As the push for dominance in space between China and the United States heats up, so does an outer space arms race.

However, we didn’t know what specifically was happening until now.

‘There have been many who are developing capabilities to take those away from us.’

Although President Donald Trump recently revealed some controversial uniforms as part of the new Space Force look, it turns out there may have been a lot more going on with the space agency than was realized.

In what may be a shocking revelation, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink made remarks on Monday that were characterized as a warning to China and Russia about American capabilities in space.

“Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist,” Meink said at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

According to ABC News, Meink then dropped a figurative bomb and revealed that the United States has weapons in space.

“This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”

In video from the conference posted by CNN, Meink further revealed that America’s adversaries are already making attempts to knock those weapons out of orbit.

“There have been many who are developing capabilities to take those away from us, to threaten those things,” the secretary stated.

“So it is critically important that we maintain our dominance not only in the air but in space. And so we’ve had to take steps to make sure that when we’re threatened, we can take care of that.”

RELATED: Sam Bankman-Fried’s ex finally got a new job — suspiciously like the old one

China has been making significant strides in its space program for the better part of the last decade, starting with alleged plans to destroy Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites.

China’s Chang’e rockets have made consistent attempts to establish what have been referred to as “exclusion zones” on the moon, where they are hoping to harvest lunar minerals and discover the existence of water ice.

While at one point in 2026, it looked like China had gained a strategic edge over the United States, NASA, and its Artemis programs, a surprising setback in August pushed the Red Giant’s immediate plans back to at least 2027.

The recent Chang’e-7 mission, which was delayed, was seen as a critical step toward getting more Chinese robots (rovers) on the moon, with a hope of humans and military equipment in years to come.

Chang’e-8, another probing mission, was set for 2029, while China’s boots-on-the-ground mission was set for 2030.

RELATED: America’s adversaries are using top American tech — without telling their customers

Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Secretary Meink offered more details in remarks to ABC News, saying U.S. capabilities “can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes at the direction of combatant commands.”

“The U.S. has warned about Russian and Chinese weapons testing and operationalization since 2007. Due to their actions, it is no longer a question that space is a warfighting domain,” the secretary added. “Open communication strengthens deterrence, prevents adversary miscalculation, and normalizes space operations alongside the other services.”

Clive Neil, professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth sciences at Notre Dame, recently told Blaze News that a “space race” isn’t good for the overall goal of space exploration.

“History shows us that international competition in human space exploration does not produce an enduring human space program, as Apollo was canceled less than four years after Apollo 11 ‘won’ that race,” the professor explained. “However, with [the International Space Station] we have had a continuous human presence in [low Earth orbit] for 25+ years through international cooperation.”

“I don’t like races, and we need to learn from history. Otherwise we are destined to repeat it!” Neil concluded.

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​China, Nasa, Space force, United states, Tech, Space race 

I went to my first “listening party” at a new venue in downtown Portland, Oregon, called Mono Space. I guess it’s a venue. I’m a little unsure what to call it. Here’s what it calls itself:

Mono Space is a high-fidelity listening gallery dedicated to the preservation of music culture and the presentation of music recordings as works of art. Located in a renovated warehouse in Portland’s historic Pearl District, this nonprofit venue creates a setting for attentive listening and cultural exchange.

It was all very civilized. And calm. And harmonious. Maybe as a reaction to the rest of Portland.

The location is basically one big room. Along one wall are oversized, high-fidelity audio speakers. Next to that is a table with state-of-the-art turntables, tube amplifiers, and similar gear.

It only plays vinyl records, not MP3s, which I’m assuming is the purist approach at this high level of sound quality.

As its website says:

Mono Space recognizes that music is a crucial connective tissue within the human experience. Individuals use it to align their bodies, hearts, and minds, and shape their personal well-being. Communities wield it as a sonic code to define who they are and what they believe, manifesting a shared history and purpose.

Blake Nelson

Audio bliss

So that’s the setup: giant speakers face the rest of the room, which looks vaguely like a yoga studio or meditation space.

The area directly in front of the speakers features comfy carpet slabs and various pillows and cushions where you can lie down. The next row has a dozen cushy bean-bag chairs.

