A Democratic state representative who pleaded guilty last year to refusing a breathalyzer during a DUI arrest has crashed out once again, this time over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest of his “neighbor,” an illegal alien identified by authorities as a “known member of MS-13.”

Rhode Island state Rep. Enrique Sanchez (D) has even apparently threatened ICE for getting the dangerous foreigner off American streets.

‘State Rep. Enrique Sanchez should be thanking our law enforcement for removing dangerous criminals.’

Ivan Rene Mendoza Meza, a 28-year-old also known as “El Negro,” stole into the U.S. illegally at least twice. According to ICE, he is “a self-admitted member of MS-13 in Honduras and states he has committed crimes on behalf of the gang,” which is a designated foreign terrorist organization.

ICE Boston issued an immigration detainer for Mendoza following his August 2023 arrest for allegedly trafficking fentanyl, a substance that killed an estimated 38,084 Americans just last year.

Mendoza was accused of being one of the “key members” of a drug-trafficking organization and linked to a residence where five bags of fentanyl pills along with a digital scale and an anti-GPS tracking device were allegedly discovered during a raid.

The 6th District Court of Rhode Island disregarded the detainer and cut the gangster loose on bond.

He spent two years as a free man, but after a brief chase that prompted the involvement of Providence Police and the evacuation of a multi-unit home, the gangster was finally captured by ICE on July 13, 2025.

The MS-13 terrorist’s capture caused apoplexy among the usual suspects.

RELATED: ICE haters claim victory after ‘major bank’ shuts down deals with detention companies

Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu/Getty Images

The Rhode Island branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, for instance, condemned the presence of local police at the time of the gangster’s capture, calling for the termination of Providence Police Department Chief Oscar Perez, and demanding the removal of ICE from city streets.

State Rep. Enrique Sanchez, a self-identified socialist, also melted down, calling ICE “the Nazi Gestapo,” referring to the gangster as his “neighbor,” and characterizing their successful operation as an “act of terror.”

This week Sanchez — whose big mouth and radicalism previously got him in trouble during his time as a substitute Spanish teacher — suggested that he had mental problems and that ICE was the cause.

“Fighting and dealing with ICE since last year has f**ked me up in the head after trying to protect and defend hundreds and hundreds of our community members in Providence and across Rhode Island,” wrote the radical.

Sanchez then issued an apparent threat to ICE, stating, “Your day of reckoning will come motherf**kers. I swear to god.”

He shared a version of the same message on Instagram in a foreign tongue.

When asked for comment, ICE referred Blaze News to the Department of Homeland Security, which said of Sanchez’s remarks, “Because of smears and attacks like this, our ICE officers are now facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them as they put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists.”

The DHS noted that “instead of vilifying law enforcement, state Rep. Enrique Sanchez should be thanking our law enforcement for removing dangerous criminals,” then proceeded to list a number of criminal noncitizens whom ICE has captured, including Mariel Valdez Nunez, an illegal alien from the Dominican Republic convicted of human slavery; Phet Phommasinh, an illegal alien from Laos convicted of homicide, assault, and aggravated assault with a weapon; and Touthtou Sengsavang, an illegal alien from Laos convicted of failure to register as a sex offender, molestation of a minor, selling cocaine, and other crimes.

Sanchez, who has repeatedly vowed that ICE “will pay” for doing their jobs, responded, “Ok.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Department of homeland security, Ice, Ms-13, Rhode island, Us immigration and customs enforcement, Politics 

The atrocious assassination of Charlie Kirk last September has ignited numerous conspiracy theories, some of which involve the nation of Israel. Even though Charlie was publicly very pro-Israel for years, especially in light of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, rumors that the TPUSA founder was beginning to waver on his support for the Jewish nation have led some to speculate that Israel might have been involved in his murder.

So where did Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA really fall on the issue of Israel?

On a recent episode of “Rufo and Lomez,” co-host Jonathan Keeperman sat down with executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show” and TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet, who addressed this question.

“This issue [of Israel] was probably the most difficult for Charlie to navigate in life,” says Kolvet.

