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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAIR also released a nationwide endorsement list of candidates.

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

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

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

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

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

'They pushed back and said it wasn't discrimination.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheng Xin/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RELATED: When your desperation becomes part of the price

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nah.

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

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

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

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

Pay mal

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

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

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

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

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

Tech tyranny

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to the Before Times

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

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

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

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

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

Hands on

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Alexander/Getty Images

Scotty knew

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'The entire establishment is against him.'

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

Tit for tat

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

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

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

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

Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

Prosecuted

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

amgun/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DAN BALILTY/AFP/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s exactly what Descovich has created.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s mind-blowing,” she adds.

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Democrat Mary Peltola was trying to stay ahead of her Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race in Alaska. Now she'll have to stay ahead of a corruption probe.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) has ordered a criminal investigation into a scheme allegedly committed by Peltola's campaign against Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan. President Donald Trump, too, has weighed in, calling for Peltola to be removed from the ballot.

'Ballot-stacking should have no place in our electoral process.'

The Peltola campaign has been credibly accused of engaging in a ballot-stacking campaign — allegedly seeking out individuals with the same name as the Republican senator and recruiting at least one, Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg, to run for the Alaskan Senate seat.

The New York Times blew up the campaign's long-standing denial of wrongdoing with a bombshell report on Wednesday that advanced damning allegations from Peltola's former campaign manager Elisa Rios.

Rios, who retroactively attempted to retract all of the statements she made to the Times, alleged that: Peltola's campaign spearheaded the ballot-stacking scheme; top campaign aides, lowly staffers, campaign lawyers, and aides from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee were involved in the scheme; and Peltola was "definitely aware" of the scheme though not directly involved.

The DSCC has denied involvement with the other Dan Sullivan's campaign, and a spokesperson for the Peltola campaign told Blaze News that "the Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign."

When asked on Wednesday about the damning report from the Times, Peltola suggested it was a "distraction, another diversion" from Sen. Sullivan's votes on the Iran conflict as well as an opportunity "to sell newspapers."

RELATED: NY Times exposes Alaska Democrat's alleged hunt for another Dan Sullivan to run against Republican

President Donald Trump and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R). Kent NISHIMURA/AFP/Getty Images

Sen. Sullivan isn't buying it.

Nate Adams, a spokesman for Sen. Sullivan, told Blaze News on Wednesday, "Mary Peltola and her campaign have spent months gaslighting Alaskans, denying a scheme they were running all along. We always knew this was a concerted effort to deceive voters, and Mary Peltola was hoping it would stay hidden until after the election."

Nick Puglia, National Republican Senatorial Committee regional press secretary, said in a statement to Blaze News, "As we have said from the start, Decoy Dan was recruited by Mary Peltola and her Lower 48 cronies to deceive Alaskans. Peltola must be held accountable for her scheme and will be rejected again."

The new revelations about the alleged scheme evidently captured the attention of the Alaskan governor.

Gov. Dunleavy stated, "Today’s New York Times reporting reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates — including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator — to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes."

"The Alaska Division of Elections investigated these very concerns in June of this year. The new reporting substantially supports the Division’s findings," said Dunleavy.

The Alaska Division of Elections ruled in June that Dan J. Sullivan was ineligible as a candidate and would be removed from the ballot.

Carol Beecher, the elections division director, said in a June 15 letter that J. Sullivan had not filed "an actual good-faith candidacy for the office of United States Senator," but instead intended "to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality."

Beecher found J. Sullivan's candidacy particularly questionable because he allegedly:

• had never before registered to vote or sought ballot access under the name "Dan Sullivan";
• had never been affiliated with the Republican Party yet filed to run as a Republican;
• had a campaign website using a similar format, color scheme, and overall theme to Sen. Sullivan's campaign website; and
• worked with a political consultant who is "a known longtime supporter of Democratic candidates including the primary Democratic challenger to Senator Sullivan."

Although J. Sullivan was removed from the ballot on June 15, a state Superior Court and finally the Alaska Supreme Court reinstated him.

Gov. Dunleavy said in his statement that he is "directing the Department of Public Safety to investigate whether this scheme violated Alaska’s laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted."

"Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections," he continued.

"Anyone or any organization found to have broken the law must be held accountable."

Blaze News has reached out to the Peltola, S. Sullivan, and J. Sullivan campaigns for comment. The DSCC did not immediately respond.

President Donald Trump sounded off on the alleged Democratic scheme and called for Peltola to be removed from the ballot.

"It was just determined that the Dumocrats in Alaska, despite their sworn statements to the contrary, put a man named Dan Sullivan on the Ballot in order to confuse the Public with respect to Highly Esteemed Senator Dan Sullivan," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Wednesday evening. "This is Voter Fraud at the Highest Level."