You come in, take off your shoes, get comfortable, and relax. Then you close your eyes and listen to music in a meditative, deep state of perfect audio bliss.

The event I went to was an “album listen” of the latest release by Blood Orange, a critically acclaimed black jazz/pop/hip-hop artist. It cost $23.

Since Mono Space is a “nonprofit venue” dedicated to “cultural exchange,” I wondered if it might be populated by nose-ringed, leftist, activist types. But it was more sophisticated than that.

Everyone in attendance was stylishly dressed, neat, and well-groomed. It was mostly young people, scattered in age from early 20s to late 30s. The audience was somewhat multiracial (by Portland standards), as were the people working there.

RELATED: ‘The Perfume Nationalist’ reclaims culture for conservatives — one fragrance at a time

Jack Mason/Skyhorse Publishing

Needle drop

It was all very civilized. And calm. And harmonious. Maybe as a reaction to the rest of Portland, which remains full of homeless people, the mentally ill, drug addicts, arsonists, etc.

It didn’t take long to get through the jazz/hip-hop album. About an hour, I think.

When the lights came on, everybody seemed happy with their listening experience. People were eager to hang out and chat. It was a lively scene.

While people socialized, I checked out some of the museum-style art books and merchandise for sale near the entrance. These books mostly featured African-American and other multicultural artists.

I noticed pretty much everything about Mono Space was multicultural. That seemed to be the point. And as we all know, “multiculturalism” often stands in opposition to “whiteness.”

Beat happening

This can be a sensitive subject in Portland, which is frequently accused of being “too white” and therefore “racist.”

But are Portlanders actually racist? Our far-left city politicians keep telling us we are. According to them, we’re so racist they need to raise our taxes!

Fortunately, that wasn’t the vibe at Mono Space. On this night, it really was just about the music. Which was a relief. It was fun to be around young music fans and audio-geeks comparing notes in real life. Could this be a glimpse into the future? I hope so.

​Anti-white, Cultural diversity, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music, Portland oregon, Vinyl records, Whiteness, Blake’s progress 

AI is going to kill us all, according to at least two former and current Anthropic employees who took to X to warn of humanity’s demise. To assuage those manufactured concerns, Anthropic is now enlisting the “help” of an independent watchdog group to keep its AI bots in line. Unfortunately, the new group isn’t all that independent, and its values could spell trouble for the rest of us.

In a blog post titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” CEO Dario Amodei called for the need to slow the rate of AI development because if “left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems.”

METR is not as independent as advertised, and its globalist roots don’t have your interests or values in mind.

So far, Anthropic has shown no actual signs of slowing down, but the company enlisted the help of an independent group to make sure Anthropic’s bots don’t spiral out of control and bring about the destruction of mankind. Supposedly.

Last week, the AI giant announced an eight-week partnership with Model Evaluation and Threat Research to independently investigate four incidents in which Anthropic models hacked into third-party systems. Although the initial partnership is finite, Anthropic left the door open for the groups to continue to work together for “as much time as it deems necessary.”

RELATED: America’s adversaries are using top American tech — without telling their customers

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Here’s where things get dicey. Although METR is positioned as an unbiased third-party auditor meant to hold Anthropic accountable, METR’s origins and connections to effective altruism — a cultish movement that prioritizes the “global good” over individual people and communities — are enough to raise eyebrows.

According to the New York Post:

METR is a spin-off of Alignment Research Center, which was led by Amodei’s former housemate and coworker at OpenAI, Paul Christiano.METR CEO Beth Barnes held close ties to the effective altruism movement during her college years.METR’s chief scientist and several staff members came from the University of Oxford, an alleged hub for effective altruistic ideals.

Together, these attributes create opportunities for evaluation bias, moral dilemmas, fraud, and corruption. Yet despite METR’s ties to effective altruism, Amodei appointed the group to evaluate Anthropic’s models anyway, calling into question his own beliefs and motives.

The choice is even more dubious when you note that Amodei’s sister, Daniela Amodei, married Holden Karnofsky, a current Anthropic staffer and the founder of GiveWell and Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy) — two effective altruism organizations.