He explains that for Charlie, there was one “bright line” when it came to Israel: “Jew-hate has no place in the conservative movement,” and “the scapegoating of an entire people group” is an “ancient evil” that cannot be tolerated.

However, that doesn’t mean that he was ever part of the hard-line, activist “pro-Israel” crowd who demand unconditional, unquestioning support for every Israeli policy. That’s why Charlie was sometimes “accused of being an anti-Semite,” Kolvet explains.

He notes that the “driving force” of the Trump-era conservative movement — which Charlie heavily shaped — has always been “non-interventionalism.”

“Charlie was certainly a driver of that and certainly a proponent of that. He wanted the government to focus more on domestic issues, but he also wasn’t willing to go to that point and blame, you know, a small nation in the Middle East for all the world’s ills,” Kolvet tells Keeperman.

This balanced stance became harder to maintain after Hamas’ October 7 attacks. Many on the right who already held non-interventionist views saw the war in Gaza as validation of their skepticism toward Israel.

“This is an instance of where our preconceived bias, confirmation bias was played into by geopolitical events,” Kolvet says.

The intense fighting reinforced the idea that U.S. ties to Israel drag America into foreign conflicts, creating a “perceived reality” that has grown since October 7 and put pressure on Charlie’s middle position. “It’s a tricky issue,” Kolvet acknowledges, “but we have to be able to say a couple things very, very clearly, I think, on our side if we’re going to keep the coalition together.”

“One, we are America first. Our interests are more important than Israel’s interests. If you are an American, that has got to be a bright line in the sand,” he adds, acknowledging that there are legitimate questions about Israel spying on the U.S., the recurring “$4 billion” in annual U.S. aid to Israel, and the sharing of intelligence and technology with the Israeli military.

“I think those are all valid questions, because we have to be about our own business first and foremost. We have to be about our own priorities first and foremost,” he adds.

However, if American interests “align with Israel,” Kolvet sees that as a positive.

“I certainly don’t think we should be asking that same question when it comes to Hamas, for example, right? … There’s no moral equivalency between the two,” he says. “But we also have to just be really up front that we have domestic issues that we need to get done and we need to accomplish or we’re going to lose this country and the West will fall if America does not get this right.”

He laments the reality that the conservative base’s division over Israel has “poured into the story of Charlie.”

Ultimately, TPUSA stands for two basic principles, says Kolvet: “Reject Jew-hate,” but “be about our own business first” and then address “geopolitics and foreign policy.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Rufo & Lomez?

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

​Chris rufo, Jonathan keeperman, Andrew kolvet, Tpusa, America first agenda, Israel, Charlie kirk, Rufo & lomez, Blazetv show 

America’s AI debate is a hot mess. Policymakers, technologists, investors, and activists cannot agree on the destination, the strategy, the acceptable costs, or even what “winning” the artificial intelligence race means.

That confusion shuts ordinary Americans out of a debate that will shape their jobs, businesses, institutions, and way of life. Yet an America-first AI regime cannot be designed only by Washington policymakers, Silicon Valley moguls, or a priesthood of engineers. It must serve the people who build businesses, sign paychecks, raise families, and sustain the country.

America’s technological order should be built around productive citizens rather than a handful of companies pursuing a woo-woo race to turn the planet into a cyber-utopia.

My Independence Day forecast looks more accurate now than it did when I wrote it: No single political authority controls America’s technological future, and no shared moral authority guides it. We still have the Declaration, the Constitution, federalism, and one another. Almost everything else remains unsettled.

The Kimi shock

Since July 4, factional warfare among the AI elite has intensified after the release of Kimi, a Chinese open-source model that reportedly outperformed leading American closed-source systems on important benchmarks.

Kimi did not emerge from an isolated Chinese laboratory. Its engineers trained it by distilling capabilities from American proprietary models — the very systems OpenAI, Anthropic, and their allies argue must remain closed to preserve America’s lead.