The president said that "the Dumocrat Candidate, who was involved in the scheme, Mary Peltola, should be removed from the Ballot and prosecuted — So should the FAKE Dan Sullivan. Nothing else will do! This behavior in our Elections cannot be allowed to continue."

Peltola is apparently now too radioactive even for anti-Trump Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R).

Murkowski, who endorsed a Democratic candidate in the Alaska gubernatorial race this week and has previously endorsed Peltola, said in a statement on Wednesday, "While some may try to write this off as just how politics works now, ballot-stacking should have no place in our electoral process."

"Recruiting candidates to manipulate the field and influence voting outcomes is simply wrong," said Murkowski. "Alaskans deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign — what has been revealed is a pattern of lies and coverups and a culture of deception that belongs nowhere in our elections or among our elected officials."

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Is Amazon deliberately trying to destroy beloved franchises?

The latest evidence for the prosecution: "Blade Runner 2099," arriving November 25.

'I just had bottom surgery ... and I love it so much.'

Bottoming out

Amazon's tagline for the new series — the latest entry in the decades-old sci-fi franchise — is "Humanity has fallen."

So has Hollywood, according to viewers outraged by the streamer's decision to cast transgender actor Hunter Schafer in a starring role.

The show serves as a sequel to Denis Villeneuve's 2017 "Blade Runner 2049," itself a follow-up to Ridley Scott's 1982 "Blade Runner." It taps actor Hunter Schafer for a lead role alongside Michelle Yeoh.

While the Malaysia-born Yeoh has an impressive résumé of action films and Hollywood blockbusters, she is also 64.

Schafer is a prominent transgender activist who achieved fame — and, eventually, a spot on HBO's debauched drama "Euphoria" — after helping repeal a North Carolina bill that would have required people to use bathrooms corresponding with their sex.

Not exactly your father's "Blade Runner."

Just days before Amazon Prime started promoting the series, Elle magazine published an interview with Schafer where he revealed the joy and thrill of having his penis removed.

"I just had bottom surgery in December, which was amazing, and I love it so much," Schafer told the magazine.

RELATED: FALLING STARS: Hollywood woke-erati on the outs as Skydance soars

Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Repli-can't

Schafer said that he had previously thought there was something "cool" about posing as a woman, but eventually felt the desire to attempt to shape his body to his beliefs.

"For a long time I've embraced the gender-expansive part of myself, and I really wanted to try to make that previous body work, because I thought there was something really cool and badass about it," he continued.

However, living in a "theoretical queer utopia," as Elle described it, "didn't match up with the world [Schafer] encountered every day, and the way she personally wanted to show up in it."

Schafer went on to describe this change as the "magical thing about queerness."

"On an ideological level, it's about possibility and expansion and growth, and being on that journey and finding yourself," the actor added.

"I'm a woman. I'm a girl," he said.

In a 2019 interview, Schafer also credited the internet with helping him transition.

"The internet saved me — being able to go to YouTube and watch people's transition timelines and see myself on a screen," he told Variety.

RELATED: 50 Cent exposes Hollywood's dirty little secret about 'diversity'

Faulty franchises

Fans online are already declaring the franchise ruined, with some dismissing the new series as a "parody" or a "DEI checklist."

Viewers have long criticized Amazon for the way it handles popular franchises, often updating familiar characters and worlds to appeal to the dreaded "modern audience."

For example, in "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," the studio introduced black elves and dwarves into Tolkien's Middle-earth and gave monstrous orcs surprisingly human emotions.

Amazon is hardly alone. Disney's "Star Wars: The Acolyte" took similar liberties with another beloved franchise, introducing a coven of witches whose supernatural powers allowed them to conceive children without a father.

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Artificial intelligence has quickly evolved from an interesting novelty to an economic driver and a cybersecurity threat. But while the United States tries to rein in its domestic models, foreign-owned AI could pose an even bigger danger, which is why one of China’s most popular models is now banned from the U.S. government.

DeepSeek, a Chinese-owned and operated artificial intelligence company, develops several popular AI models, both in the frontier and in open-weight categories. DeepSeek V4 and V4 Pro are the company’s flagship options that are most comparable to GPT-5.5, Claude Opus 4.7, and Gemini 3.1, while DeepSeek-R1 is the open-source alternative that can run on local hardware.

DeepSeek doesn’t belong anywhere near the American people, much less federal civilian executive branch agencies.

It’s no secret that China wants U.S. companies to choose open-weight platforms like DeepSeek over American-made frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

After all, they’re cheaper with no recurring subscription fees, data is isolated to local hardware instead of sharing it with the Big AI companies in the cloud, and with enough support, it could supplant U.S. dominance in the AI sector.

