The Flock camera debate turns physical.

A candidate running for Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District is now facing felony charges after authorities say he admitted to shooting down four automated license plate reader cameras — including at least one made by Flock Safety, the surveillance company at the center of a growing national privacy fight.

‘Gotta ban these dadgum things.’

Last week, Adam Lee Heimerman, 37, of Lenoir City, was arrested and charged with four counts of felony vandalism.

According to the Blount County Sheriff’s Office and Maryville Police Department, Heimerman admitted to investigators that he used a gun to shoot four automated license plate reader systems over the span of nine days in July.

According to a statement from police, the damaged cameras were first discovered on July 25 — three in Blount County and one in the City of Maryville — prompting a joint investigation by the two agencies.

Officials said evidence showed Heimerman accessed one of the systems from the “property of a house of worship” while a church service was under way.

RELATED: The truth about Flock cameras: ‘We are the sheep, and they are controlling us’

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The congressional hopeful is now being held at the Blount County Correctional Facility on bonds totaling $40,000, with a hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Blount County General Sessions Court.

Since his arrest, Heimerman has received a remarkable amount of support.

A GoFundMe started on Friday has raked in over $12,000 from more than 360 donors.

Rather than focus on the felony vandalism charges, the fundraiser casts Heimerman as a longtime Tennessean standing up for personal freedom, privacy, and government oversight, with the money earmarked for his defense attorneys.

RELATED: Flock off, Axon on

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Heimerman is running as an independent candidate for Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District, facing off against Democratic candidate Michaela Barnett and Republican incumbent Tim Burchett.

Burchett, one of Congress’ loudest critics of Flock, has been blunt about his objections to the technology. He previously told reporters that lawmakers “gotta ban these dadgum things,” arguing that Americans should never have to choose between safety and liberty.

He recently introduced a bill that would bar federal agencies from buying or accessing automated surveillance systems and that would prevent state and local agencies from using federal funds to purchase them, citing Fourth Amendment concerns.

Under Burchett’s proposal, counties could still contract with Flock — they’d just have to pay for the privilege themselves.

Barnett, the Democratic candidate, has also spoken out against Flock cameras and other mass surveillance tools — although, as one outlet dryly noted, she has not proposed destroying them.

Asked by Military.com about Heimerman’s case, Barnett’s campaign stood by the underlying grievance but condemned the method. “The answer is not the unsafe discharge of a weapon in public spaces,” Barnett said.

Beyond Heimerman’s case, in neighboring Knox County, Mayor Glenn Jacobs — the former WWE wrestler known as Kane — put a hold on the local sheriff’s plan to install 270 Flock cameras, arguing the technology raises Fourth Amendment concerns.

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​Federal agencies, Felony charges, Fourth amendment, Government oversight, License plate reader, Tennessee, Us house, Vandalism, Mass surveillance, Tim burchett, Politics 

Governors Spencer Cox (R-Utah) and Kevin Stitt (R-Okla.) are giddy at the prospect of working with Democrats to import more migrants.

Cox pledged himself to the National Governors Association Task Force on Immigration Policy alongside longtime Trump critic Stitt, Wes Moore (D-Md.), and Matt Meyer (D-Del.) in a Bloomberg interview on Saturday. The four shared a bipartisan love-fest before slamming federal immigration policy and ICE.

‘States that did not face the invasion Texas confronted should not dictate terms that reopen the door.’

“We all care — Republicans and Democrats — about a secure border,” Cox said.

“We were together in February and having a conversation about immigration, and we were all shocked at the level of bipartisanship, cooperation, and agreement,” Cox said. “We were really stunned that everybody had kind of the same opinions on what needed to be done.”

Those “same opinions” seemed to revolve around the agribusiness, construction, and hospitality lobbies’ labor demands. It’s an approach that sees illegal immigration as a workforce resource rather than a crime.

“The reason I set this task force up is because I realized by talking to my colleagues that they’re having the same issues,” Stitt told Bloomberg’s Christina Ruffini. “They’re having the calls from their workforce community — whether it’s agriculture, whether it’s construction or hospitality — and they’re saying we’re overthinking this issue. Let’s actually have the governors issue workforce permits.”

The NGA’s approach mirrors a recent bill introduced by Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) that would allow states to control their own work visa policies and circumvent federal immigration enforcement.

RELATED: Pro-amnesty Utah Republican introduces last-ditch bill to import more migrants

Heather Diehl/Getty Images

“I’m wondering if you think the way ICE and DHS have been going about this process has been effective, by a show of hands,” Bloomberg asked the governors.

Neither Republican governor raised his hand.

When asked about his concerns with Trump’s approach, Cox pointed to “the violence and the deaths that we’ve seen” amid Minnesota enforcement actions, calling them “deeply problematic.”

Cox refused to vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020. He intended to withhold his vote again in 2024, but finally relented after Trump was nearly killed in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In 2022, Charlie Kirk called for Cox’s expulsion from the Republican Party after the governor supported keeping trans-identifying male athletes in women’s sports.

“We’re not using common sense right now,” Stitt continued.

“I’ll give you a perfect example. We had a person from Vietnam that’s been in Oklahoma City for 25 years, legally in the United States, with a green card, working at Hobby Lobby,” Stitt said.

“Twenty-five years ago, they got caught smoking marijuana. At that time, they self-deported, then came back legally. … They’ve been a great citizen chasing the American dream, but they’ve been picked up for deportation now.”

Stitt received Trump’s endorsement and fundraising aid in 2022, but endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 primaries. Trump later referred to him as a “RINO Governor” and requested intermediaries tell Stitt to “go f**k himself,” according to NOTUS.

