Category: blaze media

Time really does fly by. It has been nearly a decade since he left the White House, yet his intoxicating influence on the Democratic Party remains as strong as ever.

In recent weeks, he has turned his attention to artificial intelligence, arguably the most powerful technology America has ever created. The stakes are enormous. He is grooming the next generation of party leaders to determine how government should manage systems capable of writing code, generating answers for hundreds of millions, gaslighting people en masse, and essentially prompt-engineering reality.

The former president understands power dynamics better than almost anyone.

Who is he?

No, not Joe Biden. Not Bill Clinton either. Behind closed doors, Barack Obama has been hosting strategy sessions with prospective 2028 Democrat presidential candidates, tech CEOs, and ivory-tower intellectuals.

Conservatives remember the early days of social media all too well. In the late 2000s and 2010s, tech executives regularly visited the Oval Office, trading political support and huge sums of money for highly favorable regulatory treatment.

Right-leaning Americans watched in horror as digital town squares became perpetually policed ideological echo chambers. Conservative voices were routinely flagged or suppressed. Many were outright banned by 20-somethings in California operating under comically ambiguous safety and misinformation guidelines.

Those days were bad, but the social media fight looks rather quaint compared to what is happening right now.

Unlimited power?

A social network provides links you can check yourself. An automated system delivers answers directly to your screen. The software processes vast amounts of reading material and discards what it dislikes. It then presents a single narrative as the absolute truth. When a user asks a question, the underlying design chooses which facts to emphasize and which perspectives to conveniently omit.

RELATED: OpenAI cancels its latest chatbot — it wouldn’t stop acting like a supervillain

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Barack Obama is many things, but he’s certainly not stupid. The former president understands power dynamics better than almost anyone in modern political history. He’s not approaching these tools like an entrepreneur building a better business product, but as a veteran political operative who recognizes that controlling the flow of information is the ultimate key to controlling public opinion. By serving as the central broker between tech executives and future Democrat nominees, he is ensuring that his party’s preferences are built directly into future government rules. That includes preferences on climate action, immigration, gun rights, abortion access, and LGBTQ insanity.

The corporate executives, whose principles have a remarkable habit of shifting with the party in power, are more than happy to pull up a chair. Giant corporations always prefer strict government rules because prohibitive compliance costs protect them from smaller competitors who might challenge their market dominance. Big tech gets legal protection and guaranteed market share, while Washington politicians get a back door into what these systems say and how they respond.

It is a mutually beneficial partnership between state power and corporate monopolies, dressed in the righteous language of public safety.

Democrat strategists learned plenty from their previous fights over social networks. They realized that policing millions of individual user posts after the fact is a rat’s nest of legal and political problems.

It is far more efficient to bake that control into the technology from the start. If you control the initial training materials and the guidelines that define acceptable output, you rig the outcome long before the public sees any results.

Government officials don’t need to seize physical data centers or buy corporate stock to dictate how these systems operate. Washington can simply pass sweeping rules governing safety standards, energy use, liability, and AI’s interaction with kids. Once those broad rules take effect, bureaucrats will have the authority to decide which companies are allowed to operate and which are forbidden to.

Here come the justifications

The official justification for this incoming regulatory push will sound completely reasonable to millions of Americans. Political figures will preach endlessly about national security threats and economic ruin. They will deliver carefully scripted, faux-passionate speeches on protecting the public from deepfakes and disinformation.

But as readers know, technical experts and political organizers carry their own partisan biases into every room they enter. When a panel of credentialed experts decides what counts as harmful information or acceptable political debate, they naturally write their worldview into law. The average family ends up taking ethical cues from a handpicked circle of out-of-touch elites, many of whom find conservative perspectives repugnant.

AI is already taking over society, serving as a key educational aid for American children and a powerful tool for researchers. The institutions that control future AI programs will possess an unprecedented ability to shape present-day cultural norms, our idea of our future, and even our historical memory.

An Obama-backed Democrat could win the next presidential election. Conservatives simply can’t afford to sit on the sidelines while the part-time podcaster and full-time puppet master, along with his allies, builds the blueprint for the next presidential administration. The central battle of the coming decade won’t be over which social website lets you post, but over who controls the systems that dictate reality itself.

​Artificial intelligence, Tech 

Attorney and Federalist senior legal correspondent Margot Cleveland is taking the city of Dearborn, Michigan, which includes Muslim Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, to federal court.

Cleveland alleges that the city has violated the Constitution’s Establishment Clause by promoting one religion over others, and after hearing the full story, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck can’t help but agree.

Glenn explains that the purpose of the First Amendment, when it comes to religion, is “protecting the religion against government,” not the other way around.

“Well, in Dearborn, they’ve gone the opposite way. They are only celebrating Islamic holidays,” he says.

And this is why Cleveland is taking the city to court.

“If I didn’t do it, no one was going to do it,” she tells Glenn. “It has been a problem that I’ve been trying to rectify with the city for over a year. I did everything I could to try to avoid bringing a lawsuit. I basically went to city council and begged them to work with me, and they refused.”

“But the mayor has made clear that he will favor Islam, that he has a disregard for people who disagree with Islam, who hold other beliefs. The rhetoric that has come from him is extremely disturbing,” she explains.

One example Cleveland uses is the renaming of a street in Dearborn after a man named Siblani, who has called Hezbollah and Hamas “freedom fighters.”

“The mayor went and celebrated the street being renamed in Siblani’s name,” she says.

When a pastor complained, the mayor said on video, “You’re not welcome here.”

“You also had the mayor blaming Israel, on October 7, for what happened on October 7,” Cleveland tells Glenn, who doesn’t have much hope for the city.

“I think we’ve lost Dearborn. It’s an Islamic city, and I’m with you 100%,” he says, shocked.

“It’s extremely disturbing,” he adds.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

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​Glenn beck, Islam, Dearborn michigan, Abdullah hammoud, Margot cleveland, First amendment, Blazetv show 

Marriage creates a new family, and sometimes that means setting boundaries with the family you came from.

BlazeTV host Ron Simmons tackles complicated viewer questions of dealing with in-laws who might be causing more strain than the relationship is worth.

One viewer asked Simmons how to “deal with in-laws” who don’t share the viewer’s faith “when a child is involved.”

“I think you have to always respect your in-laws, up to the point where you make sure that there’s obviously no abuse or anything like that,” he says. “But I would say respect with boundaries.”

Simmons explains that a job that comes with being a Christian parent is to “expose our children to the love of Christ … so that the Holy Spirit can begin working on them and bring them under his umbrella.”

“And I wouldn’t allow anything, as much as I could, that would get in the way of that,” he says.

Simmons then reads a question from a viewer who explained that her father-in-law asked her husband “to keep his estate and money from the wives.”

“He said it’s not for us to know, but me and my husband tell each other everything. So it feels wrong for him to ask that,” the viewer explained.

“First of all, that’s wrong for … the dad to do that, all right? That automatically puts a strain between his son and daughter-in-law. I mean, that sets up a marriage strain right there,” Simmons explains.

“Now, a lot of people, maybe they’re first-generation money, they’re afraid that, you know, the wives are going to not respect that and, you know, go off and spend the money or something like that,” he says. “But as far as you and your husband go, it’s perfectly OK for your husband to talk to you about that, right?”