There appears to be an irrefutable thread linking Anthropic to the globalist movement. As to how that will impact the company’s models going forward, your guess is as good as any. One thing is certain, though: METR is not as independent as advertised, and its globalist roots don’t have your interests or values in mind.

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​Ai, Anthropic, Corruption, Destruction, Effective altruism, Humanity, Independent, Tech, Artificial intelligence 

“I might be the first speaker at a National Leadership Seminar not to go to college,” Charlie Kirk joked during a speech at Hillsdale College in February 2025.

Then he added: “I’m on pace to complete every single Hillsdale online course, so I think I’m making up for it.”

“So you’re going to fix the world, and you don’t know much about it,” Arnn told him. Instead of taking offense, Kirk got to work.

Unconventional path

Kirk’s route to national prominence was as unconventional as his education. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, he briefly attended Harper College before leaving to pursue political activism full-time. At 18, he founded Turning Point USA, which grew from a fledgling campus organization into a national conservative youth movement. Over the next 13 years, Kirk became a prominent author, broadcaster, campus debater, and ally of President Trump — all without earning a college degree.

To mark the first anniversary of Kirk’s death, Hillsdale has assembled 28 of the online courses in which he enrolled into a “Charlie Kirk online course path.”

Hillsdale is a small, independent Christian liberal arts college in Southern Michigan with an outsized influence on conservative intellectual life. Founded in 1844, the school refuses federal and state funding — including grants and loans accepted on behalf of students — in order to preserve its independence.

It has also made much of its classical liberal arts curriculum available online for free, drawing more than 5 million course enrollments.

From Aristotle to American history

The courses in Hillsdale’s new Kirk path were already free and open to the public. What the college has provided is a map through its extensive catalog: a self-directed liberal arts education spanning American history, constitutional government, economics, philosophy, theology, literature, mathematics, and statesmanship.

Kirk studied Aristotle’s “Ethics,” Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” C.S. Lewis, the book of Genesis, the Federalist Papers, the Roman Republic, Winston Churchill, and the history of Western theology. His political courses ranged from “Civil Rights in American History” and “The U.S. Supreme Court” to “The American Left: From Liberalism to Despotism.”

The breadth of the list offers a glimpse of the work behind the public figure.

Kirk said in his February speech that he had completed more than 30 Hillsdale courses and intended to take them all — “yes, even the Euclidean geometry one.”

He reserved particular praise for “Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitiution,” which he argued should be required for every police officer, firefighter, and member of the military who takes an oath to defend the Constitution.

“As you take these courses, you realize how little our own elected leaders know about the country that they’re supposed to be protecting and defending,” Kirk said.

RELATED: Remembering Charlie Kirk, one year later

Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images

Formative years

The remainder of his speech demonstrated how directly he applied that education to politics. Drawing on Hillsdale’s teaching about Woodrow Wilson and the rise of the administrative state, Kirk framed the opening weeks of Trump’s second term as a confrontation over the constitutional authority of the executive branch.

Appearing on “The Charlie Kirk Show” last week, Hillsdale President Larry Arnn recalled meeting Kirk12 years earlier, when the young activist was just 19. Arnn responded to Kirk’s ambitions by asking him a series of questions he could not answer.

“So you’re going to fix the world, and you don’t know much about it,” Arnn told him.

Instead of taking offense, Kirk got to work.

A month after their first meeting, Arnn received a text containing a photograph of a Hillsdale online course certificate. It was from Kirk.

“I knew him for 12 years. He grew so much,” Arnn recently said. After hearing Kirk deliver a Hillsdale speech several months before his death, Arnn approached him with a new assessment: “Okay, boy, you have learned a lot.”

Lifelong student

That willingness to be corrected was central to Arnn’s memory of his friend.

“I beat him up, and his reaction to that was exactly right,” Arnn said. “He was a student, right? He wanted to know.”

Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, described the effect of that education during Hillsdale’s commencement ceremony in May. She said the college helped her husband look beyond daily political commentary toward larger questions of what is good, true, and beautiful.

“He really understood that this institution wasn’t normal,” she said. “It was something that elevated his thinking to be a thought leader and really become a serious person.”

At Kirk’s memorial service last September, Arnn placed him among the finest young people he had encountered during his career in education.