Cox and Stitt may have found common ground with Democrat governors, but at least one Republican governor, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, disagrees with them on this issue.

“Governor Abbott will not support proposals that create new incentives for illegal entry or that treat those already here unlawfully as a ready labor pool. Texas jobs belong to Texans,” Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mehalaris told Blaze News. “States that did not face the invasion Texas confronted should not dictate terms that reopen the door.”

An agenda for the NGA Task Force on Immigration Policy has yet to be released.

Cox, Stitt, Moore, Meyer, and the NGA did not respond to requests for comment.

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​Kevin stitt, Oklahoma, Spencer cox, Utah, Immigration, Politics 

Residents of Massachusetts will have to live with more illegal aliens among them after the Democrat-controlled government passed the “strongest” protections against Immigration and Customs Enforcement yet.

Gov. Maura Healey (D-Mass.) signed the Protect Act on Wednesday in a ceremony at an economic development agency in the city of Chelsea.

‘ICE is so wrong in what it’s doing, and ICE needs to be stopped, here in Massachusetts and around this country, just stopped in its tracks.’

Healey claimed the law included the “strongest” protections for illegal aliens against ICE.

“I think we can agree that we need immigration reform in this country,” Healey said to reporters. “We can agree we need controls at the border. We can also agree that ICE is so wrong in what it’s doing, and ICE needs to be stopped, here in Massachusetts and around this country, just stopped in its tracks.”

The bill will restrict ICE agents from performing civil immigration arrests without a warrant at courthouses, schools, child care centers, and health care facilities.

Healey said the fear of ICE operations has led the immigrant community in Chelsea to stop going to doctor appointments and to take their kids out of school. Chelsea schools have reported a decline in attendance.

She also claimed that ICE agents at courthouses have kept witnesses and others from showing up to their hearings.

“This is what ICE is doing to our people and our neighborhoods,” Healey said. “All of this done by ICE agents, who are untrained, unqualified, and unfit to do their jobs.”

RELATED: Sheriff pushes back against edict from New York governor to END cooperation with ICE

The Trump administration has increased immigration enforcement this summer, leading to a record number of detentions for the month of July, according to records obtained by CBS News.

“The Protect Act is the strongest law in the country to protect people from ICE, and to protect public safety,” Healey concluded.

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​Department of homeland security, Immigration and customs enforcement, Illegal immigration, Politics, Maura healey 

The 37-year-old male accused of starting the devastating Old Trails Fire in Spokane, Washington — which has displaced more than 60,000 people since Saturday — was convicted of killing his father in Arizona, officials told KPNX-TV.

The station, citing records, said Aaron Farinacci was convicted over a decade ago of manslaughter and aggravated assault after killing his father.

‘It was citizens who were paying attention to their surroundings, being aware and willing to step up and say something, that led to the relatively quick apprehension of Mr. Farinacci.’

Farinacci was released from prison six years ago, KPNX said, and he was arrested Monday on a first-degree arson charge.

“Mr. Farinacci is a convicted felon out of the state of Arizona,” Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said, according to the station. “Major crimes detectives in Spokane County were able to identify him. They developed probable cause and determined the origin of the fire was indeed exactly where the witnesses had seen Mr. Farinacci kneeling in the grass earlier that day.”

According to the sheriff, a witness said Farinacci was bending down near some grass and looked nervous — and then the witness said smoke was coming from the area soon after, KPNX reported.

The sheriff added to the station that Farinacci was carrying waterproof matches and butane when he was arrested.

Spokane County Jail records indicate that Farinacci remained behind bars Wednesday on a $1 million bond.

“As it happens in so many critical cases, it was citizens who were paying attention to their surroundings, being aware and willing to step up and say something, that led to the relatively quick apprehension of Mr. Farinacci,” Sheriff Nowels said, according to KREM-TV.

RELATED: Video: Thug throws Molotov cocktail at man in wheelchair, setting him on fire — right in front of police headquarters

Documents show that Farinacci pleaded guilty to shooting and killing his father in October 2010 amid a domestic dispute, KREM reported in a separate story.

Farinacci, 21 years old at the time, was in the dining room with his mother and adoptive father when he got into an argument with his father over doing the dishes, KREM said, citing records.

More from KREM:

The man then retreated into his parents’ bedroom, and his father followed, opening the bedroom door with a key. Documents show that Farinacci armed himself with a gun kept in the room and shot his father, striking him in the face, and then shot him again in the back as his father turned to leave.

Farinacci ran from the scene and then “shot himself in the chest with the same gun he used to shoot his father,” according to documents.

Farinacci told police that the shooting was an accident and that he felt he “deserved to be sentenced to prison as he took someone’s life.”

Farinacci was convicted of manslaughter and aggravated assault in 2012, KREM said, adding that records show he was released from prison in 2020 and discharged from probation in 2024 while living with a girlfriend in Washington state.

Farinacci, a Spokane resident, has no previous history of arson, KREM said.

The Old Trails Fire has become the most destructive fire in Spokane history, KREM added, forcing more than 60,000 people to evacuate and burning down at least 700 homes.

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​Arson charge, Spokane fire, Old trails fire, Washington state, Arizona, Manslaughter conviction, Son kills father, Aaron farinacci, Arrest, Crime 

The WNBA’s Atlanta Dream held a Barbie Night on Monday in celebration of star player Angel Reese getting her own doll, but Reese’s pregame comments are what stole the show.

With her mini-me sitting on the table in front of her, Reese made a bold claim for the ages that brought more unneeded politics into a league that could sorely use a break.

