In 2007, British-Canadian historian Rafe Heydel-Mankoo — whose parents immigrated to the U.K. in the 1960s — warned that the English were suffering the “greatest identity crisis” in all of Europe.

BlazeTV host Nick Freitas tells Heydel-Mankoo that the state of Britain today — with all its sectarian “demonstrations” — proves that he was “correct.”

“What did you see in 2007 that so many people failed to see?” he asks the New Culture Forum senior fellow.

“I saw obviously the beginning of identity politics, and of course, within the United Kingdom, we have the Scots, the Welsh, the Northern Irish, and the English. And it seemed as if when the Scots and the Welsh waved their flags, it was called progressive nationalism, but when the English did it, it was somehow racist,” says Heydel-Mankoo.

He notes the deep irony of this dynamic.

“England made the modern world with the Industrial Revolution, the creation of America, Canada, Australia, the English language, common law, parliamentary democracy — and yet, despite having given the world so much, it seemed to be the one nation that wasn’t able to celebrate its identity,” he tells Freitas.

At the same time, Heydel-Mankoo explains, “multiculturalism” exploded.

“Everybody was supposed to celebrate the fact that they were from a Muslim community or they were African or they were trans or gay. Every identity possible could be celebrated apart from what should be the one overarching identity that unites all of those other identities, and that is your national identity,” he says.

“And since then, of course, we’ve had this long march through the institutions by the left. All of our institutions have been captured, and our institutions shape our worldview, and it’s got to the point now where I say that Britain, England, but also the United Kingdom is now a postrevolutionary society,” he adds.

According to Heydel-Mankoo, this “long, quiet revolution” was “instigated by Tony Blair” — who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007.

“It’s a 25-year project, and it’s basically complete now,” he says.

“All of our institutions look the same; the buildings are the same, but the people that built those institutions bear no comparison to the people who run them today, who are cuckoos in the nest,” he continues, “and these are the people who are essentially promulgating the idea that Britain’s past is evil, that Britain was born into the state of original sin, which is racism.”

With Britain’s history and ancestors vilified and its culture and institutions broken down, the left has ushered the nation into a “zero year,” says Heydel-Mankoo, allowing it to “create new foundational myths” — like “diversity built Britain.”

He calls this “absolute nonsense.”

“There’s never been a great immigrant population in Britain. The Saxons were the last people to arrive there in the year 600. We have a 2,000-year history,” he tells Freitas.

“When I was born, Britain was 97% white British. Today, it’s only 74% white British. It’s declined 13% in the space of just 20 years.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms. Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Nick freitas, National identity, England, Blazetv show 

A female wearing a Muslim burqa stood in front of a microphone during the public comment period at a county commissioners’ meeting Tuesday in Florida during which some residents spoke against the potential expansion of a local mosque amid concerns over language on zoning and agenda materials, WTVT-TV reported.

The station said the female was “covered head-to-toe in black, with only her left eye visible.” She did not speak.

‘We ask you to come here and make comments, and that was not a comment. That’s why she was asked to step out.’

Instead, the female played a recording of the Islamic call to prayer, the station said. It appeared on video of the incident that she was holding an audio device under her burqa.

The Islamic call to prayer played for nearly a minute before Dave Eggers — chair of the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners — said over his microphone that county rules require public speakers to deliver verbal comments rather than play recordings, WTVT reported.

“Ma’am, you’re going to have to stop. Stop the music, stop the tape,” Eggers said. “Ma’am, stop the tape.”

After the female refused to comply, a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deputy approached the podium and escorted her out of the meeting room and the building, the station said.

WTVT said it’s wasn’t immediately clear if the gesture was a protest or a prank.

The station said the woman’s removal sparked friction in the room, as several onlookers shouted and argued with Eggers over the decision.

“Please. Just please exercise some decorum and kindness of your own,” Eggers told the crowd. “We’re all people living together here.”

He further clarified the board’s rules to those assembled: “We don’t allow taped things. You can record the meeting, but we don’t allow taped activity like that. We ask you to come here and make comments, and that was not a comment. That’s why she was asked to step out.”

Below is a clip showing most of the incident. You can view the full video here beginning at the 1:02:00 mark.

RELATED: The case for banning the burqa

WTVT said multiple residents during the public comment period blasted an Oct. 13 vote in which the board voted 4-3 to approve a land-use amendment for the expansion of the Masjid Al Rahman mosque, which was referred to in presentations and documents as a “community assembly facility.”

More from the station:

The vote changed the property’s land use from residential rural to public and semi-public, which would allow the facility’s owner to replace the building with a newer structure 1,000 feet larger.

During Tuesday’s meeting, public speakers spoke out against the facility, some citing the treatment of women in Muslim-majority countries.

“It is about the big picture and the long term,” one woman told the commission. “By allowing this mosque to expand in our area, you are participating in the expansion of a totalitarian ideology which is fundamentally opposed to Western American values. Expansion of the ideology of Islam is not good for women’s rights.”

However, WTVT said another woman supported the mosque: “They want to turn it to face Mecca, and they want it to look a little more like a mosque instead of a house. We have no problems with them. We’ve been their neighbors for many years.”

According to Florida’s Voice, the burqa-wearing female was listed under public comment speakers as Selene Al Jamal.

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the woman was escorted from the building without further incident and won’t face any criminal charges, WTVT said.

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​Muslim, Burqa, Florida, Call to prayer, Pinellas county, Politics 

A New Jersey middle school teacher was arrested for allegedly helping to rob a man during a prostitution-related encounter at an Atlantic City casino hotel.

NJ.com reported that 35-year-old Amanda R. Crafts of Wildwood was arrested Oct. 9 and charged with robbery and conspiracy.

‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

NJ.com added that Crafts at the time of her arrest was still listed as a computer teacher at Middle Township Middle School in Cape May County on the district website.