Some companies took the bait, too, with big names like Microsoft looking into ways to integrate DeepSeek into a subset of its products. So far, the Redmond giant hasn’t actually followed through, though, so no harm, no foul.

Corporations aside, DeepSeek also apparently had some kind of unofficial integration with U.S. government agencies. This was made apparent when the Department of Homeland Security issued a partial ban on the use of DeepSeek in federal civilian executive branch agencies. These include groups like the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Energy, and many more.

As part of the ban, affected agencies must remove any trace of DeepSeek from their frontend and backend systems. Agencies must also remove any third-party software that utilizes or connects to DeepSeek in any way, including but not limited to products that use DeepSeek as part of their feature set or were developed by DeepSeek.

In the official order, DHS cited several clear reasons for the ban, all relating to national security:

• Data access: User prompts and interactions with DeepSeek — including classified or sensitive data — can potentially be sent back to servers in the People’s Republic of China, where it can be accessed by the Chinese government. This would potentially reveal U.S. government secrets and other intelligence to China.
• Cybersecurity: The DHS noted that DeepSeek’s “models themselves may contain malware or other security vulnerabilities.” Just as AI has been an effective ally in uncovering software security holes that were previously unknown, hackers have also used AI to spread viruses and commit crimes. So far, the DeepSeek app for iOS contains several critical flaws dating back to 2025, making it a security risk.
• Availability: Since DeepSeek hosts both frontier and open-source models, at least some version of the company’s AI is freely accessible, easy to implement, and virtually unregulated, presenting potential threats to the U.S. government.

Following the DHS’ lead, the Department of Defense and the director of National Intelligence issued their own DeepSeek bans to kick the AI out of U.S. military agencies, ensuring that the platform can’t gobble up important information about our national security and foreign operations.

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

amgun/Getty Images

It’s important to note that the ban only affects government agencies. DeepSeek is not blocked from public use by civilians or enterprise integrations via private businesses. These groups can still access DeepSeek without restrictions and, by affiliation, are still subject to DeepSeek’s influence.

That said, considering the platform’s deep ties to the People’s Republic of China, you may want to think twice before you install DeepSeek or use it on any of your devices.

So far, DeepSeek’s AI has been caught censoring itself regarding responses that paint China in a negative light. Back when the model made headlines in 2025, users noted that it would begin to respond to problematic questions involving controversial figures like Genghis Khan and Mao Zedong, only for the answer to disappear in real time.

In September 2026, DeepSeek was caught routing queries through Anthropic’s Claude in a large-scale distillation plot. Distillation is when an AI company uses query outputs provided by a larger, better AI model to train their smaller model to produce similar results for less. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then DeepSeek must love Claude for copying off of its models.

Lastly, DeepSeek has the power to serve as a propaganda machine for the People’s Republic of China, swaying opinions on everything from U.S. politics to the overall perception of China and more. It doesn’t belong anywhere near the American people, much less federal civilian executive branch agencies. For now, though, the ban only covers the latter.

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On November 3, California voters will find 37 candidates for local office on their ballots endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America. That’s more than half of the 69 DSA-endorsed local candidates nationwide, according to Ballotpedia. Minnesota, the distant runner-up, has six.

California, it seems, has become fertile ground for politicians promising to cure the failures of big government with still more government.

Californians have paid for big promises long enough. Before funding the next experiment, they should demand the receipts.

This is quite a reversal for the once Golden State. The Gold Rush, the transcontinental railroad, agriculture, manufacturing, and Silicon Valley transformed California into a magnet for Americans who wanted to build businesses and fortunes. Opportunity was its calling card.

Today, millions of Californians find it increasingly difficult even to afford the place.

The socialist candidates did not create all these problems. California's governing establishment spent decades laying the groundwork. Nor is every progressive regulation a socialist policy; California remains a powerhouse of private enterprise. But that only sharpens the question facing the newcomers: Why should voters trust a more expansive government to repair what government has helped break?

Consider housing. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the typical home was worth roughly $776,000 in the first seven months of 2026. The national figure was $372,000. California has under-built for decades, leaving a housing shortage that estimates put at more than 1 million units.

Land and construction costs are high, and people still want to live in California. Those realities do not absolve lawmakers who imposed layers of local restrictions and cumbersome approval procedures. The obstacles became so obvious that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation in 2025 to streamline environmental reviews and speed construction. Sacramento finally acknowledged that its rules had become part of the problem.

A state that spends years making homes harder to build should not act astonished when workers cannot afford them.

Then there is electricity. In July, California's average residential price reached 33.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with 18.3 cents nationally, according to federal energy data. Families do not experience those figures as an abstract dispute over climate policy. They experience them when the utility bill arrives.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office identified greenhouse-gas policies as one contributor to California's soaring rates. Wildfire costs and the utilities' operating structures also play a role. The explanation is complicated; the price is unmistakable. Politicians pursuing ambitious mandates owe residents an honest accounting of what those mandates cost.