“You don’t break that bond,” he continues. “That’s why the Bible says that when we grow up and we get married, the husband leaves his mom and dad and clings to his wife, that they become one flesh, and one flesh shares with each other. I promise you, my right hand knows what my left hand is doing, right?

“Is it wrong for him to ask that? Personally, I think it is,” he adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Ron simmons, Faith, Family, In-laws, Christianity, Boundaries, Blazetv show 

The morning after you win, the National Governors Association will call. Its leaders will offer a seminar, a binder, and a roster of former governors prepared to explain why you should slow down. Take the meeting if you must — but do not buy their theory.

The midterms may cost Republicans the House and possibly even the Senate. But they will not lose the states. Thirty-six governorships are on the ballot, and the incoming class, with open seats in Ohio, Alabama, Iowa, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and others, will likely yield the most conservative slate of new governors in a generation.

The bureaucracy has weathered these past governors because they failed to act swiftly.

The federal government will likely be deadlocked in 2027, but the states offer hope for advancing a bold and transformative national agenda.

To carry out such an agenda, incoming governors must reject the advice found in the NGA’s transition manual, which is an apologia for paralysis. On page 39, a former governor offers what the association presents as wisdom: “As a businessman, I spent 90% of my time on process and 10% on policy. As governor, I find I spend 90% of my time on policy and 10% on process.” This advice comes from a man who once controlled his own calendar but learned to let someone else control it.

Unsurprisingly, he did not transform his state during his term in office.

The NGA’s strategic advice is designed to slow you down. In the first six to nine months, “Veteran governors advise that a new governor generally should minimize downtime by not undertaking major reorganizations, large-scale personnel changes beyond normal top-level appointments or other major actions unless absolutely necessary.”

The text then warns against using the honeymoon period to “eliminate some entrenched bureaucrat who has run a particular bureau like a fiefdom for 30 years,” because “experienced governors advise caution at precisely the time when difficult decisions seem easiest.” Page 19 adds a quota: Veteran governors “recommend only tackling three to five large programmatic changes during a term.”

The NGA seeks to lock you into stagnation by “maintaining credibility with the legislature, state bureaucracy, press, and public.” Fail at that, and you become a “caretaker, largely beholden to a bureaucracy that has previously weathered poor governors.”

The bureaucracy has weathered these past governors because they failed to act swiftly. As a new governor, you have a choice: safeguard left-wing institutions or act boldly with the mandate voters gave you.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) declined the seminar’s theory of the job. In his first term, he suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren and won passage of the parental-rights law the education establishment said would never be approved. And when Disney used its private government to punish the state, DeSantis moved to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

His second term opened at the same speed. In January 2023, he replaced the board of trustees at New College of Florida, which fired the president at its first meeting and shut down the diversity office within weeks. That summer, DeSantis suspended Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell. He filled the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, the replacement for Reedy Creek, with his appointees. None of this waited for month 10, and none of it counted against a “three-to-five” quota.

RELATED: The danger of calling the left stupid

ALEX EDELMAN/AFP/Getty Images

Ron DeSantis immediately targeted the offices that decide what the law means, and as a result, he is the most consequential governor of modern times.

President Trump’s second transition is the federal version of the same choice. The work of remaking the government began well before he took the oath of office. Inauguration Day produced a seismic list of executive orders that revoked the prior administration’s directives and froze pending rules.

President Trump moved policy-making career officials into positions where refusal to carry out the elected president’s program became grounds for removal. His speed and decisiveness made it impossible for the bureaucracy to stop him. He understood that since bureaucracy wins through inaction, such qualities are the best counter to its playbook.

The state version of the problem is worse than the NGA manual admits. Agencies are overstaffed relative to the work. A large share of the professional class inside them opposed your election and will oppose any order that threatens a program, a grant, or a headcount.

The NGA’s advice for staffing hundreds of boards and commissions — to staff them defensively, to “avoid embarrassment,” to keep them from consuming the governor’s time, and to wait until the crush of transition has passed — amounts to a 48-month holding pattern. Its goal is to outlast you.

Build the appointment list before election night. Know which boards can be abolished by statute and which must be filled by appointment in the first 60 days. Put your own counsel, budget director, and personnel leads in place before the inaugural balls are over. Carry out the reorganizations the NGA manual says to postpone. Publish the short list of agencies you intend to shrink — and shrink them while the people who run them are still writing memos about how hard that will be.

The bureaucracy is not your partner, and it is not waiting to be persuaded. It is overstaffed, and a meaningful share of its career employees do not want you to succeed. Treat it the way Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are treating it, or spend four years learning why the conservative governor before you left office with a binder full of process and a state that is merely treading water.

Editor’s note: This article was published in the American Mind.

​Bureaucracy, Executive orders, Federal government, House, Legislature, Midterms, Moderates, Republicans, Ron desantis, Senate, Opinion & analysis, Donald trump 

“It was at this moment he knew he screwed up,” a narrator says at the start of a Vancouver, Washington, police bodycam video showing a suspect falling from the ceiling of a local department store late last month.

Police said officers responded on Sept. 30 to the Vancouver Mall after employees reported that a male was crawling around in the ceiling and breaking through ceiling tiles.

‘Wow! They subdued Tarzan, grunts and all.’

Police said officers gave the male multiple commands to come down, but he kept moving through the ceiling, breaking more tiles and damaging lights, wiring, and other fixtures.

The second floor was evacuated while officers and firefighters tried to get the suspect down, police said.

Finally, a ladder was placed in the ceiling, and a mattress was placed on the floor in case the suspect fell, police said.

After more than an hour of trying to talk him into coming down, police said the suspect finally stepped upon the ladder.

However, police said the suspect then tried to climb back into the ceiling — but officers weren’t having it and pulled the ladder away to keep him from going back up into the ceiling.

And down he went.

RELATED: Homicide Suspect Breaks Handcuffs, Escapes Police Interview Room Through Ceiling Tile — and That’s Just for Starters

Police said the suspect landed on the mattress, but he had no intention of being led away quietly.

Instead, police said he got up and tried to run off.

“That didn’t work out so well,” police noted.

The suspect, Gabriel Hideo, was taken into custody, police said — amid frequent growls as he fought being handcuffed, according to the video.

Hideo was soon booked for:

Malicious mischief in the first degreeBurglary in the first degreeFelony warrant

A few hundred commenters under the police department’s video of the incident — which hilariously includes A-ha’s “Take On Me” as background music — had way too much fun reacting to the bizarre arrest.

“Was his name John Bender?? Was he making a ruckus???” one commenter wondered in a not-so-subtle nod to 1980s flick “The Breakfast Club.””Wow! They subdued Tarzan, grunts and all,” another user added. “And the music choice? Bonus points. Serious bonus points. Well done, VPD.””He sounds possessed, great job VPD!” another commenter exclaimed.”Made it a ways down into the comments, and not one complaint about excessive force so far. I’m impressed!” another user said.

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​Washington state, Vancouver, Police, Arrest, Burglary, Weird news, Odd news, Crime 

It took Shane Gillis just two minutes into his last “Saturday Night Live” appearance to make the show’s liberal audience squirm.