‘I didn’t have dolls that really look like me.’

Barbie basics

Reporters were lobbing softball questions to Reese before the game, with one journalist referring to the player as “Barbie” before asking how it feels to be the first Atlanta-based athlete to have a doll modeled after her.

“It feels amazing,” Reese replied. “To be at first always means a lot. Especially [since] there’s a lot of women that have come before me.”

Following up with another beach ball, the reporter asked, “What were some of the dolls you played with when you were little?”

Reese immediately turned to identity politics for her answer:

“Honestly, I didn’t have a lot of dolls because I didn’t have dolls that really look like me much,” the baller claimed. “And that’s why I kind of really wanted to make sure this was super intentional because, now that they have a doll that that looks like you and nails and hair, but also you can be a killer on the court as well. So that was something that was important for me when getting the doll.”

Reese’s baffling claim defies all known Barbie history, which launched its first black doll named Francie in 1966, billed as Barbie’s cousin. Christie followed in 1968, Barbie’s friend. Creator Mattel then went against its own storyline in 1980 when it released Black Barbie.

RELATED: WNBA coach counter-protests Sophie Cunningham with ‘trans kids’ shirt — Caitlin Clark responds

Doll partisans

Reese was born in 2002, the same year several major doll lines featured prominent black characters. This included Bratz doll Sasha and My Scene doll Madison. My Scene released a Jamaican line of dolls in 2003 as well.

In 2005, music group Destiny’s Child (which included Beyonce) had its own Barbie dolls.

These dolls are not cherry-picked; the examples are widespread.

Reese’s new doll is part of the Barbie Signature lineup that is now sold at $38 each on Mattel’s website. Other dolls in the same line include one modeled after singer Miley Cyrus, astronaut Ellen Ochoa, and Juneteenth activist Opal Lee.

NBA icon LeBron James even has a Barbie doll too.

RELATED: WNBA deletes ‘lighthearted’ video that would actually get players in other leagues banned for life

Paras Griffin/Getty Images

Celebrity thoughts

Reese’s statement is reminiscent of bold celebrity claims in recent years that likely sounded groundbreaking during inner monologues, only to be laughable when they were verbalized.

This includes actor Jennifer Lawrence’s 2022 idea that “nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie” before her “Hunger Games” films. This was debunked in seconds when viewers pointed to Sigourney Weaver in 1979’s “Alien” or the many subsequent “Resident Evil” and “Underworld” movies.

In 2024, action star Lucy Liu claimed that before her film “Charlie’s Angels,” the media “had never before had three women on a magazine cover.”

“They didn’t even know how to do it. It was such a strange thing for women to collaborate and be seen as colleagues and friends,” she added.

This claim ignored the history of the original “Charlie’s Angels,” who shared not only a 1976 cover of People magazine but also Time magazine that same year. Liu went on to make false statements about female television leads as well.

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​Wnba, Angel reese, Lebron james, Barbie, Miley cyrus, Lifestyle 

Pennsylvania Democrats have long enjoyed an incredible advantage: a massive lead in registered voters that gave the party a built-in edge heading into every election.

But according to BlazeTV hosts Nick Freitas and Christian Hines, that advantage is disappearing — and it’s all thanks to a boots-on-the-ground approach headed by the late, great Charlie Kirk.

“While the Senate fights over the SAVE Act and whether or not we can actually rely on our elections anymore, Pennsylvania, of all places, has handed Democrats a huge loss,” Freitas begins.

“Democrats used to have a major voter registration lead in pretty much every election. This week, that lead got cut significantly, and the number left standing should terrify anyone planning a Democratic campaign in 2028 in Pennsylvania,” he says.

And as Hines notes, “For as long as the records have existed, Pennsylvania has been an overwhelmingly Democrat state in terms of party registration.”

Even as recently as 2012, there were “over a million more registered Democrats in the state than Republicans.”

Now, he says, there’s “not even evidence, there’s hard numbers that show that that advantage has basically disappeared.”

And head of the Citizens Alliance of America Cliff Maloney had a lot to do with this change.

“For many years, I’ve kind of had this idea that door-knocking is the lost art on the right that the left has kind of mastered, right?” Maloney tells Freitas and Hines.

So, when Charlie Kirk and Turning Point reached out and asked Maloney if Citizens Alliance of America would focus on door-knocking in Pennsylvania, he jumped at the opportunity.

“Not registering voters, not doing GOTV, but solving the major problem, which was failing to compete when it came to vote-by-mail,” he explains.

“We knocked 510,000 doors, and Trump ended up getting 34.5% against Kamala Harris. This changed my life,” he says.

“When I went out and we were delivering the White House on that night, the Democrats had an active voter registration advantage of over 200,000 — 200,000. … The fact that that is down into the 20,000s is just absolutely wild to talk about which direction Pennsylvania’s going,” he adds.

“Things are getting done,” Freitas comments. “You proved it with respect to what you can do when people stop just complaining on X and actually get up, start knocking doors, start doing the things that actually move the needle within these races.”

Start watching Nick Freitas now at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Charlie kirk, Donald trump, Kamala harris, Vote by mail, White house, Registered voters, Democrats, Republicans, Pennsylvania, Nick freitas, Christian hines, Save act, Cliff maloney, Blazetv show 

As data centers continue to sprout up around the country, some leaders have begun reassessing and responding to many communities’ concerns about their impact.

On Monday, Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) announced a comprehensive data center audit as concerns grow around many of the projects.

‘Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life.’

Abbott directed the two relevant Texas agencies, the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, to conduct a full audit on all data center projects, pausing all projects until they successfully complete the process.