And what has California received for its vast spending on homelessness?

RELATED: Gavin Newsom makes damning admission about socialist takeover on undercover camera

JP Yim/Getty Images for Clinton Global Initiative

The state allocated nearly $24 billion for homelessness and housing programs during the five fiscal years ending in 2022-23. Yet in 2024, the state auditor reported that California lacked enough outcome data to assess the cost-effectiveness of three of the five programs examined. Two appeared cost-effective. The other three could not be properly judged because officials had failed to collect sufficient information.

That is not proof that every dollar was wasted. It is an indictment of a government that spends billions before establishing whether key programs deliver results. Taxpayers are entitled to more than another appropriation and another promise.

Yet California’s budget offers no reassurance. The Legislative Analyst’s Office projects roughly $29 billion in outstanding budgetary borrowing by the end of the 2026-27 fiscal year. It also identifies a structural imbalance: The enacted budget is balanced, but ongoing expenses exceed ongoing revenues.

California is not bankrupt — yet. Its economy remains enormous and productive. Indeed, that makes the recurring fiscal trouble harder to excuse. A state blessed with extraordinary wealth should be able to account for its spending and live within its means.

Now consider what some of the socialists propose. On Election Day, voters will decide Proposition 40, which would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires who were California residents on January 1. Naturally, the DSA supports it. Most of the proceeds would go toward health care, with smaller shares for education and food assistance.

RELATED: California says ‘trust us’ on voter eligibility. Why?

John Tully/Getty Images

Supporters say the money would help protect health care from largely overhyped federal funding cuts. The state projects the tax could raise tens of billions of dollars. But a one-time windfall is no cure for permanent spending commitments. California's Legislative Analyst warns that wealthy taxpayers could respond in ways that reduce future income-tax revenue. Once the windfall is spent, what comes next?

This is the argument socialists should have to confront. California already taxes heavily, regulates extensively, and devotes staggering sums to public programs. Yet housing is scarce, electricity is expensive, homelessness persists, and Sacramento borrows against tomorrow to meet today's obligations. Expanding the government’s reach without repairing its failures offers no guarantee of better results.

Many Californians recognize this. There are also plenty who may conclude that the existing political establishment has failed them so badly that an avowed socialist deserves a chance. Their frustration is understandable if misplaced.

California once drew the ambitious from across America with a promise that hard work could pay off. Before voters give Sacramento and city halls still more power, they should demand evidence that the power already granted has been used wisely.

Californians have paid for big promises long enough. Before funding the next experiment, they should demand the receipts.

Stephanie Strock was in her seventh month of pregnancy when she was found dead, according to one of her friends.

The Heavener Police Department said officers responded to a residence in the 500 block of West D. Ave. on Monday on a welfare check.

'I do believe that she may have been able to have a chance to be a mother to both her children if we would have paid attention sooner.'

They found the body belonging to 20-year-old Stephanie Strock.

Strock's body exhibited injuries consistent with homicide, according to investigators.

Police said they found her boyfriend, 28-year-old Austin Morrison, walking nearby.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said that evidence gathered at the scene indicated that Morrison had been with Strock that night and had assaulted her.

He was arrested for two counts of murder, one for the child and another for Strock.

Morrison was booked into the LeFlore County Jail.

Strock's friend Cathy Ritter told KFSM-TV that Strock was in an abusive relationship and led a hard life.

"I think Stephanie should have been somewhere before all this tragedy happened, and I think it would have been avoided, and I think her baby would still be alive," Ritter said.

RELATED: Police make gruesome discovery in freezer of abandoned home in Dallas

"I do believe that she may have been able to have a chance to be a mother to both her children if we would have paid attention sooner," Ritter added.

She added that she was heartbroken that no one was there to help Strock.

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Right now, the U.S. government is putting military pressure on Iran, but that pressure is likely to let up if Democrats sweep the midterm elections, as they are predicted to do, and cut the money for continued military operations.

BlazeTV host Nick Freitas and Hillsdale military historian Mark Moyar are concerned that Iran is just biding its time — waiting for American politics to shut down the military pressure.

Freitas wants to know how the administration can continue to thwart Iran even if that military pressure ends.

“So if we acknowledge that Iran does pose a threat, that they do have aggressive goals … what do you think would be a good long-term strategy for mitigating the threat?” Freitas asks Moyer.

Given that Democrats will almost certainly push to “defund the war,” Moyer believes America will have to “depend more on countries in the region.”

“For Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel, the other Gulf states, this is really more of an existential threat for them than it is for us,” he says, recommending that we “[build] the conditions for allowing them to to take more of the kinetic action.”