The result presents a serious problem. America has poured immense financial, scientific, and political capital into closed frontier labs. If Chinese developers can cheaply reproduce much of their practical value, Washington faces a nightmarish choice: either cede global AI leadership and control to Beijing or allow the pursuit of AI dominance to transform our form of government into something we may not recognize as “American.”

America’s historic model combines private innovation, free markets, and strategic federal investment. That model has supported both prosperity and national power. But if massive collaboration between government and closed-source hyperscalers cannot sustain an AI edge, Americans deserve a debate about what comes next — not a panic-driven transfer of more power and money to the same institutions.

How can America face the future if its greatest strategic advantage has become a liability? Without public agreement on what should replace the old model — or even what kind of country a “refounded” United States should be — what can we do next?

RELATED: The question of the AI age: How much humanism is too much?

Moor Studio/iStock/Getty Images

Three rival factions

Right now, among the AI elite, three factions have emerged in response to this problem.

The first faction argues that Kimi changes less than it appears. Chinese engineers did not surpass American frontier models across the board; they optimized around the most expensive benchmarks and competed where open systems could win. Closed labs can adjust, Washington can revise its strategy, and American dominance can survive.

That may be partly right. Frontier labs still possess enormous resources, talent, and political support. They will not disappear simply because open models become more useful.

The second faction believes such economic and political concerns will soon become obsolete. Its members expect recursively self-improving artificial superintelligence to transform or absorb human civilization. Their task, as they see it, is to accelerate the transition and ensure that it occurs under acceptable management. If done right, we would enter a new age that would be pleasurable beyond comprehension.

The test of an America-first AI policy is whether advanced technology strengthens the constitutional nation and the people who give it life.

The left-coded version appears in Effective Altruism. The right-coded version insists that America, not China, must command the coming superintelligence. Both treat maximum acceleration as a moral imperative. From that perspective, open-source AI is dangerous because it disperses capability, slows the drive toward a single frontier breakthrough, and weakens the control of the institutions leading the race.

The third faction rejects the bargain behind closed-source supremacy. Its argument is that hyperscalers are frightening Americans into financing their rise as private governors of technological progress. The companies gain ungodly wealth and authority; Washington gains the hope of planetary AI dominance; citizens inherit the cost and the risk.

Kimi strengthens that argument because it competed by optimizing for what businesses actually need: efficient computing, useful workflows, enterprise deployment, and practical web applications. Open models can undercut closed systems precisely where American economic life is strongest — decentralized experimentation by workers, entrepreneurs, and firms.

This faction therefore urges America to embrace and encourage domestic open-source AI. The point is not that every model must be public or that frontier capabilities require no safeguards. It is that America’s technological order should be built around productive citizens rather than a handful of companies pursuing a woo-woo race to turn the planet into a cyber-utopia.

RELATED: America needs an artificial intelligence coalition, not an AI fortress

Burcu Demir/iStock/Getty Images

The real America-first path

Of the three positions, the third offers the clearest route to America-first AI because it begins with the right political subject: the American people. Technology should enlarge their capacity to create, compete, govern themselves, and live well. They should not be treated as raw material for a government-corporate project aimed at controlling the future.

The first faction is also correct that closed frontier labs will remain part of the system. Some Americans genuinely want to invest heavily in the most powerful possible models. The federal government also believes its military, financial, and geopolitical position may depend on sovereign access to frontier AI.

That belief creates the greatest danger.

Washington may conclude that preserving its global dominance requires technological control beyond civilian resistance. If officials decide they must choose between the survival of the federal regime and the survival of America’s constitutional order, “national security” will become the justification for hoarding data, compute, models, and authority on a scale the country has never seen.

China would then win without beating America at the frontier. By flooding the world with useful, inexpensive, business-friendly open models, Beijing could tempt Washington into becoming more centralized, secretive, and coercive — less recognizably American.

America should refuse that trap. It should protect genuinely dangerous capabilities, preserve a competitive frontier sector, and make room for open models that empower American businesses and citizens. The test of an America-first AI policy is not whether it produces the most powerful machine at any cost. The test is whether advanced technology strengthens the constitutional nation and the people who give it life.