Middle Township Public Schools Superintendent Stephanie DeRose said in a letter to families and staff on Oct. 15 that an employee had been arrested.

“Based on the information available to us, the charges are unrelated to the individual’s performance or responsibilities as an employee of Middle Township School District, and the event occurred outside of Cape May County,” the letter read.

DeRose stressed that the charges “do not involve any alleged threat, inappropriate behavior, or misconduct occurring within our schools or involving our students.”

Atlantic City Police accused Crafts of conspiring with 23-year-old Veda J. Engel of Cape May to rob a man.

Breaking AC obtained the affidavits of probable cause that said a man met Crafts and Engel at a bar at Caesars Atlantic City hotel and casino.

The man told police that he exchanged phone numbers with Engel, who later called him to meet up with the women in their hotel room at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City around 1:30 a.m., according to the affidavit.

The affidavit said Engel performed sex acts on the man.

The criminal complaint claims Crafts held down the alleged victim as Engel used facial recognition on his cell phone to make four transactions totaling $1,250 through Apple Pay to her account.

“That’s what you get for $1,250,” Engel told the man, according to the affidavit.

The alleged victim said the transactions were “made without his consent in exchange for sexual acts,” a detective wrote in the affidavit.

Engel was arrested and charged with robbery, conspiracy, and engaging in prostitution.

Fox News reported that last year Engel allegedly offered sex in exchange for $1,000 to an undercover New Jersey State Police detective at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.

Engel and Crafts were both released from jail but are required to check in with the court every other week, according to Breaking AC.

Both defendants are barred from having contact with each other or the alleged victim.

Breaking AC reported that Crafts during her detention hearing told Judge Christine Smith, “I’m a teacher.”

The judge replied, “You’re a teacher?”

Crafts, a mother of four children, nodded and responded, “I’m a teacher.”

Judge Smith asked, “Do you know if you can go back to work?”

Crafts said, “I don’t know. I have to make union contact tomorrow when I get released.”

Middle Township School District announced Oct. 19 that a teacher “is no longer employed by the district.”

RELATED: Female Christian school teacher accused of grooming teen softball player — mom intervened, but contact continued, cops say

Image source: Middle Township (N.J.) Public Schools

“While we recognize the importance of transparency, employee privacy laws and district policies limit the personnel information we can share,” the school district said in a letter to parents. “We also cannot comment on the details of an ongoing criminal case or its legal outcome.”

During an Oct. 10 video hearing, Crafts told the judge: “I’ve never been to jail. I’ve never been arrested before. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” according to Breaking AC.

Crafts’ attorney, Charles Peruto Jr., told the New York Post that his client is “highly intelligent and wouldn’t participate in anything like that. She was in the room and wanted to leave and didn’t even realize it was a prostitution thing. She is mortified.”

The attorney added, “Maybe the prostitute took advantage of him, but my client had nothing to do with it.”

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​New jersey, Teacher arrested, Prostitution, Atlantic city, Crime 

Chinese criminal syndicates are turning parts of rural America into enormous illegal marijuana operations. And one California congressman has had enough.

On October 19, California Republican Rep. James Gallagher called on FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate the criminal networks operating in Siskiyou and Shasta counties. His concerns extend well beyond marijuana. Foreign financing, organized crime, illegal pesticides, and overwhelmed local law enforcement are all part of the problem.

American suburban real estate had become the foundation of an international drug operation.

In 2025 alone, Siskiyou County authorities reported eradicating 332,871 marijuana plants, seizing more than 54,000 pounds of processed cannabis, and making 118 arrests.

And those are just the operations authorities managed to uncover.

Water torture

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment, Chinese transnational criminal organizations have become dominant players in illegal marijuana cultivation and distribution across the United States.

These criminal enterprises are buying American property, establishing cultivation operations, and exploiting underground financial networks that make tracing the money a nightmare for local investigators.

Meanwhile, the communities caught in the middle are left to deal with the consequences.

In rural Northern California, residents have found themselves fighting over something more fundamental than marijuana: water.

In Siskiyou County, illegal cultivation has placed enormous demands on groundwater supplies. County officials have previously estimated that cannabis operations consumed millions of gallons daily, although those historical estimates do not establish how much water is being extracted today.

Residents have reported falling water levels and deteriorating well conditions amid heavy cultivation activity. Drought and other agricultural demands complicate the picture, but the conflict itself is real.

Imagine spending decades building a livelihood in rural California, only to find yourself competing for groundwater with illegal marijuana plantations. Apparently, even the water beneath your property is now part of the black-market economy.

Chem trails

Another danger is the chemicals these operations add to the ecosystem. In July 2025, Siskiyou County declared a local emergency over dangerous pesticides discovered at illegal cultivation sites. Investigators identified more than 27 pesticides, including highly toxic compounds such as carbofuran and methamidophos.

These are not harmless gardening supplies. Carbofuran can interfere with the nervous system and, at sufficiently high exposures, cause fatal respiratory paralysis. Methamidophos is another dangerous pesticide whose U.S. registrations were canceled years ago.

County officials have reported investigators suffering symptoms following exposure at illegal grow sites.

The danger does not necessarily end at the property line. Federal research has detected pesticide contamination downstream of illegal marijuana grows in California’s national forests.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced an investigation into Siskiyou County’s illegal pesticide problem in July 2025. Gallagher now wants federal investigators to examine the supply chains bringing these chemicals into the country.

Local sheriffs are dealing with toxic chemicals, enormous plantations, and criminal organizations whose financial operations extend far beyond their jurisdictions. Hardly the sort of problem a rural county department can solve with a few more patrol cars.

The legalization racket

There is another uncomfortable element to this story: America’s experiment with marijuana legalization.

Voters were promised that legal cannabis would weaken the black market by replacing criminal dealers with regulated, taxpaying businesses.