Freitas proposes the idea of “coming up with some sort of alternative to the Strait of Hormuz with respect to the export of oil.”

“How viable a strategy do you think that is, and what do you think some alternatives could actually look like?” he asks Moyer.

Moyer looks favorably on this idea. “I think using the alternative roads, we're already getting back close to prewar levels of oil. So I think that's very important — certainly going to reduce the ability of Iran to try to blackmail us with the Strait of Hormuz, which seems to be their current method of operation,” he says.

As for alternatives, Moyer says “it's not that hard” to “circumvent Iran,” but doing so “is not going to make the Iranian threat go away.”

“Realistically speaking, we should assume that at some point the Democrats and the Europeans are going to ease up on them, and so, you know, [Iran] will get back to doing the things they want to be doing,” he explains.

“How much leverage do you think the United States has in offering a stick or a carrot to the Chinese in order to lean on the ayatollah?” Freitas asks.

“In theory it sounds good,” says Moyer. However, “the Chinese probably like what's going on because we are their main adversary and we're losing lots of money and having lots of trouble.”

“They want to surpass us as the world's most powerful country, and so for us to be bogged down in this mess, I think, serves their interest, so I don't see them probably wanting to change Iran too much," he theorizes.

Freitas then presents a third potential strategy: Instead of fighting Iran directly, the U.S. quietly helps groups inside Iran fight the Iranian government themselves.

“You see opposition to the ayatollah coming from the overwhelming majority, which is Persian, but you also see it from Arab populations. You see it from Kurdish populations, and you certainly see it from the Azerbaijani populations, all within Iran,” he says.

“Do you think investing in a long-term strategy, which essentially supports and uplifts dissident groups to be able to potentially mount an effective insurgency ... do you look at that as a viable strategy?” he asks.

Moyer says it’s “certainly one worth considering” but ultimately “a tough call.”

“We have as a country mixed experience with supporting insurgencies in other countries, and sometimes it works,” he says.

But sometimes it doesn’t work.

“If you recall when we supported the Syrian insurgency, I think we spent a hundred billion dollars to train five guys or something before we canceled the program,” he notes.

It’s also a deadly gamble.

“I also think of the Iraq experience where we try to encourage these people to rise up and then Saddam Hussein ends up slaughtering huge numbers of people,” Moyer says, “so I do think we have to kind of think about are we going to simply be consigning people to their death.”

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

An Iranian strike in February destroyed an American missile-defense radar worth about $300 million at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. In the war with Iran, the U.S. military has lost at least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones. And intercepting relatively cheap Iranian drones can require missiles costing millions of dollars.

That is the arithmetic Pete Hegseth must confront as he builds FORTRESS America, the Department of War initiative to secure the capabilities and supply chains on which the military depends.

FORTRESS America should mean more than stockpiling. It should mean American resilience through American scale.

Hegseth is right to pursue resilience. But without a reality check, the initiative risks becoming another bumper sticker in a $1 trillion defense budget.

FORTRESS America identifies five pillars: energy independence; supply chain and defense industrial base resilience; a strategic defense reserve; installation hardening and cyber resilience; and resilience in space and spectrum. Each serves a genuine need. But resilience should not mean putting everything in a government silo. The Iran war offers a warning about how easily technological overmatch can become economic mismatch.

The Pentagon has long pursued technological overmatch: the most sophisticated aircraft, sensors, missiles, and networks. Yet expensive, highly specialized systems can be difficult to replace, while an adversary can keep sending cheaper weapons into the fight.

The losses in Iran do not erase America’s military superiority. They do expose a costly imbalance: A nation can possess superior technology and still face an economic contest in which its enemies impose disproportionate costs.

Build for scale

The same lesson applies to the broader FORTRESS America agenda. An energy strategy cannot depend on a single vulnerable source. Supply chains cannot hinge on components easily disrupted or cut off. Defense systems cannot be so bespoke, expensive, and difficult to manufacture that the United States struggles to produce them at scale.

Palmer Luckey’s Anduril offers a useful model. Its Arsenal-1 factory in Ohio is designed to manufacture autonomous military systems in volume for the United States and its allies. Commercial manufacturing methods and components help make that scale possible.

Space offers another example. American entrepreneurs have made rockets, satellites, and launches more efficient. The government should create conditions for American companies to compete, invest, and scale — rather than replicate the commercial industrial base inside the Pentagon.

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yucelyilmaz/Getty Images

A spectrum arsenal, not a spectrum hoard

The logic extends to wireless spectrum. Federal agencies retain extensive access to frequencies that commercial providers want for wireless networks. Congress has protected the heavily used 3.1-3.45 GHz band from commercial auction, reflecting the military’s radar and other defense requirements. But treating spectrum chiefly as a resource to hold can also foreclose commercial capacity and innovation.