Now he’s back for a third time, and “SNL” seems happy to play up his potential to offend — if that’s what it takes to get viewers to tune in.

‘I hope I can say those words on TV.’

Diddy do it?

Ahead of his return to “SNL” on Saturday, Gillis joked on his podcast about throwing Diddy a party when the rapper gets out of prison, promising to have his “finest men lined up” for the occasion.

The comedian seems as loose and on-point as ever — loose enough to suggest he’s going to throw Diddy a release party. And “SNL” seems happy to play up the possibility of what could transpire during Gillis’ third hosting appearance in as many years.

In fact, the show’s promos make a joke of Gillis’ reputation for causing trouble.

“I know what you did last time you was here,” cast member Kenan Thompson warns him. “Don’t be touching none of my stuff this week.”

“Kenan, I told you, I thought the cantaloupe was for everybody,” Gillis responded.

It’s a pretty tame exchange, especially compared with the material Gillis has delivered on the show before. But it sure is funny seeing “SNL” celebrate the same fearless attitude that got the comic fired before he ever set foot on its stage in 2019.

In 2025, Gillis broke the ice with his monologue by talking about how much “fun” life under President Trump was, poking fun at him before pivoting to remarks about former President Biden’s face going “dead” whenever he stopped talking.

Soon, Gillis was talking about the Civil War and asking the audience questions like, “Have you ever had sex with a black guy before?”

RELATED: Shane and Joe show us what real activism looks like

Will Heath/NBC/Getty Images

Bad words

Gillis’ initial return to the network in 2024, after being fired five years earlier, marked a huge turnaround for non-woke comedy.

It felt like Gillis had broken the sound barrier when he used words like “gay” and “retarded” on a very liberal, and very live, network broadcast.

“I hope I can say those words on TV,” Gillis said at the time. “It’s really well lit in here, and I can see you guys not enjoying it.”

Gillis later revealed that not everyone at “SNL” knew what he was going to say in the monologue. Even executive producer Lorne Michaels didn’t know the particulars.

“He was very supportive, because I kept telling him what I was going to say, and he was literally just like, ‘Don’t tell me, just do it.'”

This time around, everyone seemingly knows what to expect. That might take some of the wind out of Gillis’ sails, but perhaps Michaels doesn’t mind. Gillis has become a much bigger star since “SNL” let him go, with a hit Netflix series, a wildly popular podcast, and a stand-up career that recently took him to a sold-out football stadium.

“SNL” once decided it could do without him. Now it’s inviting him back for the third time.

RELATED: 50-year-old rock star tears up at MLB playoff game — only Millennials will understand

Will Heath/NBC/Getty Images

Gay old time

Moreover, the previews released by NBC only reinforce how far Gillis has moved beyond what the sketch show has to offer. The cast members hardly seem in his league, comedy-wise.

Any given portion of Gillis’ podcast with comic pal Matt McCusker is infinitely more entertaining, even when mustache trimming and “TGIF” sitcoms are the topic of discussion.

Gillis is still likely to offend on Saturday though. One simple riff from his podcast would have “SNL” audience members melting in disbelief, especially when he tells guests that any time there’s “nothing to talk about,” he simply starts accusing a member of the production team of being gay.

And if he does manage to offend someone, “SNL” can hardly complain. This time, it’s practically advertising the possibility.

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​Comedy, Saturday night live, Snl, Shane gillis, Lorne michaels, Entertainment 

The Supreme Court opened its new term Monday with one of the most consequential climate cases in years. The justices do not have to decide whether climate change is real or whether carbon dioxide warms the planet. They face a more basic question: Who pays the tab?

In Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, Boulder County and the city of Boulder want ExxonMobil and Suncor to pay under Colorado law for local costs they attribute to global warming, while also alleging deceptive marketing. The Colorado Supreme Court allowed the claims to proceed.

A Colorado jury cannot set national climate policy, but a patchwork of state tort verdicts could begin to approximate one.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether federal law precludes them and whether it has jurisdiction to decide that question at this stage. The Trump administration is backing the companies.

This is not simply about two oil companies and one county. Boulder’s alleged injuries trace to greenhouse gases accumulated in a single global atmosphere over generations, from energy used in every state and nearly every country. Yet Colorado tort law would determine liability for selected companies.

Now multiply that. California could have one theory of damages, New York another, Hawaii a third. Nearly 60 state and local governments have brought similar cases. Different juries could impose different costs for alleged harms arising from the same global emissions pool. If every jurisdiction can pursue its own theory, climate tort begins to look less like compensation for a local injury and more like carbon pricing by litigation.

Boulder says it is applying ordinary state tort law, not regulating emissions. But whatever label courts use, large judgments against energy producers will not remain confined to the courthouse.

Then there is China. According to the Global Carbon Project, China accounts for roughly 32% of global fossil carbon dioxide emissions, compared with about 13% for the United States. A Colorado court cannot impose comparable liability on Chinese state-owned producers for emissions in China. That asymmetry is hard to ignore.

New York offers a warning. Its Climate Change Superfund Act sought $75 billion from fossil fuel companies for historical emissions. One federal judge struck it down on August 31; another did the same on September 23. Both relied on the Clean Air Act and the federal government’s authority over foreign affairs. Those cases involved a state statute rather than tort claims, but they show that the federalism problem is not theoretical.

RELATED: Finally! EPA poised to repeal some climate hysteria over carbon emissions

Iiievgeniy/Getty Images

The lawsuits also leave out the other side of the ledger. Fossil fuels underpin synthetic nitrogen fertilizer that supports food production for roughly half the world, along with medical plastics, sterile packaging, transportation, and dispatchable power. A tort case can price alleged harms without pricing those benefits. Successful climate lawsuits would still raise costs somewhere in the system.

Nor did weather disasters begin with today’s carbon dioxide levels. The 1900 Galveston hurricane killed an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people. In 1871, after a summer of drought, the Peshtigo fire burned more than a million acres and killed between 1,200 and 2,400 people. The Dust Bowl followed in the 1930s.

None of that settles the science. It shows something narrower: Disaster causation is not binary. A court asked to assign one company a share of a particular drought, fire, or flood must separate baseline risk from any incremental climate effect and then apportion responsibility across global emissions.

RELATED: Your new house comes with a green surcharge

Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Then comes the question of who pays. Energy demand is relatively inelastic in the short run. To the extent that judgments raise costs for American suppliers, some of those costs will be passed through at the pump, on heating and electricity bills, and in the price of goods. Lower-income households spend a larger share of their budgets on energy, so they feel increases most.

Congress can write national climate law. The EPA can regulate within the authority Congress gives it. Voters can hold both accountable. A Colorado jury cannot set national climate policy, but a patchwork of state tort verdicts could begin to approximate one.

The justices do not have to settle climate science. They have to decide whether state courts, one lawsuit at a time, may impose liability for a global emissions problem.

The answer should be no.

​Carbon dioxide, Climate hysteria, Exxonmobil, Federal law, Food production, Global warming, Greenhouse gases, Supreme court, Trump administration, Oil companies, Global carbon project, Cleanr air act, Opinion & analysis 

The mayor of Cocoa in Florida is asking for prayers and support for a mother in his community who suffered a horrific loss on Wednesday.