How is that working out?

According to a California Department of Cannabis Control market analysis, licensed supply accounted for an estimated 38% of marijuana consumed in the state in 2024.

An enormous share of consumption remains outside the licensed market.

California’s legal operators face a 15% state cannabis excise tax, applicable sales and local taxes, and substantial licensing and compliance expenses. A medium indoor cultivation license alone carries an annual fee of $77,905.

Illegal operators have no particular interest in paying licensing fees, collecting cannabis taxes, or following environmental regulations. Legitimate businesses shoulder the costs of operating legally while competing against criminals who ignore the rules.

California has somehow managed to create a regulated industry in which following the law can be a serious competitive disadvantage. But the real money lies farther up the criminal food chain.

Finding the masterminds behind these operations is considerably harder than arresting the workers tending the plants. Property purchases, financial intermediaries, and concealed ownership arrangements can make identifying the people controlling an operation a lengthy investigation.

Some workers are themselves victims. Federal prosecutors have charged members of a Chinese-linked network operating in Massachusetts and Maine with offenses arising from an alleged scheme involving labor exploitation, retained passports, marijuana trafficking, and money laundering.

The people trimming the plants are not necessarily the people collecting the profits.

Follow the money

Back in April 2018, federal investigators targeted an international marijuana cultivation operation in the Sacramento area. Agents searched approximately 74 houses and two business offices, while prosecutors initiated forfeiture proceedings involving more than 100 residential properties.

Authorities described a scheme in which money wired from China helped finance the purchase of suburban homes that were converted into indoor marijuana factories. The operation involved straw buyers, real estate intermediaries, and marijuana distributed beyond California.

One participant, Heidi Phong, subsequently pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money-laundering.

American suburban real estate had become the foundation of an international drug operation. Whether the same financiers are involved in today’s Siskiyou plantations remains an open question, one Gallagher wants federal investigators to examine.

The financial machinery behind Chinese organized crime deserves a closer look. China maintains strict controls on foreign-currency transactions, including a general annual individual purchase quota of $50,000. Those restrictions create demand for underground financial services capable of moving value between China and the United States.

Criminal money-laundering networks are more than happy to oblige.

Under one common arrangement, a broker receives dollars in America while arranging for an equivalent payment in Chinese currency overseas. The transactions can be settled through multiple accounts or commercial dealings without physically transporting the same cash across international borders.

These networks also provide services to some of the most dangerous drug traffickers on the planet.

In June 2024, the Justice Department announced charges arising from an alleged alliance between Sinaloa cartel associates and Chinese underground banking networks involving more than $50 million in drug proceeds.

Chinese money-laundering organizations have become valuable partners for Mexican cartels seeking to convert their American drug profits into usable funds.

And marijuana is part of the business. A 2025 Treasury Department advisory identified Chinese money-laundering networks handling proceeds from illegal marijuana grow houses alongside proceeds from other drug-trafficking activities.

Countrywide crisis

That does not establish that Mexican cartel money is financing the particular plantations in Siskiyou County. But it gives investigators good reason to look beyond the marijuana plants and examine the financial networks behind them.

The scale of the criminal activity is becoming difficult to ignore.

In Oklahoma, two Chinese nationals, Jeff Weng and Tong Lin, were sentenced to 10 years each for their roles in an illegal marijuana distribution operation. Investigators uncovered nearly 20,000 plants at one cultivation site, while trial evidence described elaborate interstate distribution methods, including vans disguised as commercial delivery vehicles.

In April 2026, federal prosecutors announced a separate 51-defendant indictment involving an alleged Oklahoma-based marijuana trafficking network. At least 29 defendants were identified as being from China.

Maine has encountered similar problems. During a May 2026 congressional hearing, federal officials discussed dozens of search warrants and hundreds of potential illegal cultivation locations.

The operations may be scattered across the country, but the methods are familiar: acquire property, establish marijuana grows, distribute the product, and conceal the proceeds.

RELATED: Fake ultra-luxury watches from China seized — and they would have been worth millions if real, CBP claims

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Chinese checkers

And what does Beijing know about all this? China’s government exercises extraordinary control over its domestic financial system, yet criminal networks continue moving money across borders. Whether corrupt Chinese officials are facilitating these operations remains an open question. Chinese authorities have cooperated with American investigators in some cases, and no evidence has established that Beijing directs the marijuana trade. But the possibility of official complicity deserves investigation.

So do the people financing these operations.

Local sheriffs face an overwhelming resource mismatch when tackling well-funded crime rings. A small-town department might clear a plantation and arrest several workers, but tracing international financial transactions and identifying distant organizers requires specialized federal capabilities.

Federal agencies have conducted substantial investigations, and the EPA has already become involved in Siskiyou County. Yet these operations persist.

Gallagher is asking the FBI to work with county sheriffs, Homeland Security investigators, and environmental authorities to identify the people financing and organizing them.

His request deserves a serious response. Destroying marijuana plants may temporarily disrupt an illegal operation. But as long as the money, property networks, and organizers remain untouched, another crop can take its place.

American law enforcement has already demonstrated that these criminal enterprises can be investigated, prosecuted, and dismantled. Washington needs to bring that same determination to the operations still flourishing in rural America.

Rural Americans should not have to surrender their water, their land, or their peace of mind to international drug syndicates simply because the criminals have discovered that operating in America is profitable.

​California, Cannabis, China, Chinese criminal syndicates, Drugs, Fbi, Fbi investigation, Grow houses, Illegal pesticides, Legalization, Legalized marijuana, Lifestyle, Maine, Marijuana cultivation, Northern california, Organized crime, Pesticides, Rural america, Siskiyou county, Water, Drug enforcement administration, Dea, Crime 

The Minnesota Democrat who goes by the name “Ilhan Omar” looks to be in serious trouble.