If our AI strategy requires America to stop being America, China has already won.

​Artificial intelligence, Artificial superintelligence, Federal government, New age, National security, America first, Generative ai, China, Effective altruism, Open-source ai, Opinion & analysis, Tech 

Recess should be fun — unless a bully threatens to take your lunch money in exchange for “protection.”

When I became a teacher, I encountered the adult version of that schoolyard racket: the teachers’ union.

For educators tired of national union bullying, the answer is increasingly clear: Go local.

This is neither imaginary nor unusual. Teachers across the country face pressure from two dominant organizations, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.

Educators hand over hundreds of dollars in dues every year, only to watch the national unions spend their money on political causes and ideological campaigns that often have little to do with helping teachers in their classrooms.

Sometimes, the unions wander far beyond education altogether.

What happens when a teacher pushes back?

Kelley LaBedz, a client of the Center for Independent Employees, learned that questioning the union can invite retaliation. One California teacher wrote an entire book about the intimidation she faced from national teachers’ unions.

During my own teaching career, I endured several tense conversations with a union representative because I had not completed a membership form.

The message was obvious: Compliance was expected.

Why, then, do so many teachers remain members of the NEA and AFT?

Several reasons. The answer is not simple.

For more than half a century, teachers’ unions have taken credit for protecting health insurance, pensions, and other benefits. They offer liability coverage and representation in disputes with administrators. Many educators fear that their material security will disappear without union membership.

Many also do not know that alternatives exist.

The Supreme Court opened one escape route in 2018. In Janus v. AFSCME, the court held that compelling public employees to subsidize union speech raises serious First Amendment concerns.

Public school teachers may now opt out of paying dues or fees to the NEA and AFT. Thousands have done so.

At the Center for Independent Employees, however, we are pursuing another path: replacing national union affiliates with independent local unions.

Independent locals can serve teachers without sending money and authority to national organizations. They can negotiate pay, benefits, and working conditions while reflecting the values and priorities of the communities they represent.

They also give teachers the security they need without forcing them to support the NEA’s or AFT’s broader political agenda.

This model directly challenges the national unions’ fear-based strategy.

By going local, educators can eliminate layers of bureaucracy, reduce overhead, and keep dues close to home. They can also weaken the enormous political influence national unions wield in state capitals and Washington.

Independent locals often foster a more cooperative relationship with administrators and school boards. National organizations thrive on permanent conflict. Local associations have stronger incentives to solve problems inside the district.

The movement is growing.

RELATED: America’s classrooms are feeding the red wave — socialist red

Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu/Getty Images

In Kansas, teachers in 30 school districts have broken from the NEA through independent local unions. Educators in California, Ohio, and other states are exploring the same approach.

The NEA and AFT have shown little interest in changing course.

Their leaders continue accumulating political power even as teacher frustration rises and academic performance declines. They dismiss parents’ concerns while confidence in public education falls to all-time lows.

Organizations created to represent teachers have become increasingly detached from them.

The national unions are more consumed with ideology, institutional power, and political influence than with the day-to-day needs of educators. By claiming to speak for every teacher, they also damage the reputation of millions who do not share their agenda.

Teachers do not have to accept this arrangement.

They should not be forced to choose between professional representation and financial support for causes they oppose. They should not have to surrender local control to distant union executives. And they should not have to tolerate intimidation for asking where their dues go.

For educators tired of national union bullying, the answer is increasingly clear: Go local.

Teachers in Kansas and across the country are standing up for themselves, one district at a time.

​Teachers unions, Public schools, School lunch programs, Nea, Supreme court, Opinion & analysis 

I like to stay fit, which means I spend a fair share of my life dodging supplement ads that follow me across the internet like demented pigeons. Open YouTube and a square-jawed influencer explains why his morning requires 17 capsules, three powders, and something harvested from a mountain reachable only by yak.

Every week brings a new miracle molecule. Last week it sold longevity. This week, telepathy. Next week, immortality.

This is the tragic comedy of wellness culture. We obsess over optimization while ignoring the obvious.

