An elderly male was caught on a viral video slapping the face of a much younger Turning Point worker at a New Hampshire polling site on Election Day.

The Laconia Police Department said in a Wednesday news release that it was called just after 2:40 p.m. Tuesday to Woodland Heights Elementary School, the Ward 5 polling location, for a reported assault.

‘You sit there and dare to look me in the face and say I don’t know anything!’

Upon arrival, police said the victim indicated he was at the Turning Point USA informational booth — which was located outside — when a male approached him to read a poem about rich people.

The victim stated that he and the male engaged in a debate, but as the conversation continued, the male suspect became more agitated, police said.

The victim told police the male became very aggressive, raising his voice and yelling at the victim before striking the victim with the back of his right hand across the right side of the victim’s face.

RELATED: ‘F**king rabid’ leftist female physically attacks conservative Jewish influencer during free-speech event at U. of Michigan: Video

The above news video shows a redacted version of the incident, but you can view the raw clip here, which has been viewed 2 million times.

“You have no idea who I am, so how dare you say I don’t know much?” the elderly male hollers at the younger conservative worker, according to the video.

“You haven’t presented a single statistic,” the worker quietly replies before the elderly male shoots back, “Neither have you! Goddamn! I cannot believe that bulls**t! You sit there and dare to look me in the face and say I don’t know anything!”

With that, the elderly male gets closer to the conservative worker, appears to raise his middle finger just inches from the worker’s face, says, “That’s what I know,” and slaps the worker’s face with the back of his hand — as an audible thud can be heard. He then concludes with a hearty “F**k you!”

The victim doesn’t utter a word or place his hands on his assailant in response.

Others nearby can be heard protesting the physical attack as the elderly male quickly walks away and drops several more F-bombs.

Police said they located video evidence as well as several witnesses — and the male suspect was identified as Stephen Redic, 70, of Laconia.

Police said an arrest warrant was generated, and the suspect was arrested at 7:42 a.m. Wednesday.

Police said Redic was charged with one count of simple assault, a class A misdemeanor, and one count of disorderly conduct.

Police said Redic will be arraigned at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 10 in Laconia.

Redic told WMUR-TV the video tells only part of the story, but he added to the station that his actions were inexcusable and that he apologizes.

Laconia Police told WMUR they have never dealt with Redic before.

“I think, certainly, there are two different sides to this,” Laconia Police Chief Matt Canfield noted to the station. “I think that this gentleman was very heated and very opinionated in his viewpoint, which led to him becoming agitated, and it just built and built and built until he eventually assaulted him.”

Turning Point Action posted the raw video of the attack. The organization notes in its X bio that “we register voters, we recruit precinct leaders, and we chase ballots” — and that Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk founded the group.

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​Crime, New hampshire, Midterm elections, Arrest, Leftist violence, Turning point, Politics 

A man who identifies as a transgender woman flipped a seat in the Alabama state House to the Democratic column in the devastating midterm elections.

Allison Montgomery obtained 53.2% of the vote to unseat the Republican incumbent state Rep. Phillip Rigsby, who garnered 46.7% of the vote.

Montgomery’s victory came on the coattails of a monumental midterm collapse of the Republican Party.

The 32-year-old Episcopalian won the district despite it supporting Rigsby by 16 points in 2022.

Montgomery’s victory, along with one other victory, expanded Democratic representation in Alabama to 31 seats, but Republicans continue to have the upper hand with 74 seats.

“The culture war stuff is all to keep us from uniting and being stronger than the billionaires,” Montgomery said in a campaign video posted to social media.

“They are making sure we have less of a chance to stand up to businesses who want to abuse our state and exploit our workers,” he added. “I’m not gonna let that happen to Alabama. It stops with us, with my generation of legislators. That’s what I’m all about.”

Montgomery’s victory came on the coattails of a monumental midterm collapse of the Republican party.

RELATED: Sen. Tuberville gets mocked for warning about pilots with ‘deranged fetish’ — then he brings the receipts

Democrats were able to seize control of both chambers of Congress, presumably based on frustration and anger from voters about inflation and the state of the economy after the military operation in Iran.

President Donald Trump initially released a defiant statement but has since said that he’s willing to work with Democrats.

Montgomery meanwhile said after his victory that he would work “especially hard” for those with hatred for him.

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​Billionaires, Culture war, Midterm elections, Republican party, Transgender woman, Politics 

In case you missed the big announcement during our midterm election coverage, Jesse Kelly is joining BlazeTV!

Heard on more than 260 radio stations nationwide, Jesse Kelly has built an audience of millions with his signature mix of sharp wit, unapologetic commentary, and fearless opinions.

With millions of podcast downloads annually and a loyal national radio audience, Jesse has established himself as one of the most recognizable voices in conservative talk radio.