After all, it’s not just the president and Republicans who suspect her of marrying her brother in order to commit immigration fraud. Liberal America’s paper of record, the New York Times, published a damning report on Thursday reinforcing suspicions about the marriage.

‘The Dumocrat Party has just conceded her seat.’

In 2009, the Democratic congresswoman married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, an effeminate British-Somali national. Yet numerous Somalis have reportedly identified Elmi as the Democrat’s alleged brother.

According to the Times report, the Obama FBI and Justice Department investigated that marriage to Elmi all the way back in 2016, just before she secured a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

The Times, citing six former and current officials familiar with the case, reported that the Obama-era federal investigators “found evidence suggesting that Mr. Elmi and Ms. Omar were siblings.” Since prosecutors didn’t bother pressing the issue, investigators were left with their hands effectively tied.

Two former officials indicated that on the basis of his marriage to the Muslim congresswoman, Elmi — now an academic focused on LGBT matters — had secured a provisional two-year green card.

RELATED: Trump calls on Ilhan ‘Omar’ to resign — and the reason is damning

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

When Elmi sought permanent residency, immigration officials reportedly pressed him for evidence to show that the marriage was legitimate. Officials told the Times that rather than provide the requested evidence, Elmi fled the country.

At the time, the congresswoman denied that she married her brother, calling the allegations “absolutely false and ridiculous.” She was less emphatic when Chris Hayes of MS NOW asked her last week about whether she is related to Elmi, replying with a smile, “Not to my knowledge.”

Blaze News has reached out to the congresswoman’s office, Elmi, the FBI, and the Justice Department for comment.

The Times’ report and admission that “several aspects of the marriage to Mr. Elmi have long been murky” comes a week after news broke that “Omar” may not even be her real name.

A court filing dated October 21 from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro indicated that “Ilhan Abdullahi Omar” is an alias and that the congresswoman’s real name is actually “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi.”

Screenshot of court filing

President Donald Trump then took to Truth Social and claimed that “her last name is, incredibly, also the exact name of her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, the person they said she married.”

“Because she used a fake name to be sworn in, I assume she must IMMEDIATELY resign from Congress,” Trump continued.

“The Dumocrat Party has just conceded her seat.”

The name itself is not necessarily damning. After all, Elmi may have been the congresswoman’s married name at one point.

However, the New York Post has obtained a marriage certificate for Leila Nur Said — a Somali woman believed to be the congresswoman’s sister — that lists “Nur Said Elmi” as her father.

The congresswoman’s office previously said in a statement to Blaze News that “the congresswoman’s name has always been Ilhan Omar. Any claim suggesting otherwise is categorically false and has no basis in fact.”

Homeland Security Investigations agents searched the congresswoman’s D.C.-area residence on Oct. 12 as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Pirro has also stated that the congresswoman is the subject of a separate investigation into her finances.

The Somali-born radical is seeking re-election to Congress in next week’s midterm election.

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​Ilhan omar, Somalia, Congress, Fraud, Immigration, Illegal alien, Politics 

As a writer, I’m supposed to tell you about how fantastic and gee-whiz dazzling all our new gadgets are. As readers, you’re supposed to leave comments saying things like, “I just can’t imagine how we ever got along doing business before I could use a tiny pocket computer to pay my bills, turn my air conditioning on, and check the milk in the fridge!”

Nah.

When Captain Kirk congratulates him on his handiwork, Scotty grins and says, ‘The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.’

Modern technology is baloney. It’s overly complicated. It depends on too many computer programs and apps; there are too many digital “providers” in the pipeline of what used to be simple transactions.

Take a walk with me as I do battle in two different theaters — the real analog world and the fake virtual version. One battle is satisfying. The other makes me want to ignore the government safety warnings on my mop bucket and insert my head in the water.

First, I attempt something I have done hundreds of times before: log into my small company’s bank account and pay a freelancer. Then I tackle something I know considerably less about: repairing a broken gas furnace. Guess which one takes longer?

Pay mal

Nothing will convince you of how bad modern tech is better than trying to do the banking you have done all your life.

Every month I update the books for the small company I co-own with my friend and business partner. Together we put out “Disaffected,” a weekly cultural commentary show. We hire freelancers to do work for us like cutting up clips of shows for short-form video. Part of my bookkeeping is paying these freelancers through the bank.

I log into National Bank. Or I think I do. After entering my username and password, the screen is hijacked by a never-before-seen display telling me to stop what I’m doing and follow its instructions. I do mean “told,” too. No please, no thank you. A series of imperative commands that read like this:

Gather your government identification and be prepared to take a selfie.Open your phone (reader, I’m on a stationary computer) and tap the icon displayed on your screen to confirm your identity.Follow the instructions on your phone to photograph your government identification. Photograph the front and the back.Follow the prompt on your phone to take a selfie.Wait for your identity to be verified by AI.

Being ordered to comply with a brand-new set of steps without even the pretense of “asking” already has me irritated.

Tech tyranny

Worse, National Bank does not tell me the reason for any of this. I find out at the end that National Bank has kept this secret because it is forcing me to do something it knows I would refuse to do unless compelled to: “set up a passkey.” Passkeys are the latest must-have “security” feature because apparently mere passwords aren’t good enough.

Yes, I know. There’s some very good reason for this, I will be assured. I don’t care.

I spend two and a half hours trying to comply with the commands National Bank is giving me on my computer screen and also the orders it is giving me on my phone. You have to have at least two computers on your person at all times now in order to be allowed to transact business.

The phone contradicts the computer screen. The interface changes the terminology it uses randomly, leaving me confused about what function I’m agreeing to. Though I follow all the steps to the letter, it takes five attempts at “taking a selfie” for the AI to process the transaction. And every time it fails? It erases all my progress and sends me back to the very beginning to do each step all over again, in sequence.

