Is this just another cycle, or is it the END? Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics published an article this week about the so-called Socrates program and how [more…]
SCOTUS delivers Trump much-needed win on the border — and Sen. Cornyn takes another L
The U.S. Supreme Court has delivered the Trump administration a win at the southern border.
The justices voted 8-1 on Monday to stay a federal judge’s injunction barring the construction of border wall in Texas’ Big Bend sector.
‘A single district judge unlawfully blocked the construction of the border wall across almost one-fourth of the southern border.’
Quick background
In February, then-Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the Department of Homeland Security was going to “construct additional barriers and roads in a segment of the border in the Big Bend Sector” — an “area of high illegal entry” where Border Patrol apprehended over 89,000 illegal aliens attempting to steal into the homeland between fiscal years 2021 and 2025.
To expedite the construction process in the approximately 517-mile area, Noem invoked Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which permits the DHS secretary to waive certain laws and regulations — including environmental requirements — for such projects.
Noem’s successor, Markwayne Mullin, signed two additional Section 102 waivers covering the region.
The Center for Biological Diversity — a left-wing environmental activist outfit — sued Mullin, the DHS, and Customs and Border Protection in April in an effort to stop the work. The liberal activist group was joined in its legal challenge by a river guide and a non-profit organization tasked with the preservation of a church in Ruidosa, Texas.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
The plaintiffs cast doubt on whether the Big Bend sector was “an area of high illegal entry” and argued that Mullin had exceeded his statutory authority when he invoked Section 102 to speed up the process.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone, a George W. Bush appointee, obliged the plaintiffs on Oct. 2, ordering the DHS not to “build border barrier or related infrastructure, or engage in any construction or ground disturbing activities, in the Big Bend Sector until and unless Defendants comply with all applicable laws.”
The case was ultimately kicked up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
SCOTUS weighs in
On Monday, the high court granted the Trump administration’s stay of Cardone’s preliminary injunction, noting in an unsigned order that “the Government is exceedingly likely to prevail on its argument that the District Court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate respondents’ so-called major-questions-doctrine claim.”
Rather than alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution, the plaintiffs had instead alleged that Mullin had exceeded his statutory authority, the Supreme Court noted.
“We have long recognized that ‘claims simply alleging’ that the Executive Branch has exceeded its ‘statutory authority are not “constitutional” claims,'” the high court said in the order.
SCOTUS also recognized that Cardone’s injunction both “impedes the Government from advancing its ‘compelling interests’ in border security and integrity,” and is — according to a CBP official — costing taxpayers millions of dollars per week.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter, indicating without explaining why that she would deny the government’s application for a stay of the injunction.
The Center for Biological Diversity whined about the outcome.
“The Trump administration and its contractors are hellbent on destroying one of America’s greatest national parks, and the Supreme Court just gave them the green light,” stated Laiken Jordahl, a member of the group. “This horrific decision clears the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine desert and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether this destruction is legal.”
James Percival, the DHS’ top lawyer, alternatively welcomed the high court’s ruling, stating, “When we filed in the Supreme Court, I called the district court’s order halting wall construction ‘as unprecedented as it is flawed.’ We just won 8-1.”
“This decision is a monumental win for the American people and the nation’s border security,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement obtained by Politico. “A single district judge unlawfully blocked the construction of the border wall across almost one-fourth of the