Then there is the cult of optimization, embodied by Bryan Johnson, the man who turned his own body into the priciest science project in operation. Johnson’s regimen reportedly involves constant blood testing, endless biometric tracking, and enough pills to stock a pharmacy. He once had a liter of his teenage son’s plasma pumped into his veins and shipped his own down to his 70-year-old father. The biomarkers showed nothing, so he stopped.

Yet even Johnson recently revealed that he has autoimmune gastritis, a chronic disease in which, as he put it, “my stomach is eating itself.” After years of measuring almost everything measurable, biology still found a way to surprise him

Ordinary people may not have the means to go to the extremes Johnson does, but they have absorbed the same basic message: that health is something you buy rather than something you build.

Pill-pilled

You see it at any gym. A middle-aged accountant arrives with a supplement stack heavier than his dumbbells. A retiree keeps a cupboard that resembles a chemistry bench. Someone winded by a single staircase swallows enough capsules each morning to rattle when he walks.

Our ancestors built civilizations and survived brutal winters without starting each day on a fistful of tablets. Plenty of them died young, taken by infection or a tooth gone septic. But many of the chronic diseases now filling supplement advertisements were far less common than they are today. Their greatest threats came from outside the body. Ours are increasingly self-inflicted.

But some supplements still earn their place. A recent review of the evidence offers a useful reminder that health runs far simpler than the industry selling it wants us to believe.

The point isn’t that supplements never work. It’s that they work best when they correct an actual deficiency.

The review focuses on older adults, the group most likely to develop genuine nutritional shortfalls. Appetite fades with age. Medications interfere with absorption. Bad teeth turn eating into a chore, and illness complicates the rest.

In those cases, targeted supplementation helps.

B is for boring

Vitamin B12 is the clearest example. Deficiency becomes more common with age and can lead to fatigue, nerve damage, and even anemia. Vitamin D matters for people who rarely see the sun or face a higher risk of fractures. Folate has its uses. Calcium and magnesium help when the diet falls short. Omega-3 supplementation may also benefit some people, particularly those who consume little oily fish.

Notice the pattern. The supplements that earn their keep are the incredibly boring ones.

Nobody films a breathless video about correcting a documented B12 deficiency. No fjord-gazing influencer hawks a luxury magnesium subscription against a slow-motion sunrise. Common sense doesn’t trend.

RELATED: My new hack for a long, healthy life? Getting married

Universal/Getty Images

Meat is medicine

The most striking finding in the review involves protein.

For all the noise about exotic compounds and futuristic blends, many older adults simply don’t eat enough of it. That gap accelerates muscle loss and costs them their independence. A chicken breast and a good steak may do more for healthy aging than an entire shelf of capsules.

This is the tragic comedy of wellness culture. We obsess over optimization while ignoring the obvious.

Supplements promise something modern people desperately want: the feeling that health can be outsourced to a purchase rather than earned through habit.

No mystery

The body isn’t nearly as mysterious as the wellness industry pretends. Sleep still does the heavy lifting. Resistance training still preserves muscle. A sensible diet still outperforms most supplement stacks. Protein still matters more than almost anyone admits.

These points are rather dull. They flatline on a podcast and resist packaging into a $90 tub. Nobody gets rich selling a balanced breakfast. No influencer films a viral hit called “The Shocking Secret of Eating Enough Protein.”

The supplement market thrives because basics bore us and shortcuts seduce us. People would rather believe longevity hides inside a capsule pulled from a rare plant than accept that the answer involves lifting heavy things, eating enough protein, and getting to bed at a sensible hour.

So the market keeps ballooning on the promise that health can be bought instead of built.

Dig in

Sometimes a supplement is the right call. A confirmed deficiency deserves treatment. Certain medical conditions demand it. But the evidence keeps arriving at a conclusion that borders on anticlimactic.

For most people without a documented deficiency, more pills don’t buy better health.

The foundations stay stubbornly old-fashioned, which is exactly why nobody can sell them back to you at a markup.