The audit itself demands that these data centers demonstrate their impact on local communities. The audit will specifically require answers regarding water and electricity usage, as well as solutions to reduce noise and light pollution, among other concerns.

“Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” said Abbott. “Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”

RELATED: Fossil fuels fuel the AI boom: Microsoft and Chevron partner on massive Texas energy project

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

While these concerns have been repeatedly raised by citizens across the country, Abbott is also requiring data centers to provide information on ownership and controlling interests and, crucially, how they are paying for the construction and maintenance.

The audit will require data centers to show the extent to which they are “paying their own way” or relying on cushy tax breaks.

Texas has positioned itself as one of the best states for data center projects, due in large part to the tax incentives granted as an investment by the state. These incentives, however, are under increased scrutiny as data center projects have skyrocketed in the state.

Earlier this year, the Texas Tribune reported, citing the Texas comptroller’s office, that Texas stands to lose out on $3.2 billion in sales tax revenue over the next two years from this tax break alone.

The governor’s press release reports that 90% of new power requests, totaling a massive 474 gigawatts in capacity, came from new data center projects, yet doubt has been cast on these projects holding up their side of the bargain.

In a July 27 Texas Senate Committee on Finance hearing on data centers, Brad Reynolds, chief revenue estimator for the comptroller’s office, gave testimony that of 138 new data centers that have come in for certification but are not yet verified for the sales tax exemption, only 20 of them have been audited.

What’s more, according to Reynolds, six of the 20 were found to be noncompliant with the requirements for the tax exemption.

In June, Abbott set in motion a plan to reexamine the legal framework and incentives in place, specifically pledging to work with the legislature to “repeal” sales tax exemptions and other “outdated” incentives for data centers.

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​Data centers, Water usage, Greg abbott, Texas, Politics 

BMW is assuring its drivers that the company is not pushing ads on them.

Drivers of 2020 BMWs and beyond may have a different take, because since the end of July, there has been a sponsored feature available to them without asking for it.

‘I hate this so much.’

Not an ad

To celebrate “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” the next flick in the seemingly unending franchise, BMW introduced “a special surprise” for its drivers: an ad.

That’s not how BMW sees it, though. Though the short video features a new BMW model, shows Spider-Man on the side of a nearby building, and tells viewers the movie is exclusively in theaters, BMW assures its customers that what they are seeing is not an advertisement.

The animation is “designed to provide customers with optional themed animations and messages linked to a range of global and local occasions,” BMW told Business Insider. “It is not a form of advertising.”

However, the “animation” doesn’t require the user to do any searching to find it. According to BMW’s own press release, simply starting the car brings up a “special banner” on the display, which can be clicked on to start the video.

“This is crossing the line,” one BMW driver said while showcasing the video.

RELATED: Is America still a ‘first world’ country? Not compared to Japan

At the drive-in

Not all BMW owners will have to suffer through their friendly neighborhood superhero’s appearance, though. Only those driving models capable of forced updates will see the video.

BMW says any of its cars equipped with BMW Operating System 7, 8, 8.5, 9, or BMW Operating System X will see the updates so long as they were produced after July 2020.

Moreover, BMW told website the Autopian that the in-vehicle animation is part of “a broader brand partnership with the film.”

“A few of our vehicles — including the BMW iX3 — were in the film, and a special edition iX3 was featured on the red carpet during last night’s premiere in Los Angeles,” the carmaker added.

Author Jason Torchinsky went on to say, “No one needs to have this shoved at them in their cars.”

“I hate this so much. Maybe beyond rationality,” he wrote.

RELATED: Actor Jon Bernthal calls pit bull fear ‘ridiculous’: ‘It’s just dog racism’

A 2020 BMW 3. Manfred Schmid/Getty Images

Bono bungle

The forced injection of media is reminiscent of the great U2/iTunes fiasco of 2014.

U2 frontman Bono (Paul David Hewson) apologized to iTunes users at the time after his album “Songs of Innocence” was forcibly downloaded onto their iPhones and iPods.

“Oops, I’m sorry about that,” Bono said, per the Guardian.

The singer barely offered any regret, chalking the move up to an attempt to parse through media “noise.”

“I had this beautiful idea, and we kind of got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing. Drop of megalomania, touch of generosity, dash of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years mightn’t be heard. There’s a lot of noise out there. I guess we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it.”

The “Songs of Innocence” album went on to become one of U2’s worst-selling albums.

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​Cars, U2, Bmw, Spider-man, Lifestyle 

The Democratic Party is undergoing a hostile takeover by democratic socialists and similarly minded radicals who’ve made no secret of their contempt for the United States and desire to transform it into something wholly unrecognizable.

After electoral successes in Colorado and New York, the Democratic Socialists of America enjoyed another victory on Tuesday in Michigan with DSA-backed state Rep. Donavan McKinney handily beating Rep. Shri Thanedar and Islamic leftist Abdul El-Sayed defeating Haley Stevens, the candidate preferred by the Democratic establishment, for the U.S. Senate nomination.

‘What’s the point of tolerating that?’

Prior to this latest Democratic primary bloodbath, blue-collar hero and former host of “Dirty Jobs” Mike Rowe weighed in on the party’s embrace of “an ideology that has been proven, demonstrably, to be a really bad idea.”

In a lengthy post that prompted the usual suspects to melt down, Rowe noted that it was “alarming to see how quickly communism has been embraced by so many, but it’s even more alarming, to see how many have yet to condemn it, in favor of sheltering under a ‘big tent.'”