The mother called 911 after going to pick up her children, ages 5 and 7 years old, at their father’s home because it was her turn to have custody, according to the Cocoa Police Department.

‘The children’s mother, Olivia, tells me she wants everybody to know how much she loved these babies and how amazing they are.’

She found the two children and the father dead.

“The door was partially ajar, and she went inside and found all three deceased,” said Cocoa Police Chief Evander Collier IV.

Police believe the father killed the two children and then committed suicide.

The man was identified as 37-year-old Joseph Kyle Dingwall, and the two children were identified as Aria Dingwall and Remy Dingwall.

The man was captured on surveillance video pacing around, according to police.

Police also indicated that they had been called out to the home in 11 previous incidents.

A neighbor who lives across the street from the home told WESH-TV that he heard two gunshots the previous night but that he neglected to call police.

“Two gunshots. Two clear gunshots, and it was 12.20 a.m., midnight,” Marcos Garcia said.

WESH reported that it was unclear whether the gunshot noises came from the house.

The children’s mother spoke to WESH reporter Gail Paschall-Brown on Thursday.

RELATED: 6 people found dead in New York home, including 4 children — handwritten note points to grandmother, police say

“The children’s mother, Olivia, tells me she wants everybody to know how much she loved these babies and how amazing they are,” Paschall-Brown said.

“We ask that you continue to hold them up in prayer, show support and love because tough times don’t always last; tough people do,” Mayor Michael C. Blake said about the woman’s family.

WESH said it was the fourth apparent murder-suicide incident in southern Florida in the past few days.

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​Florida, Murder suicide, Child murder, Custody battle, Crime 

If you don’t buy it, they’re not selling it.

I say this all the time: Consumers have more power over the auto industry than they realize.

For many drivers, CarPlay isn’t an exciting feature anymore. It’s plumbing. You connect the phone and expect your stuff to appear.

Automakers can announce grand plans for the future. Engineers can decide they’ve come up with something better. Executives can explain why the technology they want to give us is really what we wanted all along. But eventually somebody has to walk into a dealership and buy the vehicle.

If it ain’t broke …

The best example of this at the moment is what’s going on with General Motors.

The company recently unveiled the completely redesigned user interface that will debut in the 2027 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra — GM’s highest-volume vehicles. There are new displays, Google Gemini, Google Maps, over-the-air updates, and plenty of other technology.

There’s also Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. And GM says it has integrated both of them more deeply than ever before in its light-duty pickups. CarPlay or Android Auto can occupy a large portion of the screen alongside native truck functions, such as trailering information and vehicle status.

Why is this notable? Because for the past several years, GM has been preparing drivers for a future without Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, making the case that its own built-in software could do the job better.

Best laid plans

In 2023, GM laid out an ambitious plan to move away from Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of its own deeply integrated software, beginning with its new electric vehicles.

There were legitimate engineering reasons for the decision. A native system can communicate more directly with the vehicle, incorporating charging, range calculations, route planning, and other functions that aren’t simply being projected from a phone.

Then GM did something automakers don’t always do particularly well: It asked customers what they actually wanted.

The result was a dose of reality. GM took a sweeping software strategy and adjusted it to the way people actually use their cars.

Button pushing

GM says the development process for the new Silverado and Sierra interface included customer clinics and ongoing usability testing.

According to Sebastian Bauer, GM’s executive director of human interface design, drivers complained about “hunting for controls,” taking too many steps to accomplish basic tasks, and encountering interfaces that behaved inconsistently.

So GM simplified things.

Frequently used functions, such as climate controls and camera views, were made easier to reach. Key vehicle settings are one tap away. And — an increasingly welcome sentence in any new-car announcement — GM says physical controls remain available for customers who prefer tactile feedback.

And GM had another realization: Most drivers don’t want a new digital ecosystem. They’re perfectly happy with the one already on their phones.

“People really like CarPlay and Android Auto because they’re so user-centric,” GM product executive Mike Wahlstrom said.

That sounds obvious. Apparently it took some customer research to rediscover.

GM says drivers wanted the simplicity of the phone interfaces without losing fast access to the things the truck itself does. So the new system lets both co-exist instead of forcing drivers to bounce completely between one world and the other.

RELATED: What happened to the $20,000 used car?

Universal History Archive/Getty Images

Phone fans

Automakers increasingly think of cars as software platforms, and modern vehicles certainly need a lot of software. Cameras, driver-assistance systems, navigation, entertainment, climate controls, towing functions — all of it has to work together.

But there’s also money in controlling the dashboard.

Software creates opportunities for connected services, subscriptions, and a continuing relationship with the customer long after the vehicle leaves the dealership.

The trouble is that drivers already have their own way of doing all this — using the phone in their pocket.

Our contacts, music, podcasts, messages, maps, and apps already live there. For many drivers, CarPlay isn’t an exciting feature anymore. It’s plumbing. You connect the phone and expect your stuff to appear.

That makes replacing it a lot harder than simply designing a technically superior dashboard.

Consumer win

Not that GM is giving up on its native software. The new Silverado and Sierra use Google built-in alongside CarPlay and Android Auto. The same underlying interface architecture is designed to expand across electric, gasoline, and diesel vehicles, and GM plans to keep adding capabilities through software updates.

But look at what happened when GM designed the system for the trucks that sell in enormous numbers.

Drivers said they were tired of digging through menus. GM reduced the number of steps. Some wanted real controls. GM kept them. And customers liked Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. GM made them work better with the vehicle rather than asking buyers to choose.

GM can call that whatever it likes. I call it listening to the customer.

​Android auto, Apple carplay, Auto industry, Dashboard control, General motors, Lifestyle, Technology, Trucks, Automotive 

Brigitte Gabriel doesn’t speak about Islamic extremism as an observer. She speaks as someone who lived through it.

“I was born in what used to be the only majority Christian country in the Middle East: Lebanon. We are a republic exactly like the United States of America,” Gabriel tells BlazeTV host Nick Freitas.

“Unfortunately, we imported people into our country who did not share our values. And when they would say, ‘We hate you. We want to kill you. We want to transform your country,’ we didn’t believe them, because we thought, ‘We are the Paris of the Middle East, we’re the banking capital of the Middle East. No one can touch us,’” she says.

“Unfortunately, they were able to destroy the country using our democracy to topple our democracy, our open-mindedness, our fairness, our tolerance, our multiculturalism.”

In what she calls her 9/11, Islamists then blew up her home.

“I ended up in a hospital for two and a half months and later ended up living in a bomb shelter in an 8×10 room without electricity, without water, and very little food. And that’s where I lived, Nick, for the next seven years of my life,” she explains.

When she had to get water, she would “crawl under sniper’s bullets” because they were surrounded by Islamic snipers.

“I remember when I was 13 years old, a friend of ours stopped by, and he said, ‘Brigitte, I just want you to know we heard a lot of chatter on the radios, and we believe our town is going to be attacked tonight.’ And he said, ‘If I don’t see you tomorrow, I wish you a merciful death.’ And he left,” she recalls.