All I’m trying to do is pay a $200 freelancer fee and enter a note in my checking account. Two and a half hours. I could do this in three minutes with a pen, a check, an envelope, and one handwritten line in a ledger. No, I do not think the ability to do this electronically brings me a benefit big enough to justify this digital Tower of Babel.

This is almost everything now, everywhere, all the time. In my town you can’t even park on the street without downloading an app and using your fingers on a teensy little touch screen to enter a credit card.

Back to the Before Times

Contrast this with repairing a broken gas furnace. The furnace is a 35-year-old unit that is built rugged and requires no electricity (except for the fan that circulates the hot air), a must in a rural area that gets frequent blackouts in winter storms. But the automatic fan isn’t running automatically.

My handy sister and I look up the model and talk to an AI (this is something they’re actually good for) to figure out the problem. I buy what I think is an old-fashioned analog thermostat. It seems likely the old one has gone bad.

The new thermostat looks just like the simple mechanical kind I remember. But it’s an imposter — a modern piece of tech in analog “drag.” Flip it over and it’s full of electronic circuitry.

And it doesn’t work. Why? Because it is designed for a 24-volt control system, while my furnace uses a millivolt system.

OK, time to pivot. I put back the old thermostat, but change out the copper wire connections. Success! It kicks the main burner on. But the fan is still running constantly instead of cycling with the heat.

Hands on

The AI (Claude) says the problem is most likely a faulty fan-limiter switch. Here’s the part where it gets fun. This is an analog switch. That means it is made out of physical material that responds to the environment in ways that you can see, touch, and intuit.

We order the new switch from a mom-and-pop stove company for $11. The simplicity is the beauty. It’s just a palm-sized device with a very thin convex metal disk; it looks like an opaque copper contact lens. It works by flexing one way or the other depending on whether the furnace is firing and heating up the disk or shutting off so that the disk cools and flexes in the opposite direction. This flexing opens and closes the electrical circuit that runs the fan.

We put the switch in and turn on the furnace with the old analog thermostat, and it works like a dream. The fan goes on and off automatically, just as it should. This furnace does not do anything “less” than the most expensive modern digital appliance on the market today. It just does the job simply with parts that humans can put in themselves and make sense of.

That’s the reason I avoid a $300 service call from an HVAC company — the kind of service call I would dread even more with a computerized furnace.

RELATED: Kodachrome and 4 other things I want back from the 20th century

Robert Alexander/Getty Images

Scotty knew

Chief engineer of the starship Enterprise Montgomery Scott sums the problem up in the 1984 motion picture “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.”

Captain Kirk and crew need to steal the battle-damaged Enterprise to rescue Spock when Starfleet won’t allow them to do it. The problem? They’ll be outrun by the latest high-tech starship Excelsior, equipped with super-duper-even-faster “transwarp” drive.

Scotty pulls a couple of key chips out of the Excelsior’s guts, leaving it dead in space so that the Enterprise can get away. When Captain Kirk congratulates him on his handiwork, Scotty grins and says, “The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”

We have overthought the plumbing in modern devices. It’s not that digital technology is “bad.” It’s that we’re using it stupidly. Remember the recent story about Samsung “smart” refrigerators turning into expensive bricks because of an internet-based software problem?

If you didn’t live in 2026 with me, you would say I was lying because it’s so absurd. In South Korea, some of Samsung’s high-end refrigerators with built-in “smart” wireless technology shut down and stopped cooling because of a bad software update.

So long as we keep buying these jacked-up robots, companies are going to keep making appliances more complicated, less repairable, and less reliable. Will we wise up? Maybe. I have two friends who go feral with excitement over every new product Google or Apple puts out. They immediately install “smart bulbs” in every lamp of their houses as soon as they’re available.

One year later? Both friends rip them out in frustration after realizing that an “on/off” switch works better than training an AI to understand “turn on the living room light and only the living room light.”

​Consumer technology, Government id, Modern technology, New gadgets, Online banking, Small business, Smart appliances, Star trek, Tech tyranny, Technology criticism, Starship enterprise, Lifestyle, Home repair, Analog, Diy, Hvac, Intervention, Tech 

Companies have been charging consumers different prices based on their location and what kind of lifestyle they lead.

Price fixing is illegal, but bulking customers into regions or basic categories isn’t.

‘They pushed back and said it wasn’t discrimination.’

After an investigation into how McDonald’s prices its Big Macs, for example, by the region where a restaurant is located, questions quickly arose as to whether or not companies were using AI algorithms to determine how much money customers are willing to shell out for any given food product or service.

Although McDonald’s said that “AI does not set the price of a Big Mac or ⁠any other menu item,” it seems it doesn’t need to.

According to author Sarah Westall, sophisticated data sweeps figure out prices based on region and can help businesses set the max price they can charge for an item to consumers in a defined area.

Westall, a computer scientist and systems design expert, told Blaze News exclusively that credit card use, browsing, and location data contribute to an “extensive” set of analytical data that has companies telling their franchisees exactly how to set their prices.

Prices can be “personalized” and “tailored” to the user at a personal level too, especially on apps.

For example, Westall cited another investigation that prompted grocery app Instacart to stop offering technology that allowed grocery retailers to charge shoppers different prices for the same groceries at the same time.

“Instacart was shown to differ the price on groceries depending on how much they think that you would pay for it,” Westall claimed. “So they were seeing up to 23% difference in a groceries, eggs, milk, you know, basic needs. That’s where it gets kind of, ‘what are you doing here,’ right? That you’re really manipulating prices on basic needs. I don’t think governments would appreciate that.”

RELATED: Lawsuit alleges McDonald’s is rigging its prices based on location — and algorithm

Cheng Xin/Getty Images

Instacart said it was running short-term, randomized A/B pricing experiments that “were never based on supply or demand, personal data, demographics, or individual shopping behavior.”