“Charlie is the only one who was never a full-time student at Hillsdale College who was on that list,” he said. “We will miss him dearly. He can’t be replaced.”

Hillsdale’s new course path offers a fitting memorial to the man Arnn called the college’s “best unofficial student of all time.”

Kirk was not content simply to lecture young people or ask them to take his word for anything. His signature campus events were invitations to challenge him: “Prove me wrong.” Hillsdale is honoring him in the same spirit — not by handing his admirers a set of conclusions, but by giving them access to the books, arguments, and teachers that helped him reach his own.

​American history, Charlie kirk, Erika kirk, Federalist papers, President trump, Theology, Turning point usa, Winston churchill, Cs lewis, Education, College, Hillsdale college, Larry arnn, Lifestyle, Remembering charlie kirk 

A New Jersey woman is now facing federal criminal charges after she allegedly attempted to hire a hitman from Tinder to kill her former boyfriend — a Philadelphia police officer — and his daughter.

As Blaze News previously reported, 28-year-old Jaclyn Diiorio was arrested in April 2025. At the time, she was charged with two counts of first-degree attempted murder, one count of first-degree conspiracy to commit murder, and one count of third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance.

‘We haven’t seen this in decades.’

Camden County dropped its case against Diiorio after she was hit with federal charges related to the accusations, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced last week that Diiorio was arrested again and was charged by indictment with two federal counts of using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.

If convicted, Diiorio faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

The federal indictment, filed Sept. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, accused Diiorio of using a cell phone to facilitate an interstate plan to kill two individuals.

The indictment said Diiorio, of Runnemede, started committing the alleged crimes around March 30, 2025.

WCAU-TV obtained the Camden County criminal complaint and affidavit of probable cause in April 2025, which said Diiorio met a man on the Tinder dating app.

Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay said during a press conference that the informant and Diiorio connected on Tinder with the intention of dating.

The pair exchanged several phone calls and text messages, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

The two first met at a Wawa convenience store in Runnemede on March 31, 2025.

The informant told detectives on April 4, 2025, that Diiorio was “adamant” about killing her ex-boyfriend.

RELATED: Ex-teacher who dodged conviction for allegedly asking teen lover to kill husband learns fate for sexually assaulting student

The informant told detectives that Diiorio offered him $12,000 to murder her former boyfriend and his 19-year-old daughter.

Diiorio said she would pay the hitman $500 up front and the remaining balance split into installments.

Detectives determined that Diiorio’s ex-boyfriend was a 53-year-old officer with the Philadelphia Police Department.

Investigators said they interviewed the ex-boyfriend on April 4, 2025, and he confirmed that he had dated Diiorio after meeting her when she was his hairstylist.

The officer told detectives that he broke up with Diiorio on March 6, 2025, according to the affidavit.

The probable cause statement said the former boyfriend told investigators that Diiorio had filed a temporary restraining order against him in the summer of 2024, but it was later dropped.

The informant told investigators that he agreed to meet Diiorio on the evening of April 4, 2025, at the Dollar General in Glendora, where she would give him the down payment for the murders.

According to the probable cause statement, the informant entered Diiorio’s white Honda Civic in a Dollar General parking lot around 6:45 p.m. on April 4, 2025.

Once inside the vehicle, Diiorio demanded to see the informant’s driver’s license and then gave him $500, the affidavit said.

Officers with the Gloucester Township Police Department then arrested Diiorio, according to investigators.

Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay at the time said murder-for-hire plots are “not common at all. … In Camden County, we haven’t seen this in decades.”

WCAU reported that investigators said Diiorio had a bottle of alprazolam pills on her with the label ripped off. Alprazolam often is prescribed for panic attacks and anxiety.

Diiorio previously attempted to have the ex-boyfriend and his daughter killed, according to prosecutors.

The Inquirer reported that prosecutors claimed Diiorio told the informant she previously had been misled by others who had given her “fake pictures” of a supposed completed contract killing.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, with assistance from the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Unit, Gloucester Township Police Department, and the U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force – Camden Division, investigated the case.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Kwambina Coker and Joshua Myers.

The Inquirer reported that Diiorio’s defense attorney, Robert Gamburg, said his client planned to plead not guilty to the charges.