After years of being told health demands endless powders and concoctions, the answer turns out to be almost insultingly plain.

The miracle formula was never in the bottle. It was on the dinner plate all along, quietly waiting while the wellness industry invented another miracle.

​Nutrition, Vitamins, Supplements, Wellness, Lifestyle, Sleep, Common sense, Make america healthy again 

Maryland police say a teenager shot and killed a 15-year-old girl and her younger brother in their home days after he possibly celebrated the Fourth of July with the family.

Police have been investigating the lethal shooting that happened July 7 at the family’s home on Talles Road in Randallstown.

‘This is obviously an unspeakable tragedy.’

On Wednesday morning, police arrested Keith James Jr. at his West Baltimore home. He was charged with two murder counts and a gun charge, according to Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough.

Police believe James had some kind of relationship with Giovanna Myrie, the older victim, but did not say whether it was romantic in nature.

Charging documents indicate that Myrie sought help because James had threatened to kill her if she “messed around” with other males.

Police say James shot and killed Myrie, who was found in her bedroom, and her 9-year-old brother Steve Allen, who was found in a hallway.

Their mother found their bodies at about 7:20 a.m. and contacted police.

“This is obviously an unspeakable tragedy. Our hearts and sympathies are with the victims and their families,” defense attorney Brian Thompson said.

Investigators used witness accounts, surveillance video, and cellphone records to place James in the area of the shooting. They believe he used mass transit to get from his home to the victims’ home.

“He was on camera in several ways throughout the community,” McCullough said. “He had been in the area prior to the crime, and of course, he was in the area after the crime.”

Police say a friend of Myrie’s indicated that she saw James holding a handgun while on a FaceTime call with the girl at the home.

RELATED: Elderly couple hired 17-year-old to do odd jobs at their home — before he robbed and brutally murdered them, cops say

The suspect’s attorney requested that he be placed into a juvenile facility, but that was rejected by the judge. He is being held without bond.

“I would ask everyone to reserve judgment, afford my client his constitutional right to the presumption of innocence, and reserve judgment until the actual evidence is presented in a courtroom,” Thompson added.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Teen murder, Maryland, Surveillance, Gun violence, Crime 

Few surveillance products have ever been named more appropriately than Flock. A flock of sheep has no rights. It exists to be watched, counted, and managed by whoever owns the field. That increasingly resembles how government treats Americans as officials cover streets and neighborhoods with cameras under the familiar but false promise of public safety.

Flock’s automated license-plate readers are not ordinary security cameras. They record every passing vehicle, capturing plate numbers, makes, colors, damage, bumper stickers, and other identifiers. Those records enter a private cloud that participating local and federal agencies can search across a network of more than 116,000 devices.

Swapping freedom for security rarely delivers either. A government that refuses to control criminals should not receive limitless power to track everyone else.

The system can reveal patterns of life: who visits a church, clinic, protest, political meeting, or friend’s home. It can do so without individualized suspicion and often without a warrant.

Tracking plates means tracking people across time and space. These cameras do not sit only along highways. They appear in residential neighborhoods and on local streets. InvestigateTV demonstrated how Flock’s Condor cameras can move and follow an individual within view.

When asked whether he envisioned “a future with a Flock camera on every street corner,” Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley said yes. He described an America where crime no longer exists.

The sales pitch is always safety. The practical result is a searchable record of ordinary people’s movements.

Local media in Windsor, Connecticut, reported that a resident’s public records request revealed more than 500,000 third-party searches of camera data in nine weeks. Officials may insist that systems like Flock exist only to recover stolen vehicles or locate dangerous suspects. A database this valuable will inevitably attract more agencies, more vendors, and more uses.

Government surveillance programs always begin with sympathetic cases: stolen cars, missing children, wandering dementia patients, and violent fugitives. Those benefits are real. They do not answer the central question. Should every citizen become continuously searchable because the technology sometimes helps police solve a crime?

After the COVID era, Americans have no excuse for assuming that every agency will use sweeping powers narrowly. Officials used emergency authorities, corporate data, and private platforms in ways the public was repeatedly assured would never happen. A permanent vehicle-tracking network deserves more skepticism, not less.