“And I remember, Nick, at the age of 13 years old, dressing in my Sunday best, my Easter dress, because I wanted to look pretty when I am dead, knowing that when they come to slaughter me, there would be no one to bury me,” she continues.

“And my parents said to me, they said, ‘When they come to slaughter us tonight, we will create a distraction. You’re a young child. We’re old people. We’ve lived a long life. We’ll create a distraction, and we just want you to run towards Israel and don’t look back,’” she adds.

However, her parents’ plan would never come to fruition, as Israel came to them instead.

“That’s the night when Israel came in physically, into Lebanon, and established the security zone and set up artillery bases around our towns to stop the Palestinians and Islamists from coming into our town,” she tells Freitas.

“And that’s how we stayed alive until 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon, working with the Christians, helping the Christians take back their democracy and kicking out the Palestinians,” she continues.

“And that’s how I came out of the bomb shelter and [rebuilt] our lives,” she adds.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Islam, Extremists, Middle east, Lebanon, Israel, Nick freitas, Blazetv show, Brigitte gabriel 

In a day where the New Age has wormed its way into the mainstream at unprecedented levels, many Christians find it difficult to discern between common cultural fads and spiritually dangerous practices. On this episode of “Live Free with Josh Howerton,” pastor and co-host Carlos Erazo joins fellow pastor Jonathan Pokluda to outline eight ways Christians unknowingly open the door to demonic forces.

The duo begin by discussing a “toy” that is extremely popular, especially around Halloween: Ouija boards.

On the surface, a Ouija board is just a board game where participants ask questions and receive answers, supposedly from the supernatural. The idea is that a spirit is spelling the message, but scientific skeptics argue that the answers are really just tiny, unnoticed muscle movements made by the players that steer the pointer toward letters the players already expected.

But even though Ouija boards are so mainstream they can be purchased off a Walmart shelf, Pokluda warns they are more spiritually dangerous than people realize.

“Ouija boards can work. I mean, you know, they can show you the name of some dead person. Saul consulted the witch of Endor and talked to Samuel or some demon pretending to be Samuel,” he says.

But it’s not just Satan worshippers and people with dark proclivities who try to contact the spirit realm, he notes. More often than not, it’s normal people seeking comfort.

“People will do weird stuff in grief. And so, they miss their father or their mother or their loved ones so badly, they’ll go to this medium to talk to them, and you’re talking to a demon pretending to be your loved one,” Pokluda warns.

“You’ve got to be careful because Satan is a legalist. He’s just looking for a legal right to mess with you. Demons are legalists. They’re looking for a legal right,” he continues. “They say, ‘All right, now I got you. Now I have the right to mess with you. Now I have the right to your children.’”

But Ouija boards are just the beginning of the long list of New Age pitfalls that can ensnare Christians.

“Crystals, manifesting, tarot cards, horoscopes, like none of that stuff is spiritually neutral. … The enemy will use any of that for permission to mess with you,” Pokluda says.

Erazo shares a personal story to illustrate the veracity of Pokluda’s warning. A couple of years ago when he and his wife were traveling in El Salvador, they started watching a performance at the beach resort where they were staying. Not long into the show, they both began noticing “elements of spirituality” in the dance choreography.

But even though both of them experienced “conviction” to stop watching, they lingered, hoping the spiritual nature of the performance would “calm down.”

“After a while we said, ‘Hey, this is too much; we’re leaving,’ but we felt the conviction that we should have left sooner,” Erazo shares.

“That night, my wife had a very vivid dream of being stabbed. … That same night, I had a dream of a sniper shooting at me,” he continues.

They both learned a valuable lesson that night: “Do not give the enemy a little space.”

To hear about more spiritual traps Christians fall into, watch the episode above.

“Live Free with Josh Howerton” launches today on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms. Join BlazeTV+ and start watching Josh today at blazetv.com/JOSH. Use promo code JOSH to get $20 off your subscription.

​Josh howerton, New age, Halloween, Blazetv show 

A man shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Thursday in the Bronx cannot be deported unless officials obtain a court order, a judge ruled Friday.

Protests erupted after the man, later identified as a 28-year-old Dominican national, was shot during a traffic stop in New York City.

‘Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons.’

Oscar Belgal was shot after refusing to comply with lawful orders from ICE officers who were trying to arrest him, according to the Department of Homeland Security. He was hospitalized for treatment and later released.

U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken said in a two-page order that Belgal could not be deported without a court order while he challenged his detention.

He also said Belgal could not be transferred outside of the Southern or Eastern Districts of New York or the District of New Jersey without a court order.

Officers had tried to box in Belgal with their vehicles during the operation, but the man accelerated the car before one officer shot at him.

“Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons,” senior ICE official Marcos Charles said.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) has been condemning ICE in numerous statements since the shooting.

“I am angry tonight,” he wrote on social media. “Because today ICE shot a New Yorker. They shot a New Yorker while his five year old child was in the car. ICE makes this city less safe. We want them out. Now.”

RELATED: Man shot by ICE in the Bronx — Mamdani demands Trump end all operations in NYC

DHS said the migrant had been previously arrested for assault, robbery, drug possession, and weapons possession. He also had been convicted of grand larceny.

Anti-ICE critics were outraged to learn that there was a 5-year-old boy in the vehicle during the shooting. He was unharmed.

“Regardless of whether or not someone has a criminal history, it is not lawful and it is not OK to shoot a father in an afternoon with his son in the back seat,” said immigration attorney Harold Solis of Make the Road New York to reporters on Friday. “That is not how we resolve legal disputes in this country. We resolve them in buildings like these, in courtrooms.”

Oetken was appointed to the court by former President Barack Obama.

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​Immigration and customs enforcement, New york city mayor, Ice shooting, Obama judge, Politics 

A blogger known as “Rooster” was found guilty of harassment after he admitted to sending a sexually explicit image of the Shrek cartoon character to an Ohio politician.

Eight jurors in Lake County, Ohio, took only 30 minutes to find Donald “D.J.” Byrnes guilty of telecommunications harassment for texting the image to state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a Republican.

‘This wasn’t a free speech issue; this was a harassment statute that I believed he was in violation of.’

The blogger faced up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for the offense, but a judge decided to sentence Byrnes to pay only $200 on top of court costs.

The offensive messages included a meme of the Shrek cartoon character holding his genitals and two messages taunting the powerful lawmaker after he dropped out of the race for Ohio Senate president.

“This wasn’t a free speech issue; this was a harassment statute that I believed he was in violation of,” Cirino said after the verdict.

Prosecutors had asked for a no-contact order against Byrnes as well, but the judge refused to grant the request.

Byrnes’ defense in court rested on his free speech rights and the accusation that Cirino was using his political influence to retaliate against his enemy.

Cirino denied the allegations despite his donation of at least $2,500 to the judge who signed the arrest warrant for the blogger. A different judge presided over the actual case.

“I would never do that. I respect my position in the Senate way too much to ever let that happen,” he said to WEWS-TV.

Cirino had also contacted one of the witnesses in the trial in what appeared to be an annoyed message, but he denied to WEWS that he was doing anything except expressing his surprise.

RELATED: Appeals court shuts down ban on drag shows at Texas A&M

Byrnes let out a laugh of surprise when he heard the jury’s decision, WEWS reported.