Westall, though, thinks things are getting “pretty insidious” in terms of how companies are determining pricing based on consumer desperation, something she has been adamant about informing the public on.

“If ‘they’ decide that they want to charge you more because you’re looking for a baby thermometer at midnight or if you’re stranded on the side of the street … things can get pretty ugly.”

To show just how bad things already are, Westall pointed to a 2012 Wall Street Journal investigation that found by simply using a Mac computer, consumers would be fed ads for luxury hotels.

At the time, the WSJ found that a company called Orbitz was tracking online activity to figure out that Mac users would spend 30% more on hotels than Windows users.

Moreover, Westall said, tutoring service Princeton Review knows that “Asians are 1.8 times more likely to spend more money on tutoring because they care about education.”

That data point was exposed by ProPublica, with Princeton Review replying that its pricing was based on the “costs of running its business and the competitive attributes of the given market.”

The company also argued that areas that had higher prices also had members of the “financial services industry, people who tend to vote Democratic, journalists and any other group that is more heavily concentrated in areas like New York City.”

RELATED: When your desperation becomes part of the price

POOL PHILIP REYNAERS/BELGA MAG/Belga/AFP/Getty Images

“They were charging them thousands of dollars more,” Westall went on. “They pushed back and said it wasn’t discrimination. They said we were basing it on zip code,” but the fact remained that there were “more Asians in that zip code.”

That being said, Westall reiterated that the profit incentives when using AI to analyze data has become a “gold mine,” reminding consumers that there is a ~50% increase in profit when companies price based off user data.

The author urged readers to not give up their data so easily at stores or online, including their name, email, and zip code.

Performing basic privacy protection — without even being too tech savvy — is the least anyone can do.

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​Ai pricing, Instacart, Mcdonalds, Mac, Princeton review, Tech 

Certain candidates across the country are earning the support of the Council on American-Islamic Relations — and they all have one thing in common.

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales points out that the organization “has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the governor’s office here in the state of Texas,” because “their goals are to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s mastership of the world.”

“They’ve made it entirely clear. When your goal is to forcibly impose Sharia law, you, as it turns out, are incompatible with the Western world, definitely incompatible with the United States,” Gonzales says.

“In the meantime, CAIR, I guess, wanted all of its terrorist-adjacent supporters who can vote in the midterms to know who to vote for. They wanted to send out a friendly voter’s guide. And just to give you an idea, because every organization that is able to give endorsements obviously has a position on specific policies, they obviously are advocating for something,” she explains, before revealing their “policy positions” on their website.

“Since 9/11 the Muslim Community has been an easy target for Civil Rights abuses. CAIR Action works to ensure that Civil Rights abuses no longer occur,” CAIR’s website says.

“So our people killed over 3,000 innocent Americans, but let us explain how we’re the victims here,” Gonzales comments.

Another policy platform, CAIR’s website says, is “ending national security overreach.”

“The National FBI watchlist, no-fly lists, and other forms of security overreach have targeted and undermined our community’s [sic] time and time again. CAIR Action aims to restore these fundamental constitutional rights,” it reads.

“Is the FBI putting you on a watch list and the no-fly list and all these other lists because you’re a member of the community, or are they just responding to members of the community’s terrorist ties?” Gonzales asks.

“If we’re all being honest, I think we all know which one of those options it is,” she adds.

Gonzales then shares another policy platform on the website: “We support free speech in all spheres of our lives, especially within our education system.”

“We will work to ensure that our constitutional rights are also protected within our schools,” the website reads.

“If you’re living in the state of Texas and you’re paying attention to the Islamic conquest, we know exactly what that translation is. It’s just taking over our schools with Muslim prayer rooms where they get to leave class multiple times a day and go pray to Allah,” Gonzales says.

CAIR also released a nationwide endorsement list of candidates.

“At the top of the list here in the state of Texas, we have, of course, James Talarico as the preferred candidate for the terrorist organization CAIR. Wow. Big shocker there,” Gonzales says.

“You see, Ken Paxton has been extremely outspoken about stopping Sharia and the Islamic takeover. He’s actually used his office as attorney general to go after some of the things that they are doing that are outside the scope of, you know, legal anything,” she continues.

“In fact, what you will find as you scroll through this list of preferred and endorsed candidates, you will find that it’s the Democrats. These are the Democrats. The Democrats are CAIR’s preferred candidates,” she adds.

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​Cair, Sharia law, James talarico, Texas, Council on american islamic relations, Blazetv show 

Cybersecurity threats are emerging left and right, with the most prominent event happening last week in what experts call Black October. However, while that web meltdown took most of the oxygen out of the room, Microsoft was tracking another event that affected hundreds of companies around the globe.

Days before the php2shell threat hit its peak of hysteria online, Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence team was focused on a major event that directly attacked enterprise systems. It found that a Chinese hacking group called Storm-0940 weaponized an agentic AI testing platform named ARTEX to launch automated attacks on hundreds of companies worldwide, intending to steal data.

ConnectWise admits that it doesn’t know which partners were hacked or if any data was moved.

Even worse, the attack led to bad actors accessing some companies’ cloud backup systems, which contained sensitive encrypted data locked behind privileged access. It only took three hours for the automated attacks to breach cybersecurity measures — far fewer than the 5-10 hours that security experts typically need to crack a system.

The speed and efficiency of the attack further outlines how AI poses an existential risk to online infrastructure that is either outdated, unsecured with the latest software, or riddled with zero-day vulnerabilities that have yet to be discovered.

One of the groups affected by the attack was ConnectWise, an IT management software company that provides a list of services, including remote monitoring and management for company servers, laptops, and desktops; remote access features to offer help-desk support; and cloud backup and recovery for critical business data. Some of the partners on its website include Swarovski, Bic, and Panasonic, though the full client list includes more than 20,000.