The goal should not be to privilege one particular frequency, but to strike a balance: federal agencies currently control or share access to substantial portions of the most valuable spectrum, much of which could support commercial wireless networks if policy better balanced national security needs with the public benefits of commercial use.

The military does not necessarily need to control every frequency; it needs reliable access to the capabilities those frequencies enable. In Ukraine, commercial low-Earth-orbit satellite networks have supported the fight against Russia. Such networks can provide military utility at enormous scale without requiring the Pentagon to build all the underlying infrastructure itself.

Even if spectrum were weighted toward commercial use, U.S. law gives the president significant authority over communications in wartime and emergencies. Military-grade satellite services, such as those procured for Ukraine, operate under Pentagon contracts and negotiated terms designed for national security needs. Retail satellite internet, by contrast, operates under commercial licensing and ordinary terms of service.

RELATED: Most of the internet is suddenly melting down, and there’s only one fix

Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The Pentagon already recognizes the value of commercial technology. Its October acquisition guidance makes commercial products and services the default for procurement. Spectrum policy should draw on the same principle: Buy and secure the capability where commercial networks can deliver it.

America needs a spectrum arsenal that draws on the strength of its wireless and technology industries: competing network providers, satellite constellations, sensors, communications systems, and infrastructure built with American investment, technology, and workers. The military can buy or reserve capacity, with priority and assured-access arrangements for crises and war.

The fortress is the industrial base

The best fortress is not one in which the government owns everything behind the walls. It is one in which American companies have already built the networks, factories, and technologies Americans use every day — and the military can draw on that industrial strength when the nation needs it.

FORTRESS America should mean more than stockpiling. It should mean American resilience through American scale.

Iran is giving us the reality check now. We can use it to rethink spectrum policy, defense manufacturing, and military procurement — or discover the same mismatch in the next conflict, when the stakes may be much higher.

A Venezuelan illegal alien was shot and killed as he was firing a gun into a homeless encampment in the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago, according to various law enforcement sources.

An off-duty Federal Bureau of Investigation agent happened to see 27-year-old Oscar Isaya-Corrales firing at crowds Monday evening and took him down.

He had a slew of previous arrests that included 'domestic violence, criminal damage to property, felony retail theft, driving with an expired license.'

The agent was driving home when he saw Isaya-Corrales "discharging a firearm into a group of innocent people" near 18th Street and Union Avenue, according to an FBI statement.

Chicago police rushed to the scene to find the 41-year-old agent aiming at the wounded gunman, who had been shot in both legs, his chest, and right flank, according to a police report.

Isaya-Corrales died at a hospital about an hour later.

The agent was unharmed.

"The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously," an FBI statement reads. "In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is under review by the FBI’s Inspection Division."

The Department of Homeland Security said that Isaya-Corrales had been caught at the border in 2023 but subsequently released "completely unvetted" by the Biden administration.

DHS added that he had a slew of previous arrests that included "domestic violence, criminal damage to property, felony retail theft, driving with an expired license, marijuana possession, and several traffic misdemeanors."

Isaya-Corrales got another chance after officials in Blue Island, Illinois, refused to honor a detainer request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dec. 2025.

RELATED: DHS attorney DEMOLISHES '60 Minutes' reporter over 'law-abiding' illegal aliens narrative in full interview

Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez issued a statement skeptical of the account from the FBI.

"What may have happened is, there was a shooting earlier, maybe around the area of the expressway. Someone heard some shots, and then, when neighbors came out, they saw a vehicle that now we know is the FBI agent that came out of the vehicle and shot someone on an e-bike," he said.

Isaya-Corrales was homeless himself and had been staying at a shelter.

"What prompted the shooting?" Sigcho-Lopez added. "What transpired after the initial gunfire to justify the agent continuing to aim his gun at the victim while he apparently was already shot multiple times and laying on the ground? Was the agent acting alone or part of a taskforce operation? These are questions that only an independent, transparent investigation can answer."

DHS was far less skeptical.

"God bless this FBI agent for their heroic action," the agency concluded.

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Election season has historically brought plenty of campaign ads, but these days it also brings a fresh crop of painful-to-listen-to liberal anthems penned by white women who are suffering from terminal TDS.

“I’m sure everyone has heard the old saying that ... there’s only two things in life that are certain: death and taxes. And I agree, those two things are certain. However, I would like to just deposit a third one just into the atmosphere,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says.

“Unhinged liberal white women are going to drop a new song to encourage you to vote as we approach an election,” she continues. “It is certain. It happens every time, and it always is terrible. That is always something that you can hang your hat on.”

“We won’t, we won’t ever let go of that hard-won freedom, freedom to vote,” the women sing in the now-viral video.

“We the people are for the people,” they continue, clapping to the beat.