The Rooster plans to file an appeal, according to WEWS.

“The First Amendment protects the right to criticize government officials, even in crude or vulgar terms,” said Aaron Terr, the director of public policy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, on social media. “If a single electronic communication that annoys or alarms the recipient can amount to criminal harassment, that’s bad news for a lot of social media users!”

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​Foundation for individual rights and expression, Harassment, Ohio, Politics 

The failed execution of convicted murderer Christa Pike has reignited a long-standing debate over capital punishment, but BlazeTV host Nick Freitas believes the Christian case for the death penalty is often misunderstood.

“From a Christian perspective — we look at things, and I’ve even said before, whenever somebody says the death penalty is inhumane,” Freitas says, “I’m like, OK, well, I’ll let the author of Leviticus know, right?”

Freitas notes that “Leviticus is a book in the Bible which actually lays out the various crimes for which the death penalty is acceptable, or, in even some cases, you could argue, mandated.”

“So I’ve always found it a little bit disingenuous for someone to say that the death penalty is, in and of itself, inhumane,” he says.

In this particular case, Freitas says, “She lured her 19-year-old classmate to a park, tortured her, carved a pentagram into her chest, and then kept a piece of her skull as a souvenir.”

“We’re talking about somebody who, again, committed an act of premeditated murder, and not just murder but torture,” he explains.

“She also tried to strangle another inmate to death. So this idea that simply because someone is in prison, they no longer have the capacity to commit other crimes is, again, something that we need to take into question,” he adds.

And the idea that one cannot be pro-life and pro-death-penalty, Freitas says, is “an absolutely 100% absurd argument.”

“To be pro-life is to say that a baby in the womb is innocent. It is innocent human life. And the way we know it’s human life is because at the moment of conception, it actually has all the necessary characteristics to be distinguished from a living entity and a non-living entity,” he explains.

“And more specifically from a living human entity versus some other kind of living entity,” he says.

“Now, we make distinctions between human life guilty of a crime and human life which is not guilty of a crime,” he continues. “We don’t put everybody in prison, for obvious reasons. So how do we make that distinction between guilt and innocent?”

“Well, there’s the objective reality, which is to say that if someone has committed a crime, they are guilty … but in the case of a baby in the womb, they simply do not have the capacity to be guilty of a crime,” he adds.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

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​Christa pike, Execution, Lethal injection, Leviticus, Nick freitas, Blazetv show 

President Donald Trump announced on Friday the appointment of a media analyst and attorney to be the next White House press secretary.

The New York Times had first reported that Katie Zacharia had been tapped for the role, and sources confirmed the offer to Politico.

‘She has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning. She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA!’

Zacharia, 42, is a graduate of Pepperdine who worked briefly at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is currently the senior communications adviser for the Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns the Truth Social online platform.

“She was previously involved in my Campaigns, assisting in key Swing States, where we won 7 out of 7,” said the president on Truth Social. “She has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning. She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA!”

She has been a frequent commentator on political issues at Fox News, Newsmax, CNN, and OANN.

The press secretary role has been open at the White House since Karoline Leavitt left at the end of August after giving birth to her second child.

Leavitt was the youngest press secretary in White House history. She turned 29 years old at the end of August. On Monday, Fox News announced that Leavitt was joining the network as a political commentator.

Zacharia has also worked as general counsel for a conservative advocacy nonprofit named Fix California, founded by Trump special envoy Richard Grenell.

RELATED: 3 moments that will make you miss Karoline Leavitt

She has been married to film producer Tyler Zacharia for 15 years and is a mother to four children.

Zacharia will also be the seventh woman in a row to be White House press secretary. The last male to hold the position was Sean Spicer in the first Trump administration.

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​Donald trump, Karoline leavitt, White house press secretary, Katie zacharia, Politics 

ABC News has yet to explain why it seemingly deleted a report accusing the president’s sons of enriching themselves through investments in companies with government contracts.

The story, published Wednesday, claimed that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump had sizable investments in companies that received about $6 billion in active or promised contracts under the Trump administration.

‘No note, no explanation , no comment.’

After the story was vehemently criticized for what appeared to be accounting misunderstandings and other errors, ABC News seemingly pulled the story. There was no correction, no explanation, no editor’s note.

The link now says the page is unavailable.

Media analysts are now taking note.

“This is absolutely wild,” Andrew Kaczynski of CNN responded.

“ABC News completely retracted this story like two days ago just totally nuked it. No note, no explanation, no comment,” he continued.

“ABC News will have to comment on this. They’d be smarter to do it sooner, rather than later,” journalist Dylan Byers replied.

Among those who reposted the story was Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California.

“The American people were fleeced. Accountability is coming,” he posted on Wednesday.

Trump Jr. responded and mocked the governor.

“ABC deleted this article in less than 24 hours because it’s false. Sounds about as long as your presidential campaign would last,” he replied.

Blaze News’ requests for comment from Disney, the parent company of ABC News, were not returned.

RELATED: Trump BANS ‘FAKE NEWS’ outlets from White House — and warns more bans are coming

ABC News was among the news outlets that joined a boycott on pool reporting at the White House after the president banned three other outlets a few weeks ago for what he said was biased reporting.

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” reads a joint statement from the group. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

A Trump judge later restored the outlets’ credentials temporarily, though no final ruling in the case has been made.

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​Abc news, Fake news, Donald trump jr, Eric trump, Politics 

Eight years after the tweet that got her fired from ABC, Roseanne Barr is apparently ready for another round.

At 73, Barr might have seemed destined to remain outside mainstream television. Instead, she quietly raised private money and shot an entire eight-episode sitcom in Austin, Texas — with a cast that includes Randy Quaid, Drea de Matteo, Omar Gooding, and Tony Hinchcliffe.

‘My daughters are super woke.’

‘Meemaw’ maxxing

Barr has hardly disappeared in the meantime. She’s made appearances on popular shows like “Kill Tony” and Bill Maher’s “Club Random,” while her own eponymous podcast has racked up more than 150 episodes.

Now Meemaw is getting back into the sitcom business.

Getting there wasn’t easy. Barr initially developed a sitcom about an Alabama farmer dabbling in marijuana and magic mushrooms but couldn’t find a buyer in Hollywood.

Rather than abandon the idea, she scrapped the premise, brought in longtime Adam Sandler collaborator Allen Covert to help rewrite it, and raised enough money from private investors to shoot an eight-episode series with a fully union crew. She started filming in Austin last November and has since wrapped production.

There’s still one catch: No network or streaming service has signed on to distribute it.

Like “Roseanne,” which drew heavily from Barr’s own life during its original nine-season run and 2018 revival, her new show is semi-autobiographical.

Page Six reports that “Meemaw” follows a woman from a “very liberal East Coast Jewish family” who is disinherited and moves to Texas. There Barr plays the matriarch of a mixed-race family of preppers while attempting to “throw her granddaughter the most fantastic bat mitzvah Texas has ever seen.”

“It’s every bit as revolutionary as ‘The Roseanne Show,’ if not more, and my work has improved with time,” Barr told the outlet.

