S. government entered a partial shutdown, as Congress remains deadlocked over federal budget appropriations.

On paper, a shutdown just means Congress is bickering over federal funds, but Mark Levin rips back the curtain, exposing what’s really going on behind closed doors: Democrats are fighting to slip health care for illegal immigrants into the budget.

He plays a clip from “MSLSD’s” Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, during which they argue that House Speaker Mike Johnson is lying about the shutdown — specifically that Democrats are pushing to reinstate taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits for illegal aliens.

“They’re lying to their own followers, saying Democrats want to shut down the government because they want to give great health care benefits to illegal immigrants. It’s a total lie,” Scarborough said. “I’m wondering where in the Bible does Mike Johnson read Jesus saying, ‘You know what? Tell the truth, except well when it might serve you well politically.”’

“Why don’t you spread lies about those who are on the outskirts of society, those who are suffering right now the most? Why don’t you lie about the weakest among us, Mikey?” he spat.

What Johnson has said is “absolute fact,” Levin says.

“I don’t know why this should surprise anybody. Remember the big, beautiful bill eliminates this in health care and Medicaid for illegal aliens? Biden put it in. Trump took it out. The Democrats are trying to put it back,” he asserts, calling Scarborough’s Jesus insult an “attack on the fact that Mike Johnson is an evangelical Christian.”

As for Scarborough’s lamentation that illegal immigrants are the “the weakest among us,” Levin counters, “Our government’s damn near bankrupt in the name of the weakest, in the name of redistributing wealth.”

The shutdown, he argues, is a deliberate Democratic strategy to manufacture a crisis for political gain and to “hurt Republicans” like Johnson. Democrats are stalling a routine temporary funding bill — something that is supposed to be “non-controversial” — by pushing for health care for illegal immigrants. On top of that, they’re exaggerating the shutdown’s impact, when only a small portion of the budget is affected.

“The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of the government’s open — over 80% of it. The fact of the matter is that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are going to keep running. Government keeps collecting taxes. The veterans’ programs will continue. Food stamps continue. … Other programs — redistributing wealth to the poor and the needy and so forth and so on — those are continuing,” he says.

“The Democrats decide to use [a government shutdown] because they’re fighting among themselves, because they’re trying to empower their party. They’re trying to get their … swagger back, and this is all they have,” Levin explains.

“But it’s not going to create that much pain” because the majority of the government will continue running. “So, unless you’re so desperate to go to a national park … or the Smithsonian or some of these other things or unless you’re a bureaucrat who’s affected by a cut or reduction, you’re not going to feel it,” he says.

As the shutdown drags into its second week with no end in sight, Levin insists Democrats are playing a dangerous game, using the budget battle to score political points while most Americans carry on unaffected.

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After some public outrage, the Department of Homeland Security released details about the criminal accusations against a minor who was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The mother of the teenager told the media that she didn’t know why he was arrested. She also claimed that when she went to pick him up from the Everett Police Department, she was told he was being detained by ICE and then transported to a detainment center in Winchester, Virginia.

‘Here are the facts: he posed a public safety threat with an extensive rap sheet including violent assault with a dangerous weapon …’

Critics pounced on the story to criticize the administration.

“This makes NO SENSE. A 13-year-old was arrested by local police for unknown reasons, and then turned over to ICE, which is detaining him far away from his mother — who is going through immigration court, has an asylum application on file, and is legally authorized to work,” claimed Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, who heads an immigration activist group.

On Monday, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin released information about the teen’s legal troubles.

“Here are the facts: he posed a public safety threat with an extensive rap sheet including violent assault with a dangerous weapon, battery, breaking and entering, destruction of property,” she wrote on social media. “He was in possession of a firearm and 5-7 inch knife when arrested.”

RELATED: Democratic senator accuses Trump administration of faking anti-ICE rioting

On Sunday, Judge Richard Stearns told ICE and the Department of Homeland Security that they must release the boy unless they produce a legitimate justification for his detainment. He also ordered that they must have a hearing no later than Oct. 17 for bail.

The mother said that her son is a seventh-grader and they are both from Brazil but have pending asylum claims.

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Video shows an Austin, Texas, police officer appearing to throw a single punch — and a male crumpling to the ground and lying flat on his back a second later.

The video is part of a KXAN-TV report about a “crowd control” incident Friday night on Sixth Street, and the station said it received “two witness videos of the scene.”

‘The action is inexcusable and indefensible.’

One of those videos “appears to show an officer in a blue shirt shoving a bystander in an orange shirt. Another officer wearing a black shirt appears to throw a punch. The man in the orange shirt is later seen on the ground,” KXAN said. The male seen lying on the ground also is wearing blue jeans and a backward white baseball cap.

The video included in the station’s story — which contains no sound — shows just one angle of the officer’s apparent single punch.

However, another video circulating on social media shows what apparently is a much closer view of the punch from a front-facing angle — and the crowd reacts strongly as a male wearing an orange shirt, blue jeans, and a backward white baseball cap is motionless on the ground.

But that wasn’t the only incident involving police recorded on video that night in Austin.

KXAN said a second video it received shows an “officer on top of a person, appearing to punch them multiple times.”

Indeed, KVUE-TV in its report said it received two videos of this second incident “from witnesses at the scene. Both videos show an officer on top of a person, appearing to punch them numerous times. Another officer, who is holding a separate person down, then assists the first officer, putting his knee on the back of the person being held down and appearing to throw a punch at him.”

Here’s a video report showing another angle of the second incident. Interestingly, it shows a male dressed in an orange shirt, blue jeans, and a backward white baseball cap — apparently the same one who was knocked flat on his back in the video of the single-punch incident — standing off to the side and watching the officers punch the male on the ground:

Officers’ names reportedly revealed

In a follow-up story, KVUE said it obtained documents from the District Court of Travis County revealing more information about what took place in the second incident caught on video.

The station said Austin Police Officer Leger was working in the downtown area when he heard a radio call reporting a “physical altercation” outside the Voodoo Room nightclub. With that, Officer Leger and Officer Garcia responded to the scene, where two men reportedly were fighting, KVUE said.

The station, citing court documents, reported that Officer Leger tried to break up the fight when he was struck in the back of the head, after which he “executed a controlled takedown maneuver” on one of the men, who allegedly resisted. KVUE noted that the court documents indicate Officer Leger struck the man in the face several times in response.

Documents added that a crowd reportedly formed around the officers, and people began throwing objects and pushing and kicking, the station said.

KVUE reported that the male accused of attacking Officer Leger was identified as 19-year-old Johnny Acuña-Jacobo, and he was arrested on a charge of assault on a peace officer, a second-degree felony, and booked into the Travis County Jail on a $10,000 bond. Jail records on Monday indicated Acuña-Jacobo was booked into jail at 4:16 a.m. Saturday and that he was still behind bars Monday. The jail on Monday told Blaze News that while his bond has been paid, Acuña-Jacobo remains incarcerated until an ankle monitor arrives for him.

Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis in a statement to KXAN early Saturday said “last night, an Austin police officer struck an individual during a crowd control incident on Sixth Street. After reviewing the video footage, I share the community’s concern and take this matter very seriously. The officer has been removed from patrol and placed on restricted duty pending a thorough investigation.”

While two officers were named in the follow-up KVUE story — Officer Leger and Officer Garcia — it doesn’t indicate which officer was placed on restricted duty.

Blaze News reached out to Austin police for clarification on which officer was removed from the street in regard to which incident, but the department on Monday afternoon didn’t immediately respond to Blaze News’ request for clarification.

Maria Delgado told KXAN that Acuña-Jacobo is her son and that on Saturday afternoon she saw the video of him getting punched and hasn’t slept much since then. When asked how she is feeling, Delgado replied to KXAN, “Tired, frustrated, [and] helpless. When are these individuals going to face criminal charges? That’s a crime, what they committed.”

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson released the following statement Saturday to KXAN: “I have seen the video of an Austin Police Officer on 6th Street last night. The action is inexcusable and indefensible. There is no room in APD for such violent behavior or for someone who claims to be a public servant and acts that way. I know that Chief Davis will take appropriate action, including action that leads to termination. Again, there is no room for such offensive, ridiculous action.”

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