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​Murder for hire plot, Tinder, New jersey, Arrest, Federal charges, Crime 

The Trump administration has gotten the last laugh against an illegal alien gangster who infamously refused to hold his tongue when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Just two days after President Donald Trump retook office in January 2025, Boston ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations picked up Wisteguens Jean Quely Charles, a native Haitian and convicted criminal who was then 25 years old.

‘He went viral for praising Biden as he was getting arrested, because he knew that the Biden administration’s open borders turned America into a paradise for criminals like him.’

During his arrest, a defiant Charles cursed Trump and insisted he was “not going back to Haiti.”

“F**k Trump! You feel me?” he continued. “Yo, Biden forever, bro. Thank Obama for everything that he did for me, bro.”

Despite the verbal bluster, the case for deporting Charles was strong. For one thing, he is a career criminal, with convictions for assault and battery on a public employee, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, various drug and weapons offenses, resisting arrest, and even trespassing.

Moreover, Charles is a known member of the Back Block Money Gang, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

RELATED: DHS secretary: Ilhan Omar married her brother, and consequences are coming

Screenshot of DHS press release

Charles was granted Temporary Protected Status by President Barack Obama in February 2013, and he was admitted into the U.S. a few months later, the DHS said. His TPS status was then terminated in 2022, under President Joe Biden, and a federal judge issued a final deportation order for him last November.

On Thursday, that order was carried out, and Charles was deported back to Haiti.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said of Charles:

This illegal alien gang member from Haiti had quite the rap sheet, with convictions for assault and battery on a public employee, resisting arrest, and drug trafficking, among other heinous crimes.

He went viral for praising Biden as he was getting arrested, because he knew that the Biden administration’s open borders turned America into a paradise for criminals like him. The Trump administration has finally done what both the Obama and Biden administrations failed to do and deported this criminal back where he belongs.

The White House took a victory lap on Tuesday, sharing a video of Charles with the caption “Home sweet Haiti” and two waving emojis. The voice of a real or virtual female flight attendant concludes the video saying, “You have arrived at your destination.”

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​Department of homeland security, Immigration and customs enforcement, Trump administration, Temporary protected status, Haiti, Politics 

Demographics in Texas are changing, but apparently Texans aren’t allowed to notice.

“Many people, not just myself, have seen the rapid and dramatic shift in our communities with, you know, people who by and large when you live here, you’re allowed to look around you, because you have eyeballs, and you notice things,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“And so Bo French, who is my friend and also the Republican nominee for railroad commissioner here in Texas, noticed something,” she adds.

French had pulled a still from a University of Texas at Austin football game, where the crowd in one section was made up entirely of Indians wearing UT football jerseys.

“I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” French wrote in a post on X.

“It’s an observation that he made. An observation that I think I will be able to prove to you is not racist, but just true. But be that as I may, you’re not allowed to say things like this according to the libs and the RINOs who I actually would just categorize as all one,” Gonzales says.

“You’re not allowed to have eyeballs. You’re not allowed to look at the community, at the demographics around you changing, you’re not allowed to, I don’t know, want Texas to just look like Texas,” she continues.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) responded to French’s post, writing, “This is the Republican nominee for statewide office. Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized. This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad.”

“Get out of here, John,” Gonzales says.

But it gets worse.

Texas Senate Democrat candidate James Talarico then chimed in, reposting Cornyn’s tweet and writing, “Thank you @JohnCornyn for your leadership. Racism has no place in Texas. @KenPaxtonTX: will you condemn this blatant racism or will you cower to extremists?”

Paxton responded, “I condemn racism in all its forms, including James Talarico saying white men are America’s top terror threat and that he prays to overcome his own ‘whiteness,’ whatever that means. Only one person in this race has a history of dividing Texans by race, and it’s James Talarico. I will continue to focus on uniting our State and bringing together the broadest possible coalition to fight for Texas, our values, and our families.”

“Truly,” Gonzales comments, “a mic-drop moment from my friend Ken Paxton.”

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​James talarico, John cornyn, Sara gonzales, Ken paxton, University of texas, Football, Indians, Texas, Bo french, Racism, Blazetv show