“I want everybody who disagrees in a family to sit in the same room and just laugh and go, ‘Yeah, maybe I was an a**hole that time. Well, you were an a**hole this time. Oh, we’re all a**holes. Let’s get a beer.'”

Barr says nobody gets spared.

“My daughters are super woke and of course I love them, so I put in jokes for them too, like I did on ‘Roseanne,'” she said.

“I make fun of everybody because everybody deserves to be made fun of who’s in power. So I’ve got some great jokes about Republicans that the lefties are going to love. I’m an equal opportunity destroyer.”

RELATED: Liberals conveniently forget how many people they’ve canceled in the last decade

1989. Photo by Steve Schapiro/Corbis/Getty Images

Family friction

Barr’s on-screen husband is played by controversial yet hilarious Randy Quaid (“Christmas Vacation,” “Independence Day”), who Barr jokes she will have “romantic” and “passionate” love scenes with.

“The extras are going to be released on OnlyFans,” Barr said, “I’m kidding.”

Drea de Matteo plays Barr’s daughter, while Omar Gooding — brother of Cuba Gooding Jr. — plays her son-in-law.

Then there’s Tony Hinchcliffe, who reportedly appears as Satan.

Barr seems to know exactly what people want to hear — and what some of them emphatically don’t.

“I thought now would be a great time for people to actually hear from a Jew,” she said.

RELATED: Yakov Smirnoff makes surprise comeback appearance: ‘What a country!’

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Netflix

Hello, Elon?

Barr revealed that Gooding was getting pressured over his decision to work on the show as her son-in-law but chose to take the approach “comedy is king.”

“It takes somebody who really has faith in their talent to go against the Hollywood gatekeepers, you know,” Barr said.

The Salt Lake City, Utah, grandmother also noted that she had reached out to Elon Musk to see if he would like to help fund the show, but Barr said, “He wouldn’t call me back.”

“Can I get some assistance over here, man? I got fired for a text that was up for two hours that nobody saw.”

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​Roseanne barr, Tony hinchcliffe, Elon musk, Comedy, Entertainment 

The husband of a Texas mother accused of stabbing her young children — ages 3 years and 10 months — and him early Tuesday morning told police she was going through postpartum depression at the time, WFAA-TV reported, citing a newly released arrest affidavit.

The husband also was concerned about her behavior before the stabbing, the station said, citing the affidavit.

The husband ‘was trying to get to the children, but the children were in another room, and she was actively trying to stab him.’

Northlake Police officers were dispatched to a home in the 1200 block of Daylily Drive around 4:20 a.m. regarding a stabbing in progress, KXAS-TV said.

Police said a man called 911 and reported that his wife had a knife and was stabbing him, KXAS said.

Holly Leeann Flores, 37, was taken into custody and booked into the Denton County Jail on preliminary charges of attempted capital murder (two counts) and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, police told WFAA, adding that bond for each of the attempted capital murder charges has been set at $1,000,000; bond has not been set for the aggravated assault charge.

WFAA, citing an arrest affidavit the station said it obtained, sait arriving officers saw Flores’ husband — Justin Hommel — standing in the home’s driveway holding a knife; there was blood on his head. Hommel immediately dropped the knife, WFAA said, and officers entered the home, found Flores, and detained her.

Officers also heard children screaming in the house, and they found the couple’s two small children, who also had been stabbed, police told WFAA.

Both children were conscious when officers arrived, and they were rushed to a hospital with multiple stab wounds, WFAA reported, citing the affidavit.

Police told WFAA the injured were:

A 34-year-old man, who suffered head injuriesA 3-year-old girl, who suffered a stab wound to the chestA 10-month-old boy, who suffered a stab wound to the chest

Hommel and the children were taken to a Fort Worth hospital, the station said, adding that Flores was taken to a Denton hospital for observation and possible injuries — and once she was treated and released, she was sent to jail.

Police on Thursday said the children have been released from the hospital and are in the care of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, WFAA said, adding that Hommel also has has been released from the hospital.

RELATED: Mother accused of stabbing her young children — 1 of them just 10 months old — and her husband

Northlake Police Chief Robert Crawford told WFAA he listened to the 911 call saying that the husband “was trying to get to the children, but the children were in another room, and she was actively trying to stab him.”

The station said audio of the emergency radio traffic was posted on the scanner-monitoring site Broadcastify, and it captured a dispatcher relaying the initial report: “Caller stated wife is stabbing husband, stabbed in the head. … Female is turning on gas stove in the house. There are children in the house.” Police have not said if the report about the stove was confirmed, WFAA noted.

In a 911 call, Hommel is heard asking his wife amid the attack if this is a “postpartum thing,” the station added.

Police said they responded to five other calls at the home since March, WFAA said, adding that the arrest affidavit indicates police confirmed they previously had responded to the home multiple times for welfare concerns and overdoses.

A dispatcher said on the radio, “They have a history of welfare concerns involving CPS with the mother,” the station said, adding that Child Protective Services confirmed it had been involved with the family but did not release details about the case.

More from WFAA:

In an interview with police, Hommel told police that his wife was recently struggling with postpartum depression and that her behavior has recently changed. Due to his concerns, he planned to sleep on a couch to be closer to his children.

On the night of the incident, Hommel said he saw Flores take a candle into the children’s bedroom, which he thought was strange, the affidavit states. He then awoke around 1 a.m. to the sound of Flores attempting to use a lighter in the bedroom. When he entered to check on Flores, he saw her lighting a candle and saw a kitchen knife on the bedroom dresser, police said.

The knife “freaked him out” and he attempted to enter the room; however, Holly was able to close the door on him, and he went back to sleep, the affidavit states.

The station said that Hommel told police that he awoke later that evening to sounds of his children crying in their bedroom and knocked on the door.

WFAA, citing the affidavit, said that when Flores opened the door, she was holding the knife and began attacking him, after which Hommel was able to wrestle the knife away from her. The station said officers observed bite marks on his arm, indicating a struggle.

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​Crime 

After announcing on Wednesday that it was pumping the brakes on making the mentally ill eligible for euthanasia in Canada, Carney’s Liberal government killed Conservative legislation that would have made the pause permanent.

“If the government truly believed in preventing MAID for cases of mental illness, then they would have supported our bill,” Conservative MP Tamara Jansen, the author of the defeated bill, said in a statement shared with Blaze News. “But when Canadians needed action, the Liberals chose politics.”

‘The cost savings associated with [euthanizing] the mentally ill could reach up to CAD $63.076 billion.’

Since Canada legalized euthanasia nationwide under ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016, the resultant Medical Assistance in Dying program has been grossly liberalized, becoming a leading cause of death in Canada and claiming the lives of ineligible victims.

The Liberal government, now headed by globalist Prime Minister Mark Carney, expanded the program in February 2024 to enable euthanizing people suffering solely from mental illness.

While the original plan was for the mentally ill to be eligible for extermination the following month, their eligibility date was pushed back to March 2027.

Sean Fraser, Canada’s attorney general, announced on Wednesday that the government would once again hold off on offering MAID to the mentally ill.

“Serious concerns remain regarding the safe and consistent evaluation of marketing authorization applications for mental illness,” stated Fraser. “Canada will therefore not proceed with the planned expansion when mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition.”