Now he is bringing that same energy to BlazeTV.

“The Jesse Kelly Show” will be available soon on BlazeTV, joining our lineup of independent voices committed to delivering the news, analysis, and commentary you won’t find in the mainstream media.

We’re thrilled to welcome Jesse to the BlazeTV family, and we can’t wait for you to watch.

Stay tuned for more details on when you can catch “The Jesse Kelly Show” on BlazeTV!

​Blazetv, Conservative radio, Jesse kelly, Mainstream media, News analysis, Radio stations 

A politician who lost his campaign for comptroller in Texas lambasted the Republican leadership in a fiery speech to his supporters on election night.

Don Huffines excoriated Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who both lost their re-election contests to Democrats.

‘They never cared about you. I served with them. They laugh and make fun of you.’

“It’s gonna be almost impossible to win this state back,” said Huffines in video posted to social media early Wednesday.

“I blame it on our leadership; I just do. I blame this on Greg Abbott. I blame it on Dan Patrick. I blame it on all the mushy middle people that want to think they’re in the middle. ‘We want to make everybody happy.’ Well, you sure did a good job of this mess!” he added.

Huffines said that Texans had gotten tired of Abbott and Patrick after they sought a fourth term in office.

“I hope they’re happy. Because now we’re all gonna suffer. I blame it all on our leadership,” he continued.

“People are tired of the Republicans being in office. They couldn’t campaign on a policy issue. If they campaigned on lowering your property tax, guess what: All that did was remind everybody why you didn’t do it 12 years ago,” Huffines said. “And that’s a fact!”

Then he got personal.

“They didn’t do it 12 years ago because they don’t care about you. They never cared about you. I served with them. They laugh and make fun of you and the grassroots. They never cared about our party platform! And they still don’t. They don’t care. They don’t care at all,” he said.

“I don’t know if they care they lost tonight. But I know there’s a lot of people that care. There’s a lot of great patriots. What are we gonna do?” Huffines asked rhetorically.

“Who are you gonna call?” he concluded. “There’s no one left.”

RELATED: Texas candidate says she will convert ICE center into camp to jail ‘American Zionists’

Texas Republicans lost the governorship, the lieutenant governor’s race, and one of the state’s seats in the U.S. Senate. The astounding losses helped propel Democrats to easily take over the U.S. House of Representatives as well as the Senate.

Huffines lost his campaign for comptroller to Sarah Eckhardt, who will become the first Democrat to win the comptroller’s office since the last millennium.

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​Election night, Greg abbott, Republican party, Texas, Politics 

Republican former Gov. Paul LePage has declared victory in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, though the race’s official winner has yet to be called.

LePage claimed victory over state auditor Matt Dunlap, who has been at the helm during a period of unprecedented home health care fraud tied to the Somali community. The former governor claimed victory at Sea Dog Brewing Company in Bangor on Wednesday afternoon.

‘I believe you follow the money, you recover the funds, and you prosecute the fraudsters.’

Dunlap has not conceded.

With 10% of the vote outstanding, it’s possible the outcome changes. However, given the projected margins, it appears unlikely that Dunlap can eke out a win.

Maine’s 2nd District covers most of Maine north of Augusta and went for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024.

LePage didn’t shy away from Trump on the campaign trail.

RELATED: Straight talk: JD Vance blames midterm loss on Iran conflict and US’ relationship with Israel

Carl D. Walsh/Portland Portland Press Herald/Getty Images

“I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular,” LePage said in 2016.

Both Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) campaigned for LePage as well.

LePage is confident that his unique personality and political pedigree have led him to victory in the Pine Tree State.

“The public numbers have us up about 4,000, and the team has been calling all the towns that haven’t come in yet, and there’s no path to victory for my opponent,” LePage said, according to the Maine Wire.

LePage honed in on his opponent’s entanglement in Maine’s migrant-driven fraud crisis.

“Matt Dunlap and his boss, [Gov.] Janet Mills, are purposefully not taking fraud seriously in the state of Maine,” LePage said in Lewiston on Oct. 27, according to WGME.

“I believe you follow the money, you recover the funds, and you prosecute the fraudsters,” LePage said.

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​Donald trump, Election results, Janet mills, Polarization, Vote counting, Politics, Maine 

One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over going into this midterm election was “composition” — whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.

So I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? “No,” he told me. “We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.”

Everyone knows why we lost, and any honest conversation about where we go from here needs to start there.

Well, that opinion looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was nine points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.

There will be a lot of arguing and finger-pointing over why that happened. A pollster I highly respect told me that our economic messaging down the stretch was not sharp enough to motivate voters. I’m sure that is true.

But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.

Another pollster — one of the smartest people I know in politics — told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this prediction. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses, were:

End the Iran war.Focus on the cost of living and inflation.Put America and Americans first.Change our relationship to Israel.