Establishment Democrats, impotent to stop their party’s takeover, have resorted in recent days to “big tent” talk as an apparent means of coping.

When asked, for instance, whether he was comfortable with El-Sayed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during a press conference on Tuesday, “Look, we are a big tent party, and being a big tent party is a strength, not a weakness.”

RELATED: Democratic socialist leader goes on Fox and admits every extreme thing they want to do

History/Universal Images Group/Getty Images (L); Spencer Platt/Getty Images (R)

Earlier this month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) similarly downplayed concerns over the DSA’s ascendancy, stating, “Progressives in San Francisco were the early versions of the DSA. I’ve seen this all my life. I think it’s incredibly healthy.” Newsom added that he’s for “addition … not for subtraction.”

“Not that anyone asked me, but … wow,” Rowe wrote. “The candidates that Newsom is referring to here are not subtle. They have clearly articulated precisely what they want, and exactly what they will try to accomplish if they gain power. No borders. No police. No prisons. No Senate. From each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities, and so forth. They are literally quoting Karl Marx, and they are literally on the record as desiring to completely dismantle our government and replace it with actual communism.”

Rather than embracing bona fide communists, Rowe recommended that Democrats make a “reasonable appeal to Independents, and those not on board with this administration” and “affirmatively distance themselves from an ideology that has caused more human suffering than any other scheme dreamt up by man.”

“If the DSA continues to grow in popularity, and the Democrats actually campaign on their behalf, I think it’ll be the largest political blunder in my lifetime,” added Rowe, a self-identified independent.

His post generated a great deal of conversation — and backlash — on social media, especially on Facebook, where the post had over 8,500 comments. Rowe then engaged in the dirty job of reading and responding to some of his critics.

In addition to leaning into his criticism of leftist lunacies, Rowe torpedoed the suggestion that some of the DSA candidates aren’t communists simply because they identify as socialists; highlighted instances where prominent Democrats quote directly from “The Communist Manifesto”; refuted false equivalencies and efforts to paint Republicans as Nazis; and underscored that it’s foolish to characterize age-old conservative principles as “Trumpian.”

At the risk of ruffling even more feathers, Rowe noted that if one of America’s two major parties “is affirmatively determined to transform our democratic republic into a communist state, then we’re no longer debating the various ways to make our country better; we’re debating the merits of destroying it. And really, what’s the point of tolerating that?”

DSA national co-chair Megan Romer proudly admitted in a recent interview that her organization seeks, among other things, to eliminate the Senate; replace the presidency and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary handpicked and overseen by Congress; abolish U.S. borders and grant amnesty to all illegal aliens presently residing in the country; defund the Pentagon; abolish prisons; and seize public control of most large corporations.

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​Communism, Democratic party, Democratic socialists, Mike rowe, Chuck schumer, Michigan, Shri thanedar, Abdul el-sayed, Politics 

Mike Bouchard has no delusions about the daunting task that lies ahead of him.

“This is going to be one of the toughest races in the country,” Bouchard admitted to Blaze News.

‘When I got in this race, I got in this race because I planned to win. … We’re going to win in November.’

Bouchard, a 32-year-old Michigan Army National Guard captain and the son of longtime Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, easily secured the Republican nomination for Michigan’s 10th Congressional District on Tuesday night.

“I want to thank the voters of the 10th District for putting their faith in me,” Bouchard said in a statement after his race was called.

“They didn’t vote for a candidate — they voted for a mission. I’ve worn the uniform of our nation and faced America’s enemies abroad. Now the job is here at home: rebuild Michigan manufacturing, keep our families safe, and put this district first. I’m ready to deliver on day one.”

The 10th District is about as purple as it gets, encompassing most of Macomb County, considered a bellwether in presidential elections. Rep. John James, who just won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Michigan, has held the seat for the past four years, but he won election in 2022 by the narrowest of margins: just 1,600 votes.

One major challenge Bouchard anticipates as he gears up for a battle against Democrat Christine Hines, who also cruised to victory in the primary, is funding. “This is going to be one of the most expensive races in the country. Because we’re in the new trend media market, it’s going to be extremely expensive,” Bouchard said.

Bouchard indicated that raising funds for his campaign has been a difficult adjustment for him, especially considering his background. “I hate asking for money. I hate asking for things. I’m in the military. You are what you bring to the table every day,” he explained.

Still, Bouchard says his campaign has managed to collect a significant number of small donations from across the area.

He also holds a Trump card. On June 22, President Donald Trump issued a “Complete and Total Endorsement” of Bouchard.

RELATED: Biden border betrayal, political violence, and devotion to veterans spark captain’s congressional bid

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“As your next Congressman, Mike will fight tirelessly to Grow our Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Strengthen our incredible Military/Veterans, Advance Election Integrity, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” Trump posted to Truth Social.

Bouchard called earning Trump’s endorsement an “honor” and claimed that it has fueled him to work even harder on this campaign.

“I was incredibly honored to receive this endorsement, but I was also really excited to start getting to work to get things done better,” Bouchard said.

“You know, the president, he’s taken a bullet for this country. Not a lot of politicians can say that.”

In fact, Bouchard suggested that Trump’s tough “peace through strength” approach in the Middle East may even have saved his life during his time in Iraq last year. Bouchard claimed that while he was there, he and the other soldiers on base received word about an impending attack from some “Iranian-aligned Iraqi militia” who outnumbered them about eight to one.

“I remember I was putting grenades in my pockets. I was putting magazines. We were grabbing as much ammo as we could just to prepare,” Bouchard recalled. “And they never came, never attacked. … So we talked to some people who knew them and they knew us, and they said they didn’t attack our base because they knew that President Trump’s administration and the commander in chief of the U.S. military would kill them all.”