Flock’s defenders also evade the real cause of persistent crime. Police rarely lack the ability to identify repeat juvenile carjackers and other violent offenders. The deeper failure lies in prosecutors, judges, legislators, and “criminal justice reform” policies that return dangerous offenders to the street.

The Baltimore region illustrates the contradiction. Flock cameras dot the area, yet juvenile carjackings remain rampant because offenders often face little meaningful punishment. Cameras may help identify the same criminal again. They cannot supply the deterrence that prosecutors and courts refuse to impose.

RELATED: America’s newest jail has no walls

Blaze Media Illustration

We already know how to reduce violent crime: incapacitate repeat offenders and impose sentences severe enough to deter others. Government instead weakens punishment, tolerates disorder, and then asks the public to surrender more privacy to manage the consequences.

Resistance to automated plate readers is growing across liberal and conservative communities. Residents have vandalized or dismantled cameras, while local officials have voted to ban or remove them. In conservative counties, however, sheriffs often become the greatest obstacle to reform because state and federal grants subsidize the equipment and stretch cash-starved departmental budgets.

Programs such as the Homeland Security Grant Program, State Homeland Security Program, Urban Areas Security Initiative, Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, and COPS Office Technology and Equipment Program can finance systems that local departments could not otherwise afford. Counterterrorism and infrastructure protection become convenient justifications for constructing a domestic surveillance network.

The incentives are understandable. Sheriffs cannot control soft prosecutors, lenient judges, or lawmakers who empty jails. They can control front-end policing, and grants let them expand their technological reach. But frustration with failed criminal-justice policy does not justify treating every driver as a suspect.

RELATED: We’re winning the fight against Flock — but the surveillance isn’t going away that easily

Cindy Schultz/Washington Post/Getty Images

Nor should Americans assume that every officer with access will behave honorably. More than 20 documented cases of police misuse have surfaced since 2023. Officers have reportedly used the system to stalk romantic partners and rivals. One Idaho officer searched his wife’s movements more than 700 times, labeling the queries “test” to avoid suspicion.

That abuse is not an aberration from the system’s purpose. It is the predictable result of giving thousands of people effortless access to intimate location data with weak oversight.

Flock presents Americans with a false choice between crime and constant surveillance. We can enforce the law, incapacitate violent offenders, and protect communities without allowing government to reconstruct every citizen’s daily movements.

The answer to failed policing is better policing. The answer to lenient prosecution is accountability. The answer to repeat offenders is punishment. None requires a camera on every corner or a permanent cloud archive of where every American has been.

Swapping freedom for security rarely delivers either. A government that refuses to control criminals should not receive limitless power to track everyone else.

​Crime prevention, Federal agencies, Flock cameras, Government control, Government surveillance, Public safety, Law enforcement, Covid, Surveillance state, Opinion & analysis 

The latest economic data suggests that the United States may finally be moving in the right direction.

Inflation is slowing. Production is expanding. Unemployment claims remain subdued. After years of punishing price increases, Americans may be entering the long process of rebuilding the purchasing power they lost during the Biden administration.

Repair will take time. But slower inflation, stronger production, and rising real income show that the process may finally have begun.

That recovery will not happen quickly. Prices will not simply return to 2019 levels. But a more disciplined federal government, lighter regulation, and stronger private-sector production can gradually ease the affordability crisis.

June brought the largest monthly decline in headline consumer prices in six years. Overall prices fell 0.4%, led by a sharp drop in oil and gasoline prices.

That marked the largest monthly decrease since 2019 and moved inflation closer to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Truflation’s private consumer price index recently placed inflation at 2.04%, almost exactly at the Fed’s stated goal.

The ideal inflation rate should be zero, and prices should sometimes fall as productivity improves. Still, the slowdown represents real progress.

Gasoline prices contributed heavily to the decline, falling 10% as the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz increased oil supplies. The Wall Street Journal reported that the cooling extended broadly across the economy.