These four priorities are why many of our voters showed up to vote for Democrats yesterday, according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many people spent the day before the elections attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the Iran war, it turns out her political advice was perfectly sound. (She’s also a great person.)

RELATED: Trump’s 2024 coalition was a loan. The bill just came due.

Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Over the next few months, there is going to be a lot of gaslighting. You can expect to hear any number of establishment politicians claim the solution to our woes is amnesty for illegal immigrants. I’m open to the idea that we should change our approach to immigration enforcement — by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. For the record, anyone pushing amnesty as a solution to our electoral issues is lying to you.

The reason we lost the midterms is the Iran war. The president himself said so last night.

If you want to argue that it was worth it — that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it — then go right ahead. At least arguing that it was a worthwhile price to pay is honest. But everyone knows why we lost, and any honest conversation about where we go from here needs to start there.

I remain hopeful for our country. My message to the people who are angry and want to say “I told you so” is simple: You’re right. You did tell us so. Now take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview and priorities. To the people who are just angry at the results: You should be.

Let’s take this anger and use it to get back to the work of saving our country.

Editor’s note: A version of this article was originally posted on X.

​America first, Cost of living, Immigration enforcement, Iran war, Midterm election, Rachel campos duffy, Trump 2024, Voter turnout, Illegal immigrants, Amnesty, Gop, Affordability, Gas prices, Democrats, Midterms, Opinion & analysis 

Amid the Democratic slaughter of Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, there was good news for the GOP in Nebraska, as U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts defeated independent Dan Osborn, NBC News projected.

Osborn, a pipe fitter, faced a barrage of attacks calling him a secret Democrat, the news network reported, adding that Osborn said he wouldn’t caucus with either party if elected, but the Nebraska Democratic Party still backed him.

‘We don’t need a socialist ideology.’

“Democrat Dan is too extreme, and he would be the most extreme senator we’ve ever sent to the U.S. Senate from Nebraska,” Ricketts said at a September debate, according to NBC News. “And if he were in charge of the Senate and gave it to the Democrats, that would be a disaster for Nebraska.”

More from NBC News:

The sharp attacks underscored the tougher-than-expected nature of the race in a state Donald Trump won by 20 points in 2024. The same year, Ricketts won a special election to serve the final two years of GOP former Sen. Ben Sasse’s term by 25 percentage points. Osborn, however, lost by just 7 points in his first Senate bid, against Republican Sen. Deb Fischer two years ago.

Ricketts’ bid for a full Senate term became competitive amid Trump’s sinking approval ratings, with voters frustrated by high costs and the war with Iran. High diesel prices due to the war with Iran and Trump’s sweeping tariffs also hit farmers in heartland states, including Nebraska.

At a rally in Nebraska in early October, Trump signed an executive order expanding access to diesel used in farming, known as “red dye” diesel.

“Prices are all going down. Prices are all going way down, but they really are going to plummet as soon as that war ends,” Trump said at the rally, according to the news network. “It’s going to be very soon.”

“And today, I’m announcing another unprecedented step to bring down costs for many years. Farm vehicles, construction equipment, and other off-road vehicles have used what is known as ‘red dye’ diesel,” Trump said, NBC News reported. “Do you know what that is? I don’t know what the hell it is, but whatever it is, it’s supposed to be very good.”

The news network noted that Osborn — a Navy veteran and former union organizer — backed Trump’s move but called it a “Band-Aid.” NBC News also noted that while Osborn frequently emphasized Nebraskans’ economic struggles, he “rarely directly criticized Trump by name in a state with plenty of his supporters.”

Ricketts tried to remind voters that they elected him to statewide office three times.

While Ricketts was behind Osborn in the vote tally early Tuesday, the incumbent shot past Osborn later in the night.

RELATED: Democrat Kansas pastor — whom Trump reportedly called a ‘pervert’ — upsets Republican US Senate incumbent in historic win

Ricketts’ chances may never have been too much in doubt, as The Hill on Saturday reported that Ricketts led Osborn by six points in a New York Times/Siena University poll — 49% to 43% — among likely Nebraska voters.

The Associated Press‘ latest vote tally Wednesday showed Ricketts leading Osborn by nearly the same margin: 50.4% to 43.7% with 91% of the votes counted.

On Wednesday morning, Ricketts in his victory speech emphasized that “we don’t need a socialist ideology.”

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​Pete ricketts, Nebraska, Midterm elections, Republican, Politics, Senate 

In the continuous bid to create consciousness through artificial general intelligence, a new AI giant may have cracked the code on cloning human speaking patterns with precise accuracy. The only problem is that this linguistically adept bot is kind of dumb when you get it to open its mouth.

Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey took to X in late October to announce an impressive, yet baffling new AI platform called Dessa. Dessa is a voice AI chatbot that specializes in conversational interactions. In the demos, users speak to the bot like they’re having a conversation with a human, and the bot speaks back with a realistic human voice, complete with pauses, inflections, and other traits that are indistinguishable from the real thing.

Linguistically, it is impressive. Its vocal cadence and inflections are indistinguishable from real people. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem very intelligent.

Many other chatbots have voice modes, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. But so far, all of them are just robotic enough to tell them apart from a real human. Dessa changes that. It is a full-duplex speech-to-speech model that was trained exclusively on human speech samples.

Full-duplex speech is the kind of conversational interactions humans engage in every day. It means that Dessa can both listen in real time and respond in real time without pausing to process what was said. Interactions just feel natural — maybe too natural.

Block Inc., the company behind Dessa, claims that no text-based models were used at all to train the bot — only real voice samples. Ultimately, it learned how to talk like a human by listening to humans, and now it can reply in real time like a human, too.

In this video posted by Block Inc. to X, a real human speaks with Dessa about launching the speech model. In the example, the male human begins by asking Dessa — portrayed as a woman — how it’s doing. It responds that it is well, followed by a hesitant question about the upcoming winter weather. Dessa poses its question with natural hesitancy, as if it knows the male speaker doesn’t like winter. Its voice inflection even shifts with a nervous laugh thrown in for good measure as it dives into the touchy subject.

The near-three-minute clip continues as the two discuss Dessa’s upcoming launch. Throughout, Dessa responds with genuine excitement, natural pauses and stammers, and endearing laughs that make it all feel real. It can speak louder on request by coming closer to the faux microphone that it is talking into. At the end of the demo, Dessa was asked what it would ask itself to do in the future. Dessa suggested that it could be used for something simple like advertising, or something far more complex, like revealing the secrets of consciousness.

All in all, the short conversation sounds like something that could easily happen between two real people. Between a person and a bot, though, the tiny linguistic nuisances in Dessa’s speech patterns are impressive, albeit uncanny. If you close your eyes and listen, you might even forget that Dessa isn’t real.

In a second video posted by Block Inc., a real human girl plays a guessing game with Dessa, this time portrayed as a man. She asks it to guess a number of items she has assembled from around her home with minimal hints. Dessa gets lucky with the first item, guessing a toothbrush from her bathroom on the first round.

The interaction falls apart, though, when she tells Dessa that her next item — a pen — is one thing that people use to study. Dessa guesses a notebook and pen together — clearly two items instead of one, subtly breaking the rules of the game. When the human girl doesn’t tell Dessa that it guessed half correct, it guesses again, this time suggesting a flashlight, which doesn’t even make sense as a study tool. On the third guess, Dessa suggested a toothbrush again, deviating even further from something people would use to study.

After a correction from the human girl and a bit more guidance, Dessa muddles through several more guesses— a pencil and a book before finally landing correctly on a pen.

RELATED: AI is powerful. It is not wise.

Moor Studio/Getty Images

Based on the two videos alone, several things are clear about Dessa. Linguistically, it is impressive. Its vocal cadence and inflections are indistinguishable from real people. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem very intelligent. Some of its responses in the first video were vague and unorganized, forcing the male human to intentionally guide the conversation. As for the second video, Dessa simply failed to follow directions, and it misunderstood the purpose of some of the items it guessed during the game.

This is an early version, though, and Dessa is likely to get better over time. All Block Inc. needs is a smarter model to turn Dessa into a concerning piece of software. Imagine the chaos hackers, scammers, and faux influencers could cause by creating fake humans that sound real as they carry out phishing schemes to trick people out of their money.

In fact, I’m having a hard time understanding why Dessa should exist at all. As the female version said in the first video, maybe Dessa could be used by advertisers. Although AI giants recently retreated from replacing human workers with AI wholesale, Dessa could easily stand in as a fake social media influencer to push marketing campaigns online.

Dessa also thought that it could answer the question on whether consciousness can be programmed into a machine — an existential crisis that the pope already answered definitively for Anthropic. Since this is a question humans — or maybe even only God — can answer, whatever Dessa has to say here is moot.

Maybe Dessa could become a personal friend or a life companion where users waste their time telling all of their deepest secrets to a corporate robot instead of confiding in real people through real relationships. Certainly that won’t end in irreparable bouts of AI psychosis that warp users’ minds as it drags them into digital isolation.

In fact, none of the things Dessa can do today are particularly good for mental health, personal stability, or society at large. Yet Block Inc. and the other AI giants keep trying to make some kind of AI experience that enthralls people enough to finally generate some money — something that looks even less likely now that the AI bubble is primed to burst.

Dessa is not available to the public yet, and there is currently no release date set at this time.

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​Jack dorsey, Ai bubble, Artificial intelligence, Chatbot, Tech