In short, ConnectWise is directly integrated into the digital fabric of its partners with access to devices, data, and everything else hackers would love to take for themselves. That means that attackers who want to get to ConnectWise’s partners don’t have to go to each company and hack them individually. They can simply target ConnectWise itself to obtain a treasure trove of data.

RELATED: How to protect yourself and your data during the PHP web meltdown

amgun/Getty Images

According to Microsoft, the Chinese-state hackers used AI to implement a supply chain attack on the OAuth app that protects ConnectWise Cloud Backup, the service that contains client cloud backup data. Once inside, hackers reportedly tried to change the system privileges to broaden data access. However, Microsoft notes that there’s currently no proof that client data was actually accessed or taken — just that hackers broke into the system.

ConnectWise was quick to respond. The company revoked the certificates connected to Cloud Backup to cut the hackers off. This rendered their supply chain attack null and void. ConnectWise also confirmed that its clients’ cloud backup archives are still securely encrypted, so if hackers did move data out of ConnectWise’s system, it should still be safe. The company has found no evidence so far that any of the archives were taken.

That said, a lack of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean a crime didn’t occur. ConnectWise admits that its systems aren’t built to track its clients’ saved data. As a result, it doesn’t know which partners were hacked or if any data was moved. Instead, ConnectWise customers are compelled to review their own data for signs of tampering.

The ConnectWise breach is just one piece of a broader emerging situation where AI bots scour every corner of the web, looking for unknown flaws to exploit. At this point, no one is safe — businesses, infrastructure, and private citizens. Still, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do. We surfed the web and compiled a robust list of ways you can protect yourself, your accounts, and your private data from the PHP meltdown and any other major cybersecurity event that could unfold over the coming months and years.

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​Security, Cybersecurity, Cyberattack, Artificial intelligence, Tech 

British establishmentarians have notched another win in their long-standing effort to take Tommy Robinson off the board.

Government officials and woke clergymen have condemned him; Islamic terrorists have allegedly threatened him; multiple social media platforms have banned him; he has been subjected to at least one unlawful, politically motivated arrest; he has been imprisoned for filming outside a court; and he was even told to stay clear of an entire city.

‘The entire establishment is against him.’

While Robinson has endured these and other challenges, he may ultimately go down for doxxing a pair of journalists who doxxed his family.

Tit for tat

In August 2024, the Daily Mail published reports about Robinson’s family trip to a resort on the outskirts of Ayia Napa, Cyprus.

Robinson was on the publication’s radar because of his commentary about the July 29, 2024, butchery of three little girls and attempted murder of 10 others at a dance studio by the teenage son of Rwandan migrants.

In addition to sharing pictures of where Robinson was with his daughter and other family members, the Mail provided sufficient information to identify the location — including the general location of the resort, how many stars the resort had, as well as the name of a restaurant on the premises.

RELATED: UK admits rape almost guaranteed among inbound asylum-seekers — then cops lock down town to allow another shipload

Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu/Getty Images

Following the Mail’s Aug. 4 report, Robinson tweeted, “My kids are crying, we come here so I could spend some quality time with them. Now they are scared people are coming here to get them. The daily Mail have purposely doxxed the exact location of my family. How can they be allowed to do this.”

Robinson — who allegedly received threats after the Mail’s reporting — retaliated by sharing images and information about freelance reporter Andrew Young and Daily Mail editor Jacob Dirnhuber.

In an Aug. 6, 2024, post featuring an apparent image of Dirnhuber, Robinson wrote, “This is Jacob, he likes to locate & endanger families. Jacob & the rest of the daily mail journalists who were involved in endangering my children have today been located. I look forward to hearing on camera your justification for doxxing my children’s location.”

While content to share images of Young and Dirnhuber, Robinson underscored at the time that he would not “show their families pictures or put out their address.”

Police confirmed that while cropped photos shared online by Robinson showed members of one journalist’s family, their faces were not visible.

Prosecuted

Robinson, 43, was convicted on Wednesday of two counts of harassment causing violence.

The anti-extremism activist whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon “weaponised social media and subjected two journalists to a campaign of harassment, which caused them serious fear of violence,” said Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division.

Ferguson said that evidence presented at trial “showed that he targeted the victims directly and indirectly through social media and by telephone. He also published images relating not only to them, but also their families.”

“There are legitimate and established routes that can be pursued by people who have concerns or complaints about their treatment by the media,” a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Wednesday. “In this case, Lennon chose not to follow any of these and, instead, issued various threatening online posts in the knowledge that they would almost certainly lead to his followers to target and intimidate those journalists.”

Robinson faces up to a decade in prison and will be sentenced on Dec. 16.

Robinson noted on X that he will “walk out of prison with my pride, dignity & morals,” adding that he is still glad that he “never revealed any of the innocent people’s images or addresses.”

He also called the “whole f**king thing insane” and the Daily Mail “f**king wankers.”

A spokesman for the Daily Mail welcomed the conviction and stated, “Yaxley-Lennon’s behaviour was reprehensible and had grave consequences for our reporters and their families.”

“Through his actions, Yaxley-Lennon sought to undermine our right to hold him to account,” continued the spokesman. “We stand by our journalists and their freedom to report legitimately in the public interest.”

Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain, said of the conviction, “It is my view that the system has, again, treated him unfairly. We live in dark times.”

Lowe further expressed his conviction that “the entire establishment is against him.”

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​Tommy robinson, Daily mail, Restore britain, Rupert lowe, Politics 

Much like the government, school boards can bury a lot in thousands of pages of agendas and budget documents — but artificial intelligence is changing that.

Moms for Liberty co-founder and CEO Tina Descovich introduces AWARE, a new AI-powered platform designed to stop schools from making changes that could not only harm their children, but their families.