“The charisma of a doorknob is what they have,” Gonzales comments.

“I love, also, that the woman was holding a sign that said, ‘Make it too big to rig.’ Like, can you steal elections or not? I have been reliably informed that that’s not a thing,” she continues.

“Now, I will just say ... I’m not done, OK? Because there are other libs who heard this song, and they were like, ‘Yes, this is what we’re doing. It’s the only way to convince people to vote, is for us to just stand on a street corner like the goofy motherf**kers that we are,” she adds.

Gonzales plays another video of a group of white women performing the same song, but this time it’s on a stage with instruments and a little more upbeat.

“They at least have it. It’s faster. They got more energy,” she says, before playing a clip of yet another new liberal anthem.

“My persecution is your persecution, and your persecution is my persecution,” a woman sings in the video.

“I’ve fallen asleep five times since the clip started,” Gonzales says.

“Those people’s votes count just as much as yours does,” she points out.

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An estimated $20 million ad campaign from the Trump administration was blocked by a federal judge who sided with the Democratic National Committee.

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan said Wednesday that the administration could not create or air advertisements using taxpayer funds.

'Administrations of both parties have used public service announcements to explain policy and make the case for the nation's direction.'

The ad campaign is being challenged in court in three separate lawsuits.

"Here, there is little doubt that Defendants' unlawful use of public funds makes it more difficult for the DNC to achieve its mission of 'electing Democratic candidates in federal, state, and local elections across the Country,'" AliKhan wrote in the ruling.

She added that the administration's "use of public dollars to finance the challenged ads imposes competitive harm on the DNC, causing Democratic campaign prospects to suffer."

The judge ordered the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Homeland Security to "take all necessary actions to cease distribution of the challenged ads, including through authorized third parties."

After facing pressure about the ads, the president said he would fund them himself and with money he raised for super PAC MAGA Inc.

But AliKhan noted that the ads kept running with a disclosure that read, "Paid for by the U.S. Government."

A White House official said the ruling was "moot" and explained why in a statement to the Washington Sun.

"The PSAs are being paid for by outside groups," the official said. "Administrations of both parties have used public service announcements to explain policy and make the case for the nation's direction."

RELATED: Pollster Frank Luntz CRUSHES Democrats' hopes over favorable polling

The Sun report noted that both former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden ran advertisements during their time in office, but those were meant to publicize specific initiatives.

AliKhan added in her ruling, "Every public dollar spent on airing the challenged ads allows MAGA Inc. — which has already spent $25,000,000 in the 2025-26 federal election cycle to support Republican candidates and oppose Democratic candidates — to conserve its resources for other political efforts adverse to the DNC."

One survey found that a vast majority of Americans, 86%, thought the campaign-style taxpayer-funded ads were inappropriate.

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When 3-year-old Nevada Pierre scored 21 goals in two soccer games, the police were called — and his parents were furious.

However, upon further investigation, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock explains that the arrival of the cops had nothing to do with the child dominating the game and everything to do with how his parents reacted.

“The parents of 3-year-old Nevada Pierre claimed their son was targeted because he was playing too well against kids older than him,” an ABC news report says.

“Nevada’s mother claims other parents had complained, wanting him taken out of the game to give other kids a chance to play, but she didn’t think that was fair."

“The parents of the 3-year-old boy that were causing a bit of a scene,” Jason Whitlock explains. “And one of the workers on the soccer field in the soccer league felt annoyed, bothered, felt like this situation could escalate, and he called the police.”

“Police came, based off of everything I’ve seen so far, behaved really appropriately. This is a typical little league dispute between parents and coaches and organizers,” he adds.

Charles Baker is a coach and a father himself, and he also believes the child’s parents are to blame.

“When I first saw this story, I thought it was some kind of AI hoax. And I kept seeing it, and I thought it’s real,” he tells Whitlock. “And ... you look at the headline and you think it’s funny, but then a sensible person would say, ‘Well, let me read and find out the why.’”

“And then the why makes sense as to why the police were called. It had nothing to do with how good the little kid was. Everybody admits he’s good. He’s great. He’s way ahead of his time here,” he continues.

“The police were called because of comments that the mother was making,” he adds.

However, Dre Baldwin believes the first people responsible for this situation “are the organizers of the league.”

“This happens in organizations all the time. When you bring a bunch of people together, if the standards are not clearly outlined and clearly communicated, then the wires get crossed,” Baldwin says.

“The organizer of the league needs to tell the parents, ‘This is the type of league this is. This is who it’s for. This is our aim. This is our goal,’” he explains.

“So the parents show up with this kid who was obviously very good at soccer. He’s dominating the game, and his parents are telling him just go dominate the game, but the league is not designed for this, not a dominate-the-game type of soccer league,” he continues.