RELATED: Canada kills 83-year-old Christian grandmother without consent, family claims — outrage ensues

Canadian Attorney General Sean Fraser. Arlyn McAdorey/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Conservative MP Tamara Jansen had a bill ready to codify the government’s rejection of MAID for the mentally ill and to affirm that “a mental disorder is not a grievous and irremediable medical condition” that alone would satisfy the eligibility criteria for MAID.

The preamble of “The Right to Recover Act” stresses that “vulnerable Canadians should receive suicide prevention counseling rather than access to medical assistance in dying” and that “Canada’s medical assistance in dying regime risks normalizing assisted dying as a solution for those suffering from a mental disorder.”

The bill was, however, defeated in a 187-141 vote in parliament on Wednesday. All but two Liberal members of parliament voted in opposition.

‘They can still be killed by euthanasia in Canada if they have another medical condition.’

Fraser cited the bill’s use of the term “mental disorder” as opposed to “mental illness” as the primary reason for why the Liberals voted in opposition.

“Mental disorder,” he suggested, could be interpreted to include some of the neurologically degenerative diseases that presently can be provided as cause for MAID.

“Disagreement over terminology was not a reason to kill this necessary bill,” said Jansen. “Conservatives were prepared to work through those concerns at committee. But with less than six months remaining before the current exclusion expires, Parliament does not have time to let technical disagreements stand in the way of action.”

Nicole Scheidl, the executive director of Canadian Physicians for Life, also isn’t buying the government’s explanation for killing the bill.

Scheidl indicated to Blaze News that it was a way for the Liberals to “shoehorn” advanced consent for MAID into the alternative, yet-to-be produced bill that Fraser suggested will be introduced later in the parliamentary session “so that there’s very limited time to debate.”

“They want to shut down debate, and so they’re going to hold that [mentally ill] population hostage to allow them to push through euthanasia for dementia,” said Scheidl.

Fraser, whose office did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment, admitted this week that the government ultimately wants to “allow adults diagnosed with a disease such as Alzheimer’s at an early stage to make an advance request for MAID.”

In the meantime, Canada can still kill the mentally ill, Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told Blaze News.

“Right now under the law, someone who has a mental illness — even if that mental illness is driving them to suicidal ideation — they can still be killed by euthanasia in Canada if they have another medical condition,” said Schadenberg. “So if someone, let’s say, had a difficult condition of diabetes, it would be the diabetes they’d be approved for.”

Schadenberg cited the case of 26-year-old Kiano Vafaeian, who was euthanized on Dec. 30, 2025. His family told Global News that while diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and partial vision loss, Vafaeian’s primary struggle was with mental health issues.

“He said everything the doctors needed to hear in order to approve him,” said his mother, Margaret Marsilla. “Was he actually feeling that way? I strongly believe not.”

“A large number of Canadians have something that would qualify them for euthanasia,” Scheidl told Blaze News. “So then if they’re depressed on top of that, and they can’t really think straight, and they’re more inclined to choose that option, then there’s nothing to protect them. There’s nothing to stop it. The [MAID] assessments are not really effective at seeing if people are suicidal or depressed.”

The same government that has made it easy for vulnerable people like Vafaeian to check out has boasted of the savings associated with the program.

Canada’s Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer noted in an October 2020 report that 6,465 deaths under what was then a more restrictive MAID program would result in a total gross reduction in health care costs of $109.2 million in 2021.

“Their estimates were very, very low and their numbers were way off because they underestimated the number of deaths we would have,” said Schadenberg.

In a study published in February 2025, researchers at Western University explored the “potential economic savings from expanding medical assistance in dying in Canada, where it is currently a leading cause of death, to include vulnerable groups that cost the government more than they contribute in taxes,” including Indians, the homeless, the retired elderly, drug addicts, and the mentally ill.

“The cost savings associated with the mentally ill could reach up to CAD $63.076 billion,” said the researchers, “while for the retired elderly population, the savings could be CAD $54.2 billion in the voluntary scenario or as high as CAD $1.2 trillion in a nonvoluntary scenario.”

“Dead people don’t cost money,” Schadenberg told Blaze News. “Dead people don’t collect pensions. Dead people don’t collect disability benefits. And you’ve got a government, well, provincially and federally, that are running massive deficits. So a lot of incentive.”

While the Canadian government has not officially rolled out a nonvoluntary MAID program, Scheidl noted that there is already plenty of “coercion that is happening under the umbrella of this regime.”

“There are a lot of individuals who feel they have no choice,” said Scheidl. “They are dealing with either caregivers who are completely burnt out and can’t care for them [or] they have no other health care options. Hospice is denied to them. Palliative care is not available. Pain care is completely inadequate.”

“We’re wholly inadequate in our care for those who are suffering or at the end of life. But we’re very, very good and very, very fast at delivering euthanasia.”

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​Canada, Mental illness, Mark carney, Justin trudeau, Medical assistance in dying, Euthanasia, Eugenics, Politics 

A 6-year-old boy shot his teacher, and newly released bodycam footage captures him cursing at authorities — as if he were proud of what he’d done.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock doesn’t just blame the parents but also the pedestal that rappers are placed on in American culture.

“The bodycam footage is disturbing, of the police coming to the scene where a 6-year-old boy has shot his teacher. Just saying that is incredible and chilling,” Whitlock says.

“But when you hear the bodycam footage and the way the young boy, while sitting in his teacher or this teacher’s aide lap, the way that he’s talking, and it’s like holy cow. What is going on here,” he adds.

“I don’t care if you call back up, I don’t care if I go to jail, b***h,” the boy is captured saying.

“I stole that from my mom,” he said of the gun. “If you want a piece of me, come get it,” he added.

The boy continued yelling slurs at everyone around him.

“This is a 6-year-old child that just shot his teacher. He sounds like a rapper. He sounds like a criminal, a thug. He sounds like what we have allowed to be created. He sounds like Snoop Dogg,” Whitlock says.

He explains that figures like Snoop Dogg have become the “mascot for America.”

“That’s what Snoop Dogg is,” he says. “You turn on your television and nine times out of 10 you’re going to see Snoop Dogg in some type of commercial, some type of TV show. We’ve turned Snoop Dogg into Santa Claus. We’ve turned Snoop Dogg into one of the most recognizable and allegedly lovable characters in American culture.”

“And you wonder why a 6-year-old boy in Virginia, or anywhere in America, would take a gun to school, shoot a teacher, and then curse and talk to authority in such a disrespectful manner,” he continues.

“The music that we’ve bathed ourselves in, it warps the soul. It poisons the soul. It reframes the mind. It makes a reprobate mind,” he adds.

But it’s not just rap music’s fault.

Whitlock explains that we’re all responsible as “the parents of American culture.”

“We have allowed this culture to become demonic and nihilistic,” he says. “And our heroes, the people that we are comfortable celebrating, they’re nihilistic and demonic, and they don’t hide it. They put out rap albums promoting their demonic and nihilistic worldview, their disrespect, their distrust, their rebellion against any and all authority.”

“And you wonder why a 6-year-old child would bring a gun to an elementary school?” he adds.

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​American culture, Bodycam footage, Rappers, Shooting, Snoop dogg, Jason whitlock, Blazetv show