RELATED: ‘Warfighter’ son of a popular Michigan sheriff is now gunning for Congress

Mike Bouchard hugs father Sheriff Mike Bouchard at a campaign event on August 1. Blaze News

Though Bouchard expects the congressional race against Hines to be close, he remains confident: “When I got in this race, I got in this race because I planned to win. … We’re going to win in November.”

“I think a lot of voters feel that whenever they send somebody to Lansing or D.C., they don’t get the everyday representation they want. It’s my promise to them that I’m going to be present. I’m going to see them all the way through my time in D.C.,” he added.

Bouchard’s father, who has been Oakland County sheriff since January 1999, likewise believes that his son faces a real “battle” in November but that he will ultimately prevail because the Democratic Party has shifted too far to the left.

“In this district, hardworking men and women who are in both parties don’t identify with socialism and feminism. They identify with hard work, rolling their sleeves up, and doing the right thing every day. And whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, the choice is clear in this election cycle that my son in this district represents that embodiment,” Bouchard Sr. told Blaze News.

“He wants to serve the country, and he wants to protect the affordability of the American ideals that come with it. That’s why he put on the uniform.”

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​Macomb county, Michigan, Mike bouchard, Politics 

Another nemesis of President Donald Trump has bitten the dust, politically speaking.

Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) has voted as a far-left radical since he was first elected to Congress in 2022. He has even introduced articles of impeachment against Sec. of War Pete Hegseth, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, and, of course, the president himself.

The district is a safe Democrat seat.

But Thanedar was always an awkward fit for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. He was born in India, often speaks in broken English, and doesn’t really even seem to know the area. A year ago, Thanedar went viral for all the wrong reasons after he struggled to name a city in his district other than Detroit.

Earlier this year, Thanedar seemingly threatened Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, warning him during a congressional hearing, “You better hope you get pardoned.” And like Tony Fauci, Thanedar has also been accused of harming beagles, though he has denied wrongdoing.

Despite the controversies, this year, Thanedar once again asked the people in his district for their vote. This time, they said no.

RELATED: It’s time to ban foreign-born lawmakers — Ilhan Omar and Shri Thanedar prove why

In the Democratic primary election on Tuesday, democratic socialist challenger Donavan McKinney quickly jumped out to a lead, and with 99% of votes counted, McKinney ultimately defeated Thanedar, 51.9% to 48.1%.

Thanedar conceded defeat before noon on Wednesday: “This morning, I called Rep. Donavan McKinney and congratulated him on his win. I offered him full cooperation and a smooth transition.”

The district is a safe Democrat seat, and McKinney is expected to coast to victory over Republican Taras “T.P.” Nykoriak in November.

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​Shri thanedar, Donald trump, Michigan, Anthony fauci, Politics 

The youngest black professor in Cambridge University’s 800-year history is under attack.

At least that’s what some of Britain’s most prominent academics, politicians, and racial activists would like you to believe.

Anyone curious about why the allegations refuse to disappear can examine some of the evidence for himself.

“Rightwing newspapers are trying to smear him with fake accusations of plagiarism,” declares a petition organized by the Good Law Project. “We can’t let them.”

The letter describes the allegations against Jason Arday as “entirely false” and repeatedly calls them “baseless,” while warning that continued scrutiny of the Cambridge professor sends a dangerous message to “aspiring Black and Brown young people.”

Among the signatories are members of Parliament, peers, professors, the leader and deputy leader of Britain’s Green Party, a Black Lives Matter organizer, and, perhaps most remarkably, the master of Arday’s own Jesus College at Cambridge.

These are educated people, so presumably they know what “baseless” means.

An accusation is baseless when there is no factual basis for making it. Whatever else can be said about the allegations against Arday, that plainly isn’t true.

Researchers didn’t simply announce that they suspected him of plagiarism. They produced side-by-side comparisons identifying extensive passages in Arday’s academic work that appeared identical or strikingly similar to previously published scholarship. Universities and journals subsequently investigated those allegations and declined to find intentional misconduct.

That is evidence that Arday may have been wrongly accused of plagiarism. It does not magically erase the evidence that prompted the accusations — the basis for these accusations, if you will.

‘Unlikely story’

Arday himself has acknowledged errors in his academic work while denying deliberate plagiarism. As questions have spread from his scholarship to the extraordinary claims in his biography, he has offered a simple defense: “Nobody lives their life having a receipt for every single thing they say or they’ve done.”

Fair enough. But few people have a résumé quite like Jason Arday’s.

A man who couldn’t read until he was 18 goes on to earn a doctorate and become a professor at Cambridge University. Along the way, he runs 30 marathons in 35 days, the final nine with a broken leg. He raises £5.5 million for charity. He runs 600 miles in six days. He survives a brain tumor. He plays semi-professional football. He appears as a child on a celebrated television documentary series.

Even the Guardian, in a glowing 2023 profile, called Arday’s biography “an unlikely story.”

In retrospect it does sound a little too good to be true.

But then came the details that turned an old-fashioned inspirational story into something considerably more valuable in our DEI-obsessed era: Arday achieved all of this while overcoming poverty, autism, and the disadvantages of growing up black, the son of Ghanaian immigrants, on a council estate in south London.

Now it was too good not to be true.

No fact-checking, please

And therein lies the problem.

Arday wasn’t merely an extraordinarily accomplished man. He embodied a story that Britain’s academic and media establishment desperately wanted to tell: about race, class, disability, perseverance, and the institutions enlightened enough to recognize his brilliance.

Once enough people had invested in that story, questioning it meant questioning considerably more than Jason Arday. What would once have been called fact-checking now required something closer to apostasy: risking running afoul of elite culture’s modish yet already entrenched creed about race, adversity, and its own enlightened virtue.

The moratorium on skepticism now appears to be over. One of the peculiarities of groupthink is how quickly it can run in reverse: once somebody finally pulls the first thread, everyone else suddenly becomes quite eager to participate in the unraveling.

The plagiarism allegations came first. Then journalists began attempting to confirm the extraordinary athletic and charitable claims that had been repeated for years. Arday acknowledged that his supposed 600-mile run took 12 days, not six, and that he had not personally raised £5.5 million for charity but had participated in a fundraising syndicate of around 100 people.

Who were the other 99?

Arday says he can’t name them because he signed a non-disclosure agreement.

Run, Forrest, run

Then there’s Arday’s Forrest Gump-like brush with British television history.

During a 2022 talk, Arday recalled appearing as a child on “Seven Up,” the landmark British documentary project that began following a group of 7-year-olds and returned to them every seven years. Arday said he participated at 7 and was removed from the project at 14.

There’s a problem.

“Seven Up” first aired in 1964. Its subjects were born in 1957. Arday was born in 1985.

The BBC later produced a similar series called “Up: Millennium Generation,” but that began in 2000, when Arday was 15. The BBC says he wasn’t in that one either.

His academic résumé reveals similar discrepancies.

Arday’s official Jesus College biography lists him as a visiting professor at both the University of Glasgow and Ohio State University.

The University of Glasgow now says that isn’t true.

“I can confirm that Professor Arday isn’t a visiting professor at the University of Glasgow,” a spokesman told the Herald. Asked whether he had ever held the position, the university was even more categorical: he “was never a visiting professor here.”

The confusion is easy to understand. Arday really was a professor at the University of Glasgow’s School of Education beginning in 2021 before leaving for Cambridge in 2023. Somewhere along the way, however, that former professorship appears to have been transformed into an ongoing visiting one.

Ohio State says it has “no record of an employee by that name.” Arday’s profile specifically places him in Ohio State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which closed last year.

Paper trail

And then there is the matter that started all of this: the plagiarism allegations.

As his defenders are eager to point out, Arday has already been investigated and cleared of deliberate academic misconduct. But anyone curious about why the allegations refuse to disappear can examine some of the evidence for himself.

As far back as 2023, David Harris, professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, had raised concerns with Cambridge about Arday’s published work; three of Arday’s papers were subsequently corrected.

Then on July 21 of this year, former Cambridge academic Nathan Cofnas claimed on his Substack that he ran Arday’s doctoral thesis through plagiarism-detection software and found passages “lifted with minimal editing.” The Telegraph followed with its own reporting, identifying more than 100 passages similar to an earlier doctoral thesis by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers.

Cambridge responded by denouncing what it called a “vile campaign to undermine his credibility.” Even the Guardian acknowledged that the controversial racial views of Harris and Cofnas “appeared to inform Cambridge’s response.”

And there, in miniature, is part of the problem. The evidence could no longer be separated from the supposedly disreputable people who had found it. Asking whether passages had been copied became entangled with asking why these particular men wanted to know.

Receipts, please

As for Arday, he denies deliberately plagiarizing anyone and has attributed some of the problems with his work to his autism. He says his way of making sense of information has relied heavily on mimicry.

“I can’t make people believe me,” he recently told the Times. “Nobody lives their life having a receipt for every single thing they say or they’ve done.”

Certainly not.

But nobody is asking Arday for documentary evidence of what he had for lunch on his 23rd birthday.

Professorships, multimillion-pound charity drives, near-record-breaking athletic achievements, television appearances, and published academic scholarship are precisely the sorts of things that tend to leave receipts.

So do police investigations. Arday previously said that a pig’s head was delivered to his parents’ home as part of a campaign of racial intimidation. He said police investigated and even located a butcher who had sold a whole hog on the morning of the incident.

This time it was the Guardian — three years after publishing one of the glowing profiles that helped establish the Arday legend — that started asking questions.

The Metropolitan Police could find no record of the investigation Arday described. The butcher reportedly identified in his account denied that police had visited.

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Peter Gietl

Don’t ask

Timing is everything. Had the Guardian gone after Arday any earlier, it may have run into the resistance Times Higher Education reporter Jack Grove faced.

In late 2025, Grove began looking into Arday after academics alerted him to apparent plagiarism. He emailed Arday, Cambridge, and Liverpool John Moores with questions about the thesis and Arday’s extraordinary fundraising and endurance-running claims.

For this, Grove ended up under investigation by Scotland Yard.

Police spent four months investigating a harassment complaint before closing the case without taking action. Grove wasn’t interviewed. In fact, he says he didn’t even know he had been investigated until an officer called to tell him the case had been closed.

The officer nevertheless asked Grove not to contact Arday again because, according to Grove, his questions had affected the professor’s mental health.

Arday also hired Carter-Ruck, the famously aggressive British law firm. In a letter to Times Higher Education, it suggested the publication’s “apparent attack” on him might be “racially motivated.”

Cambridge says it neither made the complaint against Grove nor knew one had been made.

New rules

How did so many extraordinary claims get this far?

Arday’s Cambridge professorship was decided by a nine-member Board of Electors chaired by Baroness Sally Morgan, master of Fitzwilliam College and a deputy to Cambridge’s vice chancellor. Cambridge says the other members included “distinguished academics from other universities.”

This was the culmination of a rapid ascent through academia, none of which seemed to have questioned any of Arday’s claims. Simon & Schuster agreed to publish his memoir, “Great and Unfortunate Things,” under its 37 Ink imprint; it comes out next week. Meanwhile, newspapers such as the Guardian celebrated his glittering career and repeated the extraordinary biography that accompanied it.

By the time Cambridge appointed him, Arday’s story had already acquired the reassuring sheen of institutional consensus.

In a new essay entitled “The Racial Crossroads,” Helen Andrews points out that under a sufficiently entrenched ideology, “proficiency in the ruling ideology is a criterion for advancement in any kind of career.”

The Guardian’s 2023 profile is especially instructive because it allowed Arday to demonstrate just that proficiency.

Arday said his appointment represented “another strand of Black excellence.” He described Oxford and Cambridge as “thousand-year-old white establishments” and explained the difficulty faced by a person of color who “penetrates those legacy spaces.” Part of his mission at Cambridge was to dismantle its elitism.

You’re either cheering Arday on, or you’re part of the elitism he has come to dismantle. Once the incentives are made this clear, potential gatekeepers tend to police themselves. A sufficiently confident newcomer need only learn which doors nobody wants to be seen closing.

With that in mind, a line buried in the Guardian profile reads rather differently now.

“Arday does not view himself as intellectual, necessarily, but as someone who has determination,” the Guardian observed.

Or, as Arday himself put it: “If you have the will, it will always supersede skill.”

It’s hard to think of a more apt motto for the diversity regime that helped propel Arday to Cambridge.

​Academia, Black lives matter, Cambridge university, Dei, Diversity equity inclusion, Good law project, Helen andrews, Jason arday, Diversity regime, Plagiarism, United kingdom, Publishing, Culture, Lifestyle, Letter from the uk 

In his June 2026 interview with Vice President JD Vance, Bill Maher noted that the Democratic Party’s direction — specifically the embracing of democratic socialists — could cost it his support.

“If this is where they’re going, my vote is in play,” he admitted.

Although Maher took a lot of flak for his honesty, he has refused to soften his stance. During a recent episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” the longtime Democrat illustrated why his vote was up for grabs by reading aloud statements from the Democratic Socialists of America platform.

His audience audibly gasped.

“This is not a conservative audience. It’s not a church crowd in Tulsa. It’s Los Angeles, an audience that shows up on a Friday night to laugh at Republicans,” says Glenn Beck, who played the clip of Maher.

“Donald Trump has told one trillion lies, but when he says the Democratic Socialists of America are actually communist, that’s not one of them. And it’s not hard to prove it just by quoting the DSA and their candidates,” said Maher.

“’You work as much as you are able and no more than needed,’” he read from the DSA platform, then responded, “If that was any closer to Karl Marx’s dictum ‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,’ they’d be sued for plagiarism.”

He then noted that in 2020, New York City’s socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani actually tweeted this exact quote from Marx.

“Their most popular influencer, Hasan Piker, thinks communism is so groovy, he laments the fall of the two of the most murderous regimes in history: the Soviet Union and Chairman Mao’s China,” Maher continued.

He then turned his sights to Mamdani’s radical housing czar Cea Weaver.

“Cea Weaver said, ‘If you don’t believe in the government’s sacred right to seize property, it’s over’ and ‘impoverish the white middle class,’” Maher quoted.

But it was Weaver’s 2017 tweet — “Elect more communists” — that made the audience gasp.

Maher praised their reaction, saying he was “glad” they were shocked.

Glenn is encouraged too — but even more so that it’s Bill Maher who’s sounding the alarm.

“We’re in a moment here right now, and Bill Maher may be the most important man on the planet to stop this,” he says.

“Everything he said in that entire monologue, and I urge you to go watch the whole thing and then share it, is published. It’s sitting public,” he adds, emphasizing the DSA’s unapologetic communist sentiments.

The country, Glenn says, needs to understand the gravity of the situation we’re in right now right as the DSA grows ever more popular.

On its website, beneath its spiel about creating a communist utopia, is a list of objectives that ought to make our blood run cold. Glenn reads several of them:

“Abolishing the police and prison system”;“Abolishing the Senate”;“Abolishing the electoral college”;“Replacing the president and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by Congress, answerable only to Congress”;“Defunding the Department of War”;“Closing all of our overseas bases”;“Abolishing ICE”;“End to all detention and deportation”;“Amnesty for everyone regardless of status”; and“End to sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran.”

“And in the preamble, the sentence that ties the whole thing together, they are building a party to draft a new Constitution and to create a new Democratic Socialist republic,” Glenn adds.

Many people, he notes, mistakenly believe that DSA supporters are “fringe,” but they’re wrong.

“This isn’t a small organization anymore. On the Fourth of July, they announced they passed 121,000 members, which according to their own numbers, makes them the largest socialist organization in American history, larger than Eugene Debs’ socialist party at its peak in 1912,” says Glenn.

“Also, the Marxist Unity Group Faction, the one that Maher named, holds three of the 25 seats on that national board. Five of their members won congressional primaries this year,” he adds, noting that the “loudest voices” calling out the DSA right now are actually Democrats.

Right now, the most important thing, says Glenn, is not that we “beat” the DSA; it’s that we “provide the introduction” to the DSA, like Maher did for his audience, so that the public can see firsthand the evil agenda it has planned for the country.

To hear more, watch the video above.

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​Glenn beck, Democratic socialism, Democratic socialists of america, Bill maher, Communism, Zohran mamdani, Blazetv show