“It’s a get-used-to-playing-soccer type of league,” he says, adding, “That's on the organizers of the league.”

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President Donald Trump has teased the next person he would nominate to the highest court of the land, should a vacancy open up in the next two years.

The president made the stunning announcement to supporters during a rally in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday ahead of the pivotal midterm elections.

'They would like to get rid of him. So I’d get 100% of the vote, and he would be a Supreme Court justice, and he’d do a great job.'

Trump said nominating Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas would solve the problems he had trying to get Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in his first term.

"I shouldn't tell this. Should I tell the Supreme Court justice situation?" he asked Cruz at the rally.

"I said, 'Look, I have an answer to it.' Ted is a brilliant guy, brilliant lawyer, brilliant all that. Went to law school, top student, everything, top credentials. I said, 'I have an answer to not being able to get it past the Democrats or the Republicans together,'" Trump said.

"I would pick Ted Cruz to be the next Supreme Court justice," he added.

He said Democrats would "100%" vote to approve Cruz because "they hate the guy" and want to get rid of him in the Senate.

"And the Republicans would 100% vote for it because they can’t stand him," Trump added. "They would like to get rid of him. So I’d get 100 percent of the vote, and he would be a Supreme Court justice, and he’d do a great job."

Video showed Cruz laughing at the rally and nodding his head.

Justice Samuel Alito has said that he might consider retiring next year but said the future political circumstances were hard to predict. Alito is 76 years old.

RELATED: Ketanji Brown Jackson melts down in scathing dissent after Supreme Court hands another win to Trump

Cruz, 55, has indicated that the president had already approached him about being on the Supreme Court during his first term, and Cruz had rejected the idea.

"In the first Trump term, the president spoke to me seriously about all three vacancies, and three times I said no because I don't want to be out of the arena of the political battle," Cruz said to the Wall Street Journal.

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U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — a nominal Republican up for re-election in 2028 — has made a habit out of sabotaging the MAGA agenda and undermining her fellow Republicans.

If she has demonstrated anything this week, it's consistency.

'You just don't get any worse!'

Rather than endorse one of the three Republican candidates in the running for Alaska governor, the 69-year-old has thrown her weight behind former Alaska state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.

Kreiss-Tomkins is a Democrat who has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Alliance and celebrated for being "a proven advocate for reproductive health and LGBTQ2S+ rights."

"Our future is too important to be hamstrung by partisan divisions," Murkowski said in a statement published on Tuesday by the Kreiss-Tomkins campaign. "Jonathan understands that governing requires listening to people with different perspectives and finding common ground to solve the problems all of us face."

In addition to claiming that the Democrat is "committed to working toward solutions that serve all Alaskans," Murkowski claimed that he would "put our state first."

RELATED: Conservatives demand competition — except in their own primaries

Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Kreiss-Tomkins expressed gratitude to Murkowski for her endorsement and stated, "Alaskans deserve a government that can work through disagreements and make progress on the issues that matter."

The campaigns of Republican gubernatorial candidates Dave Bronson, Treg Taylor, and Bernadette Wilson did not respond to Blaze News' requests for comment.

Taylor said in a statement on Facebook, however, that Murkowski's decision was "particularly disappointing."

The Cook Political Report said that the gubernatorial race was leaning Democrat as of Oct. 13.

Murkowksi has been critical of current Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, telling KTUU-TV this week that she has "found fault" with him.

"I think that they have left federal money on the table," said Murkowski. "I think in certain areas, where we have worked hard to put opportunities from the federal side, here, into the state, the state has failed with it."

This isn't the first time that Murkowski has endorsed a radical Democrat.

In October 2024, the senator endorsed the failed re-election bid of then-Rep. Mary Peltola — a pro-abortion Democrat who voted against Republican legislation that would have barred males from girls' sports.

Peltola, who is now running for the U.S. Senate, also enjoyed reinforcement from Murkowski earlier this year in the wake of allegations that the Democrat — who had the second-highest staff turnover rate in the U.S. House during her final year in office — roughed up an aide, threw around the term "retarded," and wished death by "botched abortion" on the board of a Planned Parenthood chapter.

This also isn't the first time that Murkowski has thrown caltrops in Republicans' way.

In recent months, she unsuccessfully fought Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation; repeatedly voted against funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection; voted to rein in President Donald Trump's war powers; voted to block Trump's tariffs; voted unsuccessfully to keep taxpayers on the hook for USAID and other foreign funding; voted against multiple Trump nominees, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Under Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao; campaigned against the SAVE America Act; and complained with Democrats about ex-FBI Director James Comey's indictment.

Murkowski's endorsement of Kreiss-Tomkins comes just days after Trump called her "Republicans' Worst Senator" and a "DISGRACE to Alaska and our Country."

"You just don't get any worse!"

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