“So you’re a parent. What if every time, you know, your school board tried to sneak in a gender policy or a DEI crap in their agenda because that’s what they do. They dump it in, they do it quickly, and then they bury it, and you don’t know about it,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn explains.

“What would happen if every time they tried to do that,” he continues, “your phone pinged and alerted you?”

And that’s exactly what Descovich has created.

“We have harnessed the power of AI to solve a problem,” Descovich tells Glenn, adding, “We have leveled the playing field.”

“For decades, the radical left educational institutions have really had the advantage. We launched five years ago, and I feel like we’ve been running like crazy to catch up to all the money and all the power and all the information that they have. We’ve been playing whack-a-mole all over the country,” she explains.

“And now, through M4L AWARE, we have a dashboard right here at our national headquarters where we can see everything. We can see the trends, we can see what’s going on, and we’ve built the infrastructure over the last five years to be able to deliver this locally to what’s happening at your most local district,” she continues.

Descovich tells Glenn that through this program, they’ve found “things as interesting and peculiar as a school district deciding the night before they’re going to have a school board meeting at 6:00 a.m. the next morning.”

“Our system, AWARE, scrapes the systems every 12 hours, all the school boards across the country, and it delivers it to our inbox. It’s incredible because it ranks them too,” she adds.

The system is only two weeks old, but they’ve already found “a million dollars buried in a $40 million budget for putting telehealth services in all the schools in a school district.”

“Schools are becoming almost mental health centers, you know this, with social emotional learning. They’re putting therapists in schools and then billing the parents’ insurance. Kids have access to mental health services at schools without parental permission,” she explains.

“That is a gross violation of parental rights,” she says, noting that telehealth is even being put in elementary schools.

“That means your child can get on a phone at the school and talk to a therapist without the parent ever knowing what type of therapist, what the therapist is discussing with them,” she continues.

“It’s mind-blowing,” she adds.

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​Artificial intelligence, Moms for liberty, Tina descovich, Parental rights, Telehealth, Public schools, Blazetv show 

Neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, won a majority in Israel’s election Tuesday.

As of Thursday morning, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, alongside its religious and nationalist allies, are projected to secure 53 seats. Former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar, alongside its anti-Netanyahu allies, won 48 seats.

‘If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so.’

With 61 seats needed to govern, neither leader can govern without convincing smaller parties to defect. Both blocs have sworn off cooperation with the Arab-led Ra’am and Joint List, which nabbed 19 seats total.

Arab turnout hit roughly 80%, about 25% higher than 2022, according to Israeli business publication Globes.

Netanyahu released a statement Wednesday accusing the Arab parties of voter fraud.

“The elections in the State of Israel were stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state through serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries, and the use of prohibited software to mobilize voters,” Netanyahu said.

Overall turnout reached a 27-year high of 77.7% as of Thursday, according to the Central Elections Committee.

“There hasn’t been such a nationwide voter turnout since 1973,” committee Director-General Dean Livne said, according to the Times of Israel.

Though active-duty soldiers’ and diplomats’ ballots are still being counted, it is unlikely that the few remaining ballots will move the needle.

RELATED: Feds arrest 6 alleged fraudsters in Maine health care scandal

JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Anyone hoping to replace Netanyahu “will, in fact, need to turn to us,” Arab Joint List Chairman Yousef Jabareen told Israeli radio Oct. 13. His conditions include a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines, JNS reported.

“An Eisenkot government is a government that is controlled in fact by Abbas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” one Likud ad warned, according to JNS.

Netanyahu posted advertisements on election day warning that Arab and Muslim turnout could drown the right-wing vote.

Though Israel is the subject of frequent global interest, especially with regard to the Gaza war and associated campaigns, these are not political fault lines in the country itself. Most major parties oppose a Palestinian state and believe the anti-terrorism campaign should continue.

Other controversial subjects dominated campaign season in the Jewish state. Whether the military draft exemption should be continued for the Haredi, also known as Ultra-Orthodox, is a major question on the ballot this election.

More than anything, the election is seen by many Israelis as a referendum on Netanyahu himself, who has served as prime minister on and off for nearly two decades.

President Donald Trump gave Netanyahu his full endorsement leading up to Election Day.

Trump called Netanyahu a “Great Warrior Prime Minister” on Truth Social Oct. 18 and tied future American action against Iran to his re-election.

“If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” Trump wrote.

RELATED: Flávio Bolsonaro arrives in Miami amid fears of political persecution, declares victory in presidential election

DAN BALILTY/AFP/Getty Images

Trump promoted Netanyahu again just a week later and two days prior to polls opening.

“Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister, we have to finish the job that we started!” Trump posted Sunday. Netanyahu personally requested the second endorsement, Axios reported.

Netanyahu pushed for a joint strike on Iran before the vote, but Trump “did not give a green light,” CNN reported, citing U.S. and Israeli sources. The prime minister’s office called the report “fake news.”

Ultimately, Israeli President Isaac Herzog is responsible for selecting a prime minister.

Once results are certified Tuesday, Herzog will choose the candidate he believes has the best chance of forming a government. The Herzog-tapped politico then has 28 days, plus a possible 14-day extension, to form a ruling coalition. If no coalition is formed, Israelis will return to the polls with Netanyahu presiding over a caretaker government.

“I don’t think the president of the United States or anybody else can intervene in my discretion,” Herzog told MS NOW when asked about Trump’s endorsement..

Netanyahu remains on trial on corruption charges. Herzog “would not currently grant” his pardon request and offered to mediate plea talks instead, the Times of Israel reported in May.

Netanyahu, after 16 years in office, has a contingent of die-hard supporters.

“There’s no one who can replace Bibi,” said Zohar Hindi, a voter near Maale Levona, according to the Times of Israel.

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​Benjamin netanyahu, Donald trump, Election, Politics, Prime minister, Voter fraud