The response to lower oil prices should remind policymakers how essential fossil fuels remain to modern life. Energy prices shape transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and nearly every consumer good.

Interest rates also offer some encouraging signs.

The yield on 10-year Treasury notes remains near 4.5%, slightly below its recent peak, economist Robert Genetski noted in his weekly report. Gold prices have also trended downward, suggesting greater confidence in the dollar.

Most important, the productive economy continues to expand.

The Institute for Supply Management reported that its manufacturing purchasing managers’ index reached 53.3% in June. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion, though growth slowed slightly from May.

RELATED: The housing bill from hell targets red America

Carlofranco/Getty Images

The services index registered 54%, marking the sector’s 24th consecutive month of expansion.

As production grew, unemployment data also beat expectations. Initial and continuing jobless claims both declined by thousands.

Taken together, the numbers point toward genuine economic improvement. Inflation and interest rates are moving closer to pre-pandemic norms. The economy is also benefiting from President Trump’s renewed regulatory relief and the tax cuts enacted through last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Much more work remains.

The federal policy reversal began only about 18 months ago and has faced resistance in Congress and the courts. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh’s promised monetary reforms have yet to take effect.

Housing remains the most serious obstacle.

June retail sales were mediocre, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. New-home construction also remains badly depressed. Genetski noted that the July homebuilders’ confidence index came in at an anemic 34, far below the break-even level of 50.

Warsh has nevertheless said the right things about monetary discipline.

He has repudiated the artificially low interest-rate policies the Fed pursued after the 2008 financial crisis and has acknowledged the central bank’s responsibility for inflation.

“Inflation’s a choice,” Warsh told the House Financial Services Committee last week. Monetary policymakers, he said, must choose lower inflation instead of shifting blame elsewhere.

The Fed made disastrous choices during the Biden administration.

Consumer prices rose 21.17% from January 2021 through January 2025. The median price of a new home increased even faster, climbing 28.9%.

Those prices will not fall back to their pre-pandemic levels. The spending explosions of 2021 and 2022 permanently reduced the dollar’s purchasing power.

Affordability will therefore improve through a slower process. Wages and investment income must rise while businesses produce more goods and services. Government must stop suppressing that production through excessive spending, taxation, regulation, and monetary manipulation.

One encouraging sign is that after-tax, inflation-adjusted personal income per capita has begun rising again after collapsing during the Biden years.

Further tax and spending reforms would accelerate that recovery.

Millennials and Generation Z have suffered badly during the affordability crisis. They entered adulthood facing soaring housing costs, expensive credit, stagnant purchasing power, and a federal government that made nearly every basic milestone harder to reach.

RELATED: ‘Need a cop? Thank socialism’ is dumb — but dangerously effective

Brendan SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Those conditions help explain young Americans’ growing attraction to socialism and even communism.

When people believe capitalism offers no path toward home ownership, family formation, or financial security, radical alternatives begin to look appealing. That does not make those alternatives sound. It shows how economic failure can erode political judgment.

A sustained recovery could reverse that trend.

Lower inflation, rising real income, greater housing production, and stronger private investment would reduce the despair that fuels radical politics. Economic reform could create a virtuous cycle in which greater prosperity lowers social tension and weakens support for destructive ideologies.

The federal government still spends far too much. Welfare programs remain riddled with fraud. Social Security faces a severe funding crisis within the next several years.

Yet policy has begun moving, however slowly, toward reducing the enormous burden federal spending and regulation place on American workers, entrepreneurs, and producers.

A favorable resolution to the Iran conflict would strengthen the economy further by lowering geopolitical risk and stabilizing energy markets.

The greatest danger now is impatience. The federal government, the central bank, businesses, workers, and investors are trying to turn the country away from an inefficient, government-dominated economy and back toward free-enterprise capitalism.

That repair will take time.

But slower inflation, stronger production, and rising real income show that the process may finally have begun.

​Federal government, Housing prices, Inflation, Capitalism, Market inflation, Federal reserve, Kevin warsh, Monetary policy, Opinion & analysis