Category: blaze media

A Democrat candidate in North Carolina is forcing her party to run the other way after she appeared to defend resurfaced comments calling for political violence.

The website for Shelly Headen’s campaign says she is a mom, a neighbor, and an advocate, but on social media she advocated for a military strike against many of those neighbors.

When asked about the extremist insults, Headen compared herself to Jesus Christ.

Headen is running for North Carolina’s state House District 62 without the support of her party after the comments went public.

“I think our only hope is an attack on US Soil … preferably Alabama, Louisiana … where the stupid people live,” Headen wrote in one post, according to the Carolina Journal.

Another comment said the “MAGA cult may be more destructive and evil than the Nazis” and also accused President Donald Trump of “getting close to surpassing Hitler.”

When asked about the extremist insults, Headen compared herself to Jesus Christ.

“I’ve sacrificed myself just like Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross, and Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln and all the people that put themselves out there to sacrifice for our country,” Headen said in a statement to the Assembly.

“If a few angry moments on social media are the end, then so be it,” she added. “MAGA will keep winning if we continue with not standing up for what’s right.”

The North Carolina House Democratic Caucus appeared to disagree with Headen that she was acting like Jesus Christ, and the organization stripped its support from her campaign.

“Shelly Headen’s posts are unacceptable and do not reflect the values we expect of our candidates,” claimed Sam Lozier, the communications director for the caucus. “The North Carolina House Democratic Caucus condemns these comments without qualification and will not support Shelly Headen’s candidacy.”

RELATED: 14 times ‘unhinged’ Democrats have called for political violence

Republican state House Speaker Destin Hall condemned the “absolutely disgusting” comments.

Headen is running against incumbent Republican state Rep. John M. Bust.

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​North carolina, Political violence, Social media, Politics 

The national debate over criminal responsibility and postpartum depression got somewhat derailed after the jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial revealed more details about the lone holdout.

The defense never denied that Clancy strangled her three young children to death in the case that caused a nationwide battle. The defense argued that she sought help for mental illness and postpartum depression but did not get the treatment she needed.

‘For people who revel in identity politics, they certainly fit the most awful stereotypes of white liberals.’

There were nine women and three men on the jury. One lone juror, a male, held out against the 11 others who wanted to acquit Clancy of the charges by reason of insanity.

Some jurors have gone to the public to plead their case that the lone juror was obstinate and refused to listen to the others, but their arguments have only led to more support for the holdout.

An interview with one juror in the case led to the revelation that the holdout was a black man.

On “CBS Mornings,” juror Paula Devlin was asked by Gayle King to describe the racial makeup of the jury, and Devlin revealed that only one member was not white.

“One person of color. Was the person of color a woman or a man?” asked King.

“A man,” she replied.

“A man. Is the holdout juror a black man?” she asked.

“Yes,” Devlin said.

“A black man is the holdout juror?” King repeated.

“Yes,” Devlin said.

“Whoa. I have to sit with that for just a second,” King replied.

Video of King’s stunned reaction was posted to social media.

Devlin went on to say that two jurors initially believed Clancy was guilty, two were undecided, and eight said she was not guilty.

She believes that the lone juror felt personally attacked, and for that reason, he refused to go along with the rest of the jurors after they deliberated and 11 were ready to find Clancy not guilty.

Critics online saw the irony in the demographic revelation.

“The liberal white women who tried to lecture him and shame him into acquiescing literally knew better than him,” said one critic.

“Holy heck, for people who revel in identity politics, they certainly fit the most awful stereotypes of white liberals.”

“This is AMAZING! Why didn’t the black man listen to the white priveledged [sic] saviors!?? How dare he not bow down and submit to their supremacy?!?” said another sarcastically.

“So there was a gaggle of white Karens hectoring a black man. Who didn’t care about all the other s**t, only that the mother had strangled her children,” said another.

RELATED: Hundreds of women rally outside courthouse show support for mother who killed 3 children

Devlin went on to explain her own process of arriving at a not-guilty verdict.

“I was leaning towards not responsible, from all the evidence I had heard,” she said. “And I had certain things I wanted to look at when we got into deliberation. Everything that we talked about and every point that everybody in the room made just kind of reinforced that more and more.”

The case ended in a mistrial and may go to trial again.

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​Lindsay clancy, Mental illness, Postpartum depression, Race politics, Politics, Gayle king 

Democrat socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Mayor Zohran Mamdani were seen laughing and smiling together at Ground Zero in New York City on Friday as 9/11 victims’ families wept nearby.

The incident occurred as family members read the names of the 2,977 Americans killed on September 11, 2001, by Islamic terrorists. Some families had asked earlier in the week that Mamdani stay away from the memorial due to his Islamist associations.

‘America deserved 9/11.’

Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani did not respond to requests for comment.

The clip circulating online juxtaposes 9/11 families visibly grieving with Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez laughing and smiling nearby.

Mamdani attended the ceremony despite a petition, which gathered over 110,00 signatures by Friday, requesting that he not intrude on the event.

“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” Mamdani told reporters Monday. “And what I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11.”

RELATED: The little chapel that didn’t lose a single window on 9/11

In 2025, Mamdani appeared alongside Imam Siraj Wahhaj, identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also appointed as chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, who previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, a convicted al-Qaeda operative whose brother-in-law hijacked the plane that struck the Pentagon.

The first-term mayor has previously framed Muslims as the primary victims of 9/11, telling crowds in 2025 that his “aunt” was forced to stop riding the New York City subway in the aftermath of 9/11 “because she didn’t feel safe in her hijab.” It turns out, the woman was not his aunt and did not live in NYC.

Mamdani also claimed a former teacher warned him on Sept. 11 that he might face bullying because of his Muslim background. The former teacher does not recall that conversation, according to the New York Times.

Both Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez have ties to left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who in 2019 said, “America deserved 9/11.” Piker was raised in Turkey and lived there until he came to the United States for college.

Piker attacked families who signed the petition asking that Mamdani not attend the 9/11 memorial, saying they had a “demented racist viewpoint.”

AOC has appeared on Piker’s streams and hugged him at Mamdani’s victory party. Asked in August 2026 whether Piker should have a role in the progressive movement, she said Democrats “have a responsibility to build a winning coalition.”

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​Democrat, Ground zero, Socialists, World trade center, Politics, Zohran mamdani, Alexandria ocasio-cortez, New york city, 9/11 

Most drivers don’t spend much time thinking about tire regulations. You buy the tire that fits your vehicle, your driving, and your budget. If you live somewhere with real winters, you may switch to snow tires. If you drive a performance car, you probably care a lot about grip and handling.

California has other ideas.

Someone driving an SUV has different requirements from someone commuting in a small hybrid. A Mustang owner who takes his car to the track has different priorities again.

On a recent episode of “The Drive,” my co-host Karl Brauer and I discussed new California rules targeting the rolling resistance of replacement tires. Beginning in 2029, tires sold in the state will have to meet new efficiency requirements, with the standards becoming more stringent in the years that follow.

It sounds harmless enough. Lower rolling resistance means a tire requires less energy to keep moving, which can improve fuel economy in a gasoline vehicle and range in an EV.

But fuel economy isn’t the only thing a tire has to do.

Get a grip

Tires are a collection of compromises. Grip, tread life, road noise, ride quality, wet-weather performance, handling, and efficiency all matter, and manufacturers design different tires for different vehicles and drivers. The tire you want on a Prius isn’t necessarily the tire you want on a Mustang — or a 1,000-horsepower performance car.

Karl had just driven one of those: the new 1,000-horsepower Brabus Bodo. We were talking about how dramatically temperature and tire compound can affect a performance car when he raised the obvious question: Could California eventually make it harder to buy the kind of tire such a car was designed to use?

That’s where this gets concerning.

RELATED: The diesel Chevy Suburban makes too much sense to be this hard to find

Bloomberg/Getty Images

California king

California isn’t a small automotive market that tire companies can simply ignore. If a manufacturer has to produce one version of a tire for California and another for the rest of the country, it has to decide whether producing both makes economic sense.

We’ve already watched a version of this happen with automobiles. California’s size and economic clout have allowed its emissions policies to influence vehicles sold far beyond the state’s borders. Tire manufacturers face the same basic economics: It can be cheaper and simpler to build a product that satisfies the toughest major market than maintain separate versions for different states.

And California rarely remains alone for long. Other states have historically adopted many of its automotive and environmental standards. A rule that begins in Sacramento can therefore affect what manufacturers choose to offer consumers thousands of miles away.

Rubber, meet road

That’s why I don’t see this simply as an argument about squeezing another fraction of a mile per gallon out of a car. It’s about whether drivers will continue to have the freedom to choose the tire best suited to how and where they drive.

I live in Buffalo. Winter tires aren’t an enthusiast accessory here. They’re a safety decision. Someone driving an SUV has different requirements from someone commuting in a small hybrid. A Mustang owner who takes his car to the track has different priorities again.

There is no single ideal tire for all of them.

I talk about tires constantly because those four contact patches are the only things connecting your vehicle to the road. You can have the best brakes, suspension, and stability-control system in the world, but ultimately they all depend on the tire being able to grip the pavement.

Efficiency matters. But so do traction, handling, braking, and giving drivers the ability to choose the right tire for the job.

California’s rules don’t fully take effect for several years. Drivers should pay attention now, because by the time they discover that the tire they want is no longer available, the decision may already have been made for them.

​Lifestyle, Tires, Regulation, Road safety, Consumer choice, Automotive, California 

A family member of a 9/11 victim used his platform at the 25th anniversary memorial service to ask President Donald Trump to release information kept secret by the “deep state.”

The nephew of terror victim Lisa Marie Terry made the plea to the president at Ground Zero Friday and received cheers and applause from many in the audience.

‘How can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?’

“For 25 years, the deep state has hidden the truth about what happened that day 25 years ago,” he said.

“President Trump, you are our last hope,” he added. “Release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia while what’s left of the victims’ families are still alive to see it!”

Video of his plea was widely circulated on social media.

The government of Saudi Arabia has denied any involvement in the terror attacks that took the lives of 2,977 Americans.

Terry Strada, the national chair of 9/11 Families United for Justice, also spoke out against Saudi Arabia at the ceremony as she remembered her husband, Tom Strada, who died in the attacks.

“How can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?” she said after reading her husband’s name.

She went on to accuse Saudi Arabia of fomenting “a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe” and then sending “its agents to support radical Islamist hijackers so they could attack you and all of our loved ones.”

RELATED: Outrage erupts at apparent insult from Mamdani during 9/11 ceremony

Strada recognized Vice President JD Vance, who was at the ceremony to represent the administration.

“Vice President Vance, thank you for being here today,” she said. ‘Please carry that message back. Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors. Stand with Americans. As my husband, Tom, would have said, that is always the right thing to do.”

Fifteen of the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia.

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​Deep state, Saudi arabia, 9/11 anniversary, Politics, Donald trump, Jd vance 

J.K. Rowling is a “literal Nazi.” Supporting “Harry Potter” means supporting “trans genocide.” And transgender surgeries on minors? They’re not happening.

Those are some of the claims “The Matrix” co-creator Lily (formerly Andy) Wachowski made in a bizarre new interview.

‘If you support “Harry Potter,” you’re supporting trans genocide.’

And that’s just for starters.

In the words of Joe Pantoliano’s traitorous Cypher: “Buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, ’cause Kansas is going bye-bye.”

Members only

Speaking to Variety about his new studio, Wachowski soon began spinning a dystopian fantasy to rival anything he’s done with Keanu Reeves: The United States was this close to a “trans tipping point” of equality — until evil billionaires stepped in to stop it with their lies.

For example, do you really think minors are undergoing transgender surgeries? Think again.

“None of this is happening! This is all right-wing propaganda against trans people. That is what has caused the shift,” he said.

Never mind that even the most skeptical reports do indeed prove him wrong

An article by Snopes, which sought to disprove data from a 2024 study, ended up admitting that hundreds of children have had gender surgeries in recent years, including 85 who underwent a “gender-affirming surgical procedure” in 2019. The author seemingly found solace in the fact that they were mostly “chest-related procedures,” though.

The article also noted that health insurance claims showed more than 230 surgeries on minors in 2019, over 250 in 2020, and over 280 in 2021.

Crucially, 56 of the procedures from that period were genital surgeries, something Wachowski specifically denied in a mocking description of the “propaganda” deployed by conservatives.

“Jesse Watters was talking to the Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about cutting kids’ tallywackers off.”

Other estimates are considerably higher. Do No Harm, an advocacy group opposed to gender-transition procedures for minors, says its analysis of insurance claims found 13,994 minors receiving puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones or undergoing gender-related surgeries between 2019 and 2023. Of those, the group says 5,747 underwent surgery.

RELATED: ‘Matrix’ co-creator: ‘Trans rage’ drives my work

Getty Images

Sapphic ‘Star Wars’

Wachowski also complained that Hollywood has shown little interest in the transgender- and gay-themed projects he has pitched.

“If I never make another movie again, I’m fine. I’m getting old,” he said. “But in my experience of pitching stuff, I’ve pitched a lot of wonderful, cool queer stories and trans stories, and Hollywood didn’t want any of it.”

Among those projects was one Wachowski described as “Star Wars” with “lesbians in space.”

“I cannot find a studio that will do any of it,” he said.

RELATED: Transgender ‘Matrix’ director says Hollywood won’t make his new film — and there’s one insane reason why

Larry (L) and Andy (R) Wachowski. Bob Riha Jr./WireImage/Getty Images

Bitter ‘pill’

Asked about Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump using the term “red pill” — a reference to “The Matrix” that has since taken on a life of its own in politics and online culture — Wachowski rejected the idea that they had simply misunderstood his movie.

Instead, he accused them of “co-opting” the message.

“That’s what fascists do,” Wachowski said. “They co-opt the messages of progressives and use it to their benefit to confuse and obfuscate what is going on and the intention of their ideology.”

When the conversation turned separately to Musk and “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, Wachowski went considerably farther.

“I mean … these people are Nazis,” he said. “They’re literal Nazis.”

Wachowski then accused Rowling, a prominent critic of transgender activism, of financing a “genocide.”

“She is funding trans genocide,” Wachowski said. “J.K. Rowling funds trans genocide, full stop.”

“So if you support ‘Harry Potter,’ you’re supporting trans genocide.”

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​The matrix, Wachowski, Transgenderism, Hollywood, Gender affirming care for minors, Entertainment 

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States that robbed 2,977 innocent people of their lives.

Col. Rob Maness was inside the Pentagon that horrific day. On this episode of “Rufo & Lomez,” BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman sit down with the retired Air Force colonel to hear insider details of a day America will never forget.

“Colonel, it’s been 25 years since that day. What is your general reflection looking back after all these years?” Rufo asks.

America today, warns Maness, is in the same vulnerable position it was on September 10, 2001.

Between “importing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of [Islamists] over the last 25 years with a very poor vetting process” and corrupt “intelligence agencies,” Maness says he’s “very concerned” for the country, because “in many ways, we’re at September 10, 2001.”

“A lot of us were sort of younger when this happened. It’s a kind of fuzzy memory. … Just kind of walk us through what it was like to be there on the ground directly, where this event happened, how people were thinking about it at the time, people’s response to it, what those first 24, 48 hours were like,” says Keeperman.

In those days, Maness was a major — “the coffee guy,” he laughs.

“I walked by the day-care center every day up into corridor 8, into my office area, which was inside the National Military Command Center. And, you know, at the time I was getting there, the kids were being dropped off … and I always enjoyed watching them and the parents and all that stuff because I had little kids of my own,” he recounts.

“I just walked in and said, ‘Man, this is going to be a fantastic day,”’ he adds.

It wasn’t long before he discovered how wrong that prediction was.

That day, he explains, marked the start of America’s “global nuclear war game.” Maness’ real job, he explains, was in the Joint Staff’s nuclear operations division, which trained the aides with access to the “nuclear football book” and oversaw the doomsday plane.

“A lot of my leadership and teammates were out at different nodes around the world for command and control of nuclear forces because we were kicking that exercise off that day,” he tells Rufo and Keeperman, “and that was literally happening at the moment the airplanes hit the towers.”

After the first strikes, Maness’ on-site team “stayed on duty” to “help with the command and control decision-making.” They were “ordered out” of the Pentagon just after the third plane hit.

Once evacuated, Maness immediately turned his attention to helping the wounded.

“I just started helping do what I could for the first aid and those kind of things until we got asked to go back inside the courtyard because the fire trucks couldn’t get inside and the building’s roof was burning,” he recounts.

“I estimate probably between 100 and 200 people … split up into two teams and went to those inside corners, and we started helping continue to fight the fire [and] see if we could find anybody alive.”

To hear more of Maness’ story, watch the video above.

Want more from Rufo & Lomez?

To enjoy more of the news through the anthropological lens of Christopher Rufo and Lomez, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Chris rufo, Jonathan keeperman, 9/11 anniversary, Blazetv show 

A year after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, BlazeTV host Steve Deace is still struggling to process the loss of his friend — and the spiritual warfare that’s begun escalating in his absence.

“It is still hard to believe that Charlie is gone. I still can’t believe that this really happened,” Deace says. “It’s still kind of surreal to me. Despite how many tears I’ve shed over the last year, more than I can count, more often than I can count.”

“Felt like losing a little brother to me. Just one that was more talented and better looking. But the other reason I’ve shed so many tears over the last year for this, and I mean there have been moments where I have just sobbed, it’s because I didn’t just lose a friend and a brother,” he continues.

“I understand [what] the church in our country lost with Charlie as well,” he adds, “It is, folks, it’s a gaping void that may never be filled.”

And this “dysfunction” plaguing the Republican Party, Deace explains, is happening “because Charlie’s not here.”

“And I’ve talked about this before, how much behind the scenes Charlie was keeping at bay, holding at bay,” he says.

“And a lot of the instigation and impetus for what we’ve seen, which is the stuff out of church history books, out of the Bible, just open spiritual warfare breaking out into the natural world, into the seeing realm, the trigger for a lot of it was his assassination,” he continues.

“If you were here,” he adds, addressing his old friend, “this would not be happening at the rate that it is, if at all. And I think it’s further confirmation of the apostolic calling on Charlie’s life, his martyring, and its aftermath.”

Want more from Steve Deace?

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​Assassination, Charlie kirk, Church, Martyrdom, Republican party, Spiritual warfare, Steve deace, Blazetv show 

Hunter Biden is the latest personality to promote a cryptocurrency meme coin accused of being a scam.

The former president’s son launched the “LAPTOP” coin on Wednesday. The full diluted valuation of the coin quickly surged to $144 billion before crashing almost immediately, losing about 98.8% of its value in just a few short hours.

‘They turned laptop into a weapon. I turned it into a token.’

The 56-year-old had promoted the coin Monday with a video compilation of news clips reporting the infamous laptop that he had left at a computer repair shop and was later obtained by the media and federal agents.

“The symbol they used to try to end me is now a symbol of resilience, redemption, and recovery,” wrote Biden in a post Tuesday.

“They turned laptop into a weapon. I turned it into a token.”

But the massive increase and crash seemed to have all the earmarks of a classic “pump and dump” scheme, where the coin creators and insiders sell their shares near the maximum valuation, which leads to many investors losing nearly everything.

The coin creators often make outsized promises to the promoter but leave them holding the bag after “rug pulling” the common investors of their money.

President Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump mocked Biden after reports of it crashing.

“Hunter should go back to painting,” he posted on social media.

Economic expert and Blaze News contributor Carol Roth responded in comments to Blaze News.

“Hunter Biden knows how to make something out of nothing — at least for himself. Now that his previously lucrative board memberships and painting careers aren’t quite as robust, it’s unsurprising he would support a meme coin scheme,” she said.

She also criticized meme coins as investments.

“Crypto generally, and meme coins in particular, are a part of growing trend of get-rich-quick and betting-oriented activities that seem to be pervasive in America these days,” Roth added. “If the value of something comes down to purely in selling it to the next guy trying to make a quick buck, it’s not really an investment — it’s a gambling vehicle.”

RELATED: Liberals are furious at crypto company for rejecting overt displays of social justice activism

Both President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have launched their own meme coins, which similarly climbed in value before collapsing.

“Why something that has been so misused by grifters? I understand the cynicism,” Hunter Biden wrote in the Tuesday post before the launch. “Trump has broken trust in everything he’s ever touched. And his token was no exception.”

Biden has since denied the allegations that he was taken in by a crypto-scheme. In a video posted to his account Friday, he claimed that there had been a mix-up but that he was “intimately” involved in the coin’s creation and that it still had a future.

One analysis found that an account apparently purchased $250,000 worth of Hunter’s meme coin, waited eight minutes while it skyrocketed in value, then dumped the coin for a profit of nearly $1 million.

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​Hunter biden, Cryptocurrency, Scams, Hunter biden laptop, Politics 

Remember not too terribly long ago when we recommended passkeys over usernames and passwords due to their more stringent security? Well, a new fatal flaw just emerged, and it has us rethinking our original take. Here’s what you need to know about the new passkeys vulnerability, plus what you can do to protect your data from attacks.

Well, this is awkward. We just got done saying how much better it is to use passkeys over usernames and passwords. Personally, every passkey available to me is enabled on my accounts, so maybe I’m a walking target. Perhaps you are, too, especially if your passwords are saved in Google’s software ecosystem.

Passkeys were meant to be a more perfect way to protect access to your online accounts.

This newly discovered malware — dubbed Pass-ta-key — specifically targets the passkeys system attached to Google Password Manager, the first-party password storage app built into Google Chrome and Android. The researchers who discovered the flaw hacked into Google Passkeys through the Chrome browser on a Windows PC using all three of these methods:

The basic Pass-ta-key exploit ultimately tricks Google’s authentication system into accessing the passkey-protected website with no identity verification (PIN, biometric data, or password) necessary.Silver Pass-ta-key takes the exploit a step farther by erroneously convincing the system that the user did provide identity authentication to gain access to a website or service, treating it just like a user-confirmed event.As for Gold Pass-ta-key, this top-tier exploit steals the entire passkey vault from Chrome by targeting Google’s master key system at the time a device is registered or an account is recovered.

There’s no word on whether or not other operating systems (such as macOS or Linux) and Chromium-based browsers (like Microsoft Edge and Brave) are equally susceptible, but since Windows is the largest PC platform in the world and Chrome is the most popular browser on the market, this threat puts billions of computer users at risk worldwide.

RELATED: Tired of password insanity? Make this safer, stronger choice.

Rawf8/Getty Images

Not a Windows user? You still have a reason to worry.

Apple customers aren’t out of the woods, either. A separate Apple passkey exploit was recently discovered for iCloud+ subscribers who use iCloud Private Relay, a feature meant to hide your IP address from the sites you visit online. Thanks to a WebKit bug, websites that request passkey verification may also see your IP address, even when iCloud Private Relay is enabled. The only way to stop this is to use a browser without WebKit or rely on a third-party VPN service. On the bright side, at least your passkey vaults will stay concealed.

What to do to protect yourself

Passkeys were meant to be a more perfect way to protect access to your online accounts, which is critical in an age when AI makes it easier than ever to hack systems and steal data. Despite malware like Pass-ta-key, passkeys are still more secure than traditional usernames and passwords. However, if these exploits give you pause to trust such a solution, you’re not alone. The good news is that Pass-ta-key requires pre-existing malware to already be present on the target computer, and as long as you refrain from downloading apps and services from sketchy places online, your chances of contracting this malware are on the lower side.

For those who still aren’t convinced, you might be asking yourself what you can do next to protect your accounts. Unfortunately, there aren’t many viable options left.

The truth is that it’s hard to recommend a foolproof password manager these days, as most of them have endured some kind of breach, hack, or vulnerability at one point or another. At this point, you might be better off etching your credentials on a stone tablet than putting them into a digital device. And if you don’t have one of those handy, just keep an eye on Blaze News for updates on which password exploit pops up next. We’ll report on it when we hear about it.

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​Data, Passwords, Security, Threat, Tech 

An Illinois mother who reportedly was “very invested” in the Lindsay Clancy case is accused of killing her toddler before attempting to commit self-harm amid an alleged “brief psychotic disorder.”

The Frankfort Police Department said in a statement that officers responded to a report of an unresponsive juvenile just after 4 p.m. Sept. 1.

‘She was severely mentally ill at the time of the incident and requires treatment.’

Police found a 2-year-old boy at the home, and he was taken to a hospital where he later was pronounced dead.

The Will County Coroner’s Office ruled the toddler’s cause of death was “asphyxia due to ligature compression of the neck,” the Patch Frankfort reported.

The statement added that three other juveniles were inside the home, and they were not harmed.

The victim’s mother, 40-year-old Corie A. Walsh, also was taken to the Silver Cross Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Court documents said after Walsh’s treatment at the hospital, she was taken to the Will County Adult Detention Facility.

Walsh was charged with first-degree murder, according to jail records.

“Court documents note that based on the age of the victim of this case, the sentencing range would be 60 to 100 years if she’s convicted,” according to the Patch Frankfort.

RELATED: Fatally stabbed elderly man found with his heart cut out; victim’s daughter charged with murder

WMAQ-TV obtained court documents saying Walsh’s son, 2-year-old Barrett “Bear” Walsh, was found dead hanging from a rafter in the basement of the Walsh family home.

Walsh appeared in court Tuesday, where prosecutors revealed that two of Walsh’s children arrived home from school to the chilling scene and asked a neighbor for help.

WMAQ reported that the neighbor quickly pulled Barrett down and attempted CPR but said he had no pulse.

An 8-month-old baby was found unsupervised on the floor of a room upstairs, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the neighbor found Walsh fully clothed in a bathtub with bloody water, with injuries to her wrist and thighs.

Citing court documents, ABC News reported that the neighbor told officers Walsh was “actively harming herself” with a knife and was “trying to kill herself.”

The neighbor noted that Walsh had dilated eyes and a “weird giggle,” according to WMAQ.

Court documents said Walsh killed her son because she thought “he was the devil” and the “anti-Christ.”

Walsh’s attorney claimed that his client was suffering from a “brief psychotic disorder” at the time of the death of 2-year-old Barrett Walsh.

“She was severely mentally ill at the time of the incident and requires treatment,” defense attorney Robert Kerr said in court, according to WMAQ.

Walsh’s attorneys argued for inpatient medical care for their client.

However, prosecutors claimed Walsh had bad intentions for other members of her family, saying she later stated she intended to harm her husband when he arrived home and would “poison him with a drink,” WMAQ reported, adding that she also believed she had killed her other children.

A judge ordered Walsh detained because she could pose a risk to her remaining children and husband.

According to WLS-TV, prosecutors said Walsh had “recently become very invested in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial,” the high-profile case involving a mother killing her three children before trying to take her own life.

Court documents said, “The defendant had been actively discussing the case via group text message with her friends up until 12:30 p.m. on September 1, 2026, three and a half hours before the scene was discovered.”

Witnesses said Walsh believed Clancy’s husband — not Lindsay Clancy — murdered the children.

According to participants in the group chat, Walsh’s messages were “confusing” and “out of character.”

Clancy’s defense argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children in January 2023.

Despite text messages showing references to the Clancy case, defense attorneys branded claims of Walsh being a “Lindsay Clancy copycat” as “sickening.”

“Describing Corie to a copied Lindsay is to take an easy bait,” Kerr stated.

Walsh also is represented by Andrea Lyon — a lawyer for Casey Anthony during her infamous 2011 murder trial in which she was found not guilty of killing her 2-year-old daughter.

Lyon told ABC News:

This is a tragedy for the Walsh family, all of whom are mourning the loss of this child. It is also a tragedy in that Corie herself was experiencing a psychotic episode at the time this happened. It is our hope that through a thorough presentation and investigation of the facts, that all of us will come to see this heartbreak for what it is.

Walsh’s husband was out of state at the time of the alleged crime, according to court documents.

Defense attorneys said Walsh’s husband and mother “have unwavering love and support” for the murder suspect.

While Walsh was in court Tuesday, her son was laid to rest.

Walsh is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 24.

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​Murder, Lindsay clancy, Postpartum psychosis, Insanity defense, Illinois, Mother, Crime 

Bystanders captured horrifying video of a woman who was brutally mauled by a pit bull in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.

One woman said the attack lasted between 10 and 15 minutes, and while some tried to intervene, the woman ended up with life-threatening injuries.

‘A lot of people were going up and trying to pepper-spray the dog, but it was just still trying to attack the lady.’

The unidentified victim was transported to a hospital after police arrived and captured the dog with a snare pole.

In one video, the woman can be seen lying on the ground motionless while an onlooker screams at police to shoot the dog.

The pit bull’s head is covered in blood.

Police said that the dog became motionless while they were restraining it, and it was declared dead at the scene. The Animal Care and Control agency of the city took charge of the remains.

The owner of the dog was not found at the scene, according to police.

Ashley Powell told KPIX-TV she was walking to work when she saw the dog attack the woman.

“She was walking by. The dog was with the owner. And the dog just jumped and attacked her,” Powell told the station. “Just started pulling her, biting her hands, fingers, chest, face.”

Powell said she called 911 immediately.

She said various people tried to pull the dog from the woman during Tuesday morning’s attack.

“I had residents up there saying, ‘Get the dog off of her, get the dog off of her,'” Powell continued. “A lot of people were going up and trying to pepper-spray the dog, but it was just still trying to attack the lady.”

Another witness, James Richmond, told KPIX the dog’s owner tried to intervene and then left the area.

RELATED: ‘There was blood everywhere’: Video shows pit bulls sneaking through doggy doors of home

“He’s out here quite often. When I do see him, he is always with his dog,” Raymond told the station. “Most of the time, they are sitting down, so you don’t really see if a leash is there.”

Richmond said he believes the dog’s owner is homeless, but that part of the interview is only in the station’s video report.

More from the station:

District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill says he’s been sounding the alarm on off-leash dogs in the Tenderloin since the city’s dog court went on a hiatus last year. The dog court resumed taking on the backlog of vicious dog cases in June.

“And look, it’s great they have hearings scheduled for October with a new judge for dog court, that’s fantastic,” said Sherrill. “But having dogs off leash, having owners that are irresponsible is so dangerous, it’s unbelievable, and now we can see it with our own eyes.”

Police said anyone with information about the incident should contact them at 415-575-4444, KPIX reported.

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​Dog attack, Homeless, Pit bull, Police, San francisco, Crime 

Unless you’re a frequent X user, you may have missed that Elon Musk launched X Money, the financial services platform that he originally envisioned for the X.com brand when he purchased the domain in 1999. Shortly after its debut, X Money users came under attack, with hackers looking to steal everything.

X Money is a new financial platform under Musk’s growing brand, X Corp. While it isn’t technically a bank, it offers many financial services that you would find at any other financial institution. Some of these include high-yield accounts with up to 6.00% APY — high above the national average of 0.62% APY — the X Card debit card that offers 3% cash back on eligible purchases, and early payday support for direct deposit checks.

The goal was to reset user passwords to access X accounts and the money inside.

The X Money website also touts “powerful security,” which unfortunately was already put to the test by bad actors looking to take advantage of X Money’s brand-new customers.

The mess began when some users received unsolicited password change requests for their X accounts. The goal was to reset user passwords to access those accounts and the money inside. According to a response from Grok, hackers simply spammed the password reset feature by typing in users’ public X usernames and then clicking “forgot password?” in hopes of taking control.

X.com login page

X product engineer Mridul Singhai acknowledged the issue and quickly assuaged concerns that a broader attack was under way. In a post, he said, “We are actively investigating the issue and, so far, have found no evidence of any breaches. We apologize for the multiple emails and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this.”

In other words, the attack doesn’t appear to be the result of a system leak, hack, or compromised data. Scammers are simply targeting users who are suspected to have X Money accounts and weaponizing the password reset feature to gain entry.

As for how attackers knew which accounts to pursue, there currently isn’t a badge or identifying marker to denote an X Money customer from a regular X user. However, since X recently moved its creator payment program from Stripe to X Money, any account with a “Subscribe” button is a likely target.

RELATED: 200,000 Chinese bots are hiding on X — built to control what you think

NurPhoto/Getty Images

Whether you’re an X Money account holder or a typical X.com user looking to shore up security on your profile, it’s actually very easy to keep hackers and would-be criminals out of your business. X offers several security features that you should enable now, even if you think you’re not at risk.

Open the X app, tap your profile picture in the top left corner, and then choose “Settings and privacy” at the bottom. On the next page, tap “Security and account access,” followed by “Security.” On this last page, you’ll see several options. I recommend setting up Passkeys at the very least, but enabling all of these can help.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/X.com Security Options

Two-factor authentication requires the person logging in — whether that’s you or a potential hacker — to have access to another approved form of verification before he can access your account. The other form can be a text message sent directly to your phone, a temporary code sent to an authentication app, or even a physical security key that must be inserted into your device to prove you are you. Personally, the authentication app option is my favorite, but feel free to choose which works best.

Password reset protection requires a person to know your account email address — not just your username — to reset your password. Since your email address is never openly shared on your profile, this should be information that only you possess, helping to keep you safer.

Finally, Passkeys add a biometric layer to the login process. These allow you to bypass the usual login information and instead require you to verify your identity with a FaceID scan or a fingerprint. This feature is the most secure option, because only you have access to your biometric data.

Once you have these set up, your X account is secure, and you won’t have to worry about hackers attempting to break in and cause trouble.

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​Attack, Elon musk, Hackers, Scammers, Security, X.com, Tech 

An unexpected surprise occurred on the floor of the 2026 Republican Midterm Convention on Thursday, when the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security claimed that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) married her brother and that consequences are coming.

“Something’s going to happen,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said after Benny Johnson asked about the accusation that Omar married her brother so that he could stay in the United States.

‘We know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States.’

Rumors that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, who married Omar in 2009, is Omar’s biological brother have swirled for years. Mullin seemed to confirm those rumors to Johnson Thursday night.

“We know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States,” he began.

“There may be more to this — the whole family migration and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with. But all of this, we’re investigating.”

Perhaps in anticipation of left-wing backlash about his comments, Mullin added: “If we actually move a case forward, it’s not a political case. It’s actually a case because they did things wrong.”

“If you decided to break the law or lie on the information you gave the United States … but you didn’t tell us who you actually were … there’s no expiration to that. If we can prove it that you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we’ll deport you.”

Blaze News reached out to Omar’s office for comment but did not receive a response by the deadline.

In 2020, Omar released a statement calling the allegations “absolutely false and ridiculous,” reiterating that “insinuations that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is my brother are absurd and offensive.”

RELATED: Is Ilhan Omar getting deported? Trump’s post raises eyebrows

Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images; Joe Raedle/Getty Images

President Donald Trump weighed in on the allegations late last year. “If that’s true, she shouldn’t be a congressman,” he said definitively. “And we should throw her the hell out of our country.”

Trump then hinted as recently as last month that she may be the subject of ICE “enforcement proceedings” on account of alleged “fraud.”

Vice President JD Vance also addressed the accusations against Omar back in May and indicated an investigation was underway. “You read the things about Ilhan Omar and about who she married and whether she didn’t marry this person or that person,” Vance said.

“It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody’s entitled to equal justice under the laws, so we’re going to investigate it,” he added. “We’re going to take a look at it. If we think that there’s a crime, we’re going to prosecute that crime. And that’s something the Department of Justice is looking at right now.”

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​Ilhan omar, Immigration fraud, Investigation, Markwayne mullin, Donald trump, Jd vance, News 

A new toxicology report has revealed chilling new details about the deaths of four children whose mother and grandmother allegedly plotted together to kill them before taking their own lives in a murder-suicide in upstate New York.

As Blaze News previously reported, police found six bodies in a Mechanicville apartment during a welfare check on June 23.

‘It’s not working, we need another option.’

Police identified the alleged victims as 13-year-old Harper Harmon, 11-year-old Hudson Harmon, and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn Harmon. The children’s bodies were discovered alongside the bodies of their 44-year-old mother, Sarah Myers, and their 64-year-old grandmother, Amy Steadman.

Mechanicville Police said the children were murdered on June 10, according to WNYT-TV.

The Albany Times Union reported last month that Mechanicville Police Chief Bill Rabbitt said the four children were victims of a “mass killing.”

Rabbitt said Steadman and Myers began their plan as early as June 5, when Steadman began visiting multiple pharmacies to purchase over-the-counter sleep aids and medication prescribed to her, the Times Union said.

According to investigators, Steadman’s online search history contained inquiries about the effects of insulin used on individuals without diabetes.

The Times Union reported that Steadman and Myers exchanged messages discussing that they “wanted to dose the children between 10:30 a.m. and noon on June 10, before a scheduled 6 p.m. phone call with their father, Utah resident Brady Harmon.”

Harmon told the Times Union that he received a message on June 10 that the children had stomach aches and that the kids would call him the next day.

Harmon said subsequent attempts to reach them by phone and text went unanswered.

Rabbitt said three of the children were poisoned, while 10-year-old Gavin was stabbed with a knife “as he evidently tried to protect himself,” according to the Times Union.

The chief added that Steadman conducted online searches asking, “Where’s the most fatal place to be stabbed?” and “Find the carotid artery.”

According to Rabbitt, messages between the grandmother and her daughter revealed that the children were not responding to the medication as expected.

One message read: “It’s not working, we need another option.”

Gracelynn, 10, reportedly wrote a message on her iPad about her stomach hurting: “Why would you do that? You won’t let me puke.”

Rabbitt said Steadman wrote a final chilling message: “Gracie is aware.”

Citing sources, WNYT-TV reported Monday that diphenhydramine, the ingredient in Benadryl, was detected in the children’s bodies. Kratom also was found.

According to the Food and Drug Administration:

FDA has warned consumers not to use kratom because of the risk of serious adverse events, including liver toxicity, seizures, and substance use disorder (SUD). In rare cases, deaths have been associated with kratom use, as confirmed by a medical examiner or toxicology reports. However, in these cases, kratom was usually used in combination with other drugs, and the contribution of kratom in the deaths is unclear.

RELATED: She killed her husband. Then she killed her firefighter wife. Now she faces an even longer stretch behind bars.

Police said multiple letters were found at the crime scene, including one reportedly written by Steadman, who purportedly took responsibility for killing the children; she claimed it was the only way to prevent alleged abuse by their father.

Another handwritten letter believed to have been written by Myers accused Harmon of abusing the children when they lived in Utah, and she was angry with the Utah Family Court system, according to police.

The Times Union reported that Harmon denied accusations that he abused his children and hadn’t seen them since November 2019.

“Never touched my kids. And this is coming from someone who has been abused. Unless you’re in that room and living a day-to-day, you know, life with her, you know nothing,” Harmon said, according to WKRG-TV.

Harmon claimed Myers assaulted him on the last day he saw his children: “I put my hand up, and then she opened the door and stabbed me in the face with a medicine dropper.”

Harmon added to the Times Union that he received 10 letters from Saratoga County Child Protective Services informing him of several investigations into inadequate guardianship and educational neglect and that Myers had postponed his court-ordered time with them last summer until she said they had to return to school.

Harmon added, “I was called a sperm donor, nothing more than an ATM, deadbeat father.”

Harmon stated, “They stabbed my son; they poisoned my children. All in the delusional state of, ‘We’re doing this for your benefit.'”

Harmon said Myers was “sick enough to believe her own lies.”

“My kids suffered,” Harmon told WKRG. “To poison them and also to stab them — there’s a special place in hell for people like that.”

Harmon said, “You don’t do that to someone you love.”

Rabbitt stated, “The deliberate murder of four children cannot be described as protection.”

“As a community, we cannot change what happened, but together we can honor these children by caring for one another, supporting those in need and doing everything within our power, and to prevent another family from experiencing tragedy like this,” the chief added.

Harmon said a court order allowed him to have the children from July 1 until Sept. 1.

However, the cremated remains of the children were flown July 2 to Utah, where the father scattered their ashes on a mountaintop.

WRGB-TV obtained court records showing Myers and Brady Harmon were married in December 2015 in Salt Lake City, separated in 2019, and divorced in 2020.

Court documents said both parents were awarded joint custody of their children.

WRGB reported, “Additional paperwork showed Myers was ordered to appear in Utah court on June 29 over a motion to enforce the divorce/custody terms.”

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​Murder, Murder suicide, Mom killed children, New york, Utah, Custody battle, Crime 

Not many political speeches start with an iconic 1990s jingle, but Marty O’Donnell’s did.

O’Donnell is running in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, where he is looking to “retire” his opponent, Democrat Susie Lee.

‘Without God, liberty collapses into power.’

But when O’Donnell took the stage Thursday on the second night of the Republican Midterm Convention, he started with a couple of songs.

O’Donnell first hummed the Halo theme song he famously composed.

“Aaaah aahh ahhhh ahhh! That’s me!” O’Donnell laughed.

Then he brought the audience into the mix by revealing he wrote the Flintstones Vitamins theme song that flooded the airwaves in late 1980s and early 1990s.

“We are Flintstones kids, 10 million strong,” he sang, “and growing!” he finished as the crowd sang along.

What was top of mind for the Republican, though, was the societal contract the government once had with its citizenry.

“One good job used to be enough,” he affirmed. “One good job was enough to raise a family, buy a house, take your kids on vacation, live a comfortable, fulfilling life, while getting ahead.”

Somewhere along the way, the deal changed, O’Donnell remarked. The congressional hopeful made it clear that he isn’t willing to sacrifice his grandchildren’s future so that Democrats can continue to reject what the American people want: an affordable country.

RELATED: Gaming legend disinvited from SacAnime con after ‘KamalaHQ’ page says he supports ‘persecuting’ gays

“I’m running because of my grandkids,” O’Donnell declared.

“I look at those kids, and I think about the country they’re about to grow up in, and I decided that I couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer.”

The 71-year-old blamed Democrats for stopping policies that Americans support, like funding for the border and military and a proposed ban on congressional stock trading.

Each and every time Americans stood up, “Democrats said no!” O’Donnell said repeatedly.

The speaker engaged with the audience masterfully and got them involved in his speech, encouraging them to play along every time he spoke about a policy that Democrats said “no!” to.

RELATED: Jimmy Kimmel plays free speech martyr over Talarico interview; leaves out one crucial detail

O’Donnell asked the audience and viewers to deliver greater majorities in the House and Senate to help President Trump finish the job he started and get the cost of living down.

He further explained that in order to have a functioning society, execution on knowable truths is paramount. If people can’t agree on what the truth is, the country is in trouble, he said.

O’Donnell concluded that the founding fathers knew that “people need God” in order to prosper in their lives.

“Without God, liberty collapses into power.”

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​Marty o’donnell, Rnc, Nevada, Democrats, Politics 

September 10, 2001, felt like any other day. Americans went to work, made plans, walked their dogs, and tucked their children into bed without knowing they were living through the final hours of a world that was about to change forever.

On the anniversary of 9/11, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is reflecting on the courage and sacrifice that emerged in the wake of the attacks — and the gratitude Americans should have for every ordinary morning they get to wake up to.

“Do you know when the bridges and tunnels closed, half a million people were stranded, right there in lower Manhattan? Half a million. Sky was on fire behind them. Black, dust, ash everywhere,” Glenn recalls.

“The Coast Guard put out a call for every boat that could come,” he explains. “Tugboats, ferries, dinner cruises, fishing charters, you know, a guy with a Boston whaler.”

After the 9/11 attack, those vessels took half a million people off the island.

“It was the largest — and still is— the largest sea evacuation in the history of the world. Bigger than Dunkirk,” he says.

However, Americans quickly forgot the sacrifice others made out of love for their country and people.

“We have spent 25 years telling everybody it’s wicked, that it’s rotten. It was rotten from the start. That everything it gave us was stolen and everything that it built should be torn down or burned down,” he says.

But this “wicked” country is “still feeding us this morning.”

“It’s still a place people are dying in the desert to reach. It still goes on loving a generation that never once said thank you and might even be embarrassed to say thank you, America,” he explains.

And not only are foreigners doing everything they can to get into the country, but they’re doing it because an ordinary America that sees little gratitude is actually extraordinary.

“We’re standing in the ordinary,” Glenn says. “A different kind, but an ordinary today. Right now, somewhere in this country, there’s a morning coming that will divide our lives entirely. And that day is not on any calendar.”

“Nobody’s watching and saying, ‘I know when that’s going to happen.’ And what we will remember about today, this Thursday, this nothing of a day, is what we always remember,” he explains, noting that we will not remember “the argument” or “the elections.”

We will remember “the kitchen, the dog, somebody’s hand on the back of your neck.”

“I remember September 10, 2001. It was the last ordinary day of my life, of the America I knew. And in one day, the next morning, that ordinary America was completely different,” he says.

“It’s weird that we call what’s happening in the world today ordinary, but it is. It’s just the new normal,” he continues. “And I thank God we got another September 10.”

Want more from Glenn Beck?

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

​America, Americans, Evacuation, Glenn beck, Heroes, Manhattan, September 10 2001, September 11, Blazetv show 

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on September 11, 2016.

My father recalls watching the North Tower burning from the 100th floor up and thinking to himself, “How would they put this out?”

I grew up in Rockland County, New York, and Dad used to work in the city, styling himself as an “architectural carpenter.” What that means is that he worked with his hands — and on his knees — installing cabinetry, wood flooring, and the heavy, polished oak doors that decorate the high-end offices of Manhattan with his union brothers in NYC District Council of Carpenters Union Local 157. It was hard work, and it took its toll on my father, who is now retired and living comfortably in Pennsylvania.

My father and I are pictured with Conservative Review editor in chief Mark Levin.

Fifteen years ago today, on September 11, 2001, at 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 flew south over Manhattan and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

On that particular day, my dad, Peter Pandolfo, was working on the 20th floor of the Ritz-Carlton, staring in shock at the World Trade Center three blocks away.

“We had a clear view of the debris and smoke coming out the North Tower. Then a terrifying vibration with a loud screaming engine noise was directly over our building and startled us.”

It was the second plane. United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

“Terrorism was my immediate thought.” As my father tells the story, he immediately went into “survival mode” and began to rifle through his tool belt, emptying some tools to lighten his load and keeping others on his person in case he needed them. He and his co-workers then evacuated the building.

“The whole crew ran 20 floors down the stairs to the street. It was mayhem. All the people who had evacuated the towers — the tourists and their babies, the workers, and everybody else — were on the street in shock, crying and afraid.”

Dad remembers that they couldn’t call for help or tell their loved ones what was happening.

“All cell phone activity seemed to be dead. We couldn’t call home, and I thought, at least we were out of the building.”

On that day, I was sitting at my desk in Mrs. Brown’s third-grade classroom at George W. Miller Elementary School in Nanuet, N.Y. I remember our teacher calling us over to gather on the rug, where we would have story time. Crestfallen, with tears in her eyes and a voice on the verge of breaking, Mrs. Brown told our class that “something terrible has happened.”

We children were sent home early that day. My father didn’t come home that night.

On the street in Manhattan, people were talking in hushed and anxious voices. Why did two planes just crash into the World Trade Center buildings? Did the air traffic controllers make a mistake? Were the planes hijacked? Were more planes going to descend on New York City? Were more people — my father and those bystanders — in danger?

As my dad and the other bystanders watched the towers burn, to their horror, they began to notice “large objects” falling from the buildings. There were people leaping from the towers, falling to their deaths, to escape the incinerating heat of the flames. You can find videos on YouTube, if you have the stomach for it.

“I saw two people hold hands and jump together. That made me sick,” my dad remembered.

As the crowd watched in horror, my father remembers, they moaned each time another person jumped. Each time, someone screamed. USA Today estimated that at least 200 people jumped that day.

Powerless. That is how my father describes feeling back then. Unable to do anything to help those people. The crowd unsure of what they should do, standing there, on the street.

Stunned disbelief turned to desperate panic.

“The South Tower began to fall straight down on itself, pancaking and exploding from the compression of each floor slamming on the next. A cloud of concrete ash and who knows what else billowed around the buildings and was headed straight for us. There was no way of escaping it. This cloud surrounded us and blocked out the sun.”

Providentially, perhaps, my father’s carpenter crew had dust masks with them, necessary for breathing through sawdust and chemical fumes on the job. They gave those masks to the people with babies and young children.

To have a chance at breathing, my dad ripped off his T-shirt and dipped it in a building’s outdoor koi pond he found on that street, wrapping it around his face. New Yorkers made an attempt to flee as the debris, smoke, and ash descended, enveloping them in darkness and fire.

“I felt the hot, smoky dust through my wet shirt, and it began to burn my lungs.” There was a moment when Dad thought he could duck into some bushes; maybe they would help filter some of the dust. He had other thoughts, too.

“I thought, at that moment, I was going to die. I began to pray.”

It was two co-workers — union brothers — who came to my dad’s rescue. They grabbed hold of my father, pulling him away. One of them lived on Long Island, and they had decided to make for the Brooklyn Bridge, hoping to get out of the city and rest there. They zigzagged northerly through the streets of Manhattan, smoke and dust clouds obstructing their view such that they could only see about 50 feet in front of them. Eventually, the sun broke through and they could see again.

Thousands of people made for the Brooklyn Bridge that day, carrying the same hope that they could cross on foot and leave the dust, death, and destruction behind them. Noise filled the air as much as smoke. Noise of people running, of sirens wailing. Shouts. Mourning. There were those who were eerily silent, too.

First responders ran in the opposite direction of the crowds, toward the death and destruction. Four hundred eleven emergency workers in New York City died responding to the terrorist attacks on September 11: 343 New York firefighters, 37 Port Authority police officers, 23 NYPD officers, and eight emergency medical technicians. They died heroes, saving many lives through their sacrifice.

My father and his co-workers could not get to the bridge without heading to the ramp, which was behind them, toward the towers. They kept going on foot, passing more bridges and eventually the United Nations building. They hurried past, thinking that “a plane was definitely going to crash into it.”

Tired and scared, the carpenters decided to cross over at the next bridge, unsure whether that too would become a target for the terrorists. They climbed a construction scaffold on the side of the Williamsburg Bridge. As it turned out, my dad’s tool belt came in handy after all.

“It was abandoned, and workers left everything, dropped it where they were to get out of there, thinking the bridge would be a target. We thought that as well and hurried across. At the end of the bridge, there were hoses spraying water over wet concrete to cure it, and [they] blocked us. So I had my tool belt still on with tools I thought would be useful, like my utility knife. I used the knife to cut through the netting that kept the occupied side separate from the construction side, and we got off the bridge onto Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn.”

Hours and miles later, Dad spent an anxious night at his co-worker’s house in Long Island. The Twin Towers were gone. And 2,996 people died and more than 6,000 people were injured in the attacks that knocked them down.

I share this story with you because my father made it home to my mother and their three boys (and, later, a girl) the next day. Other kids weren’t so fortunate as I was. Too many fathers’ and mothers’ lives were claimed by evil men doing evil deeds in service of an evil ideology. An ideology that, as President George W. Bush said on that day, targeted America and her people “because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.”

Today, September 11, “is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.”

None of us have forgotten the terrible things that happened on that terrible day 15 years ago. But at times, in the midst of this heated and divisive election season, I wonder if some of us Americans have forgotten the things that came under attack from evil that day.

I shared my father’s story with you because regardless of who wins the presidency, who controls the Senate or the House or the judiciary — whatever political party or individual is put in control of the government — it is imperative, it is essential, it is good, and it is right that we as Americans never cease to fight for and defend freedom and justice for all.

There is a specter of fear, of distrust and outrage, that is dividing us today. Discourse over ideas has devolved into bickering, name-calling, trolling, and contests of insult and ego. Each side of every argument seems less interested in showing how its ideas defend freedom and justice and more invested in forcing those who disagree into submission.

I am guilty of this as much as anyone. And when I engage in that behavior, I am wrong.

What is good and decent in America is under assault today from forces that hate us and seek to destroy us every bit as much as the people who hijacked those planes did. We do a disservice to the people who died on September 11, 2001, whether as victims or as heroes, and to our living countrymen and ourselves when we forget that defending the freedom of every American and ensuring that justice prevails for every American — even those who disagree with us — make this country good and decent.

The purpose of American conservatism is to conserve freedom and justice for the good and happiness of all of us. Its purpose is to defend liberty from hatred and evil that seek to destroy. That is what we must remember on September 11 and on every day. We must never forget that.

My father won’t.

Below is a chilling “LevinTV” clip of the moment when American Airlines Flight 77 fell out of communication with air traffic control as terrorists hijacked the cockpit. Listen here:

​9/11, Opinion & analysis 

A California woman confronted a man walking with a 6-year-old girl and accused him of sex trafficking before quoting the Bible and driving away, police say.

Residents of an affluent San Jose neighborhood were upset by a video captured of the bizarre interaction on Sunday where the woman points out the contrasting skin color of the man and his daughter.

‘That’s a white little girl, and you are a man of color. So I believe you are either buying or selling or trafficking this child.’

The man, who did not want to be identified, told KRON-TV that the lady drove her car up to the girl on her bike and then addressed him.

“Are you buying or selling today?” she allegedly asked the man.

“I was already uncomfortable because she had approached my daughter, so I was taken aback,” the father said. “She asked me the same question again and then drove away, turning onto another neighborhood street.”

He said he began recording after she came back to them and questioned him on his citizenship status.

“She slowed down and said something to the effect of asking whether I was even legal in the country,” he told KRON.

“I’m recording you too. I work with the feds,” she says from her silver Honda Fit vehicle, according to the video.

“Have a good day, I’m just making sure you’re not sex trafficking this poor little girl, who’s very unhappy to be with you and doesn’t look like your child,” she adds. “That’s a white little girl, and you are a man of color. So I believe you are either buying or selling or trafficking this child.”

“I’m recording you too,” the woman says again. “We’ve got facial recognition.”

The father said he started recording again after she drove off because he realized she had driven into a cul-de-sac and would have to come back to drive away.

“Psalm 101:8, my daily task will be to ferret out the wicked and free the city of God from their grip,” she says, according to video. “Burn in hell, you will.”

The man said he went to the police and also provided the footage to KRON. He described himself as “brown” and said that his daughter is half-white.

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Police said Thursday her comments were “discriminatory” and claimed she had been involved in other similar incidents that included a high school in south San Jose.

Detectives from the assault unit identified the woman and arrested her. She was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for numerous crimes that included stalking and hate crimes.

Police said the investigation into the incident is ongoing.

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​Hate crime, California, Child trafficking, Racism, Politics 

In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus remarks that a good shepherd will leave 99 sheep to go looking for one that is lost. FDNY chaplain Father Mychal Judge spent most of his life living out some version of that — with alcoholics, AIDS patients, and firefighters on their worst nights.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, at 68 years old, Fr. Mychal did it one last time. He left his friary and walked straight toward the fire that everyone else in the city was running from.

‘I’m not finished here.’

Inside the North Tower lobby, Fr. Mychal stayed close to the men he had come for. He moved through falling debris and the bodies of people who had jumped, stopping again and again to kneel, to anoint, to bless, and to pray for whoever was in front of him — the dying and the already dead, treated with the same unhurried attention.

Someone offered him a way out, a seat with the officials heading somewhere safer. He said no. “I’m not finished here.”

Witnesses remembered his lips moving without stopping, the same prayer said over and over into the noise: “Jesus, please end this. God, please end this.”

He was reportedly still on his knees, mid-rite, when the South Tower gave way at 9:59 a.m. The collapse sent a wave of debris through the North Tower lobby, killing him where he knelt before the building he was standing in had even begun to fall.

A cop, two firefighters, an emergency worker, and a Wall Street employee who had wandered over to help found Fr. Mychal first, feeling through a smoke-choked lobby until someone tripped over his body in the dark.

A photographer caught the moment he was recovered — ash-covered men cradling a priest between them, his body carried like something too precious to be dropped.

RELATED: The little chapel that didn’t lose a single window on 9/11

KATHY WILLENS/AP POOL/AFP/Getty Images

It didn’t take long for people to name what they were looking at in that image. They started calling it “the American Pietà” — the same posture as the Virgin Mother cradling her Son.

Because his was the first body to reach the medical examiner that day, the paperwork simply read: Victim 0001. Of the nearly 3,000 people who died that morning, his name went down first — the shepherd, oddly, arriving ahead of the flock.

One firefighter later said as much himself. It felt fitting that Fr. Mychal would go first, as if he had simply done what he always did — walked ahead, so that whoever came next wouldn’t be walking into the dark alone.

Fr. Mychal was carried the rest of the way to St. Peter’s Church and laid before the altar.

The street where his friary still stands now carries his name. And every September, firefighters and family retrace his final walk — from the church where he served, to the firehouse nearest where he fell — covering once a year on foot the same distance he covered without once looking back.

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​Blaze news, Collapse, Debris, Dying, Fallen heroes, Family, Firefighter, Lost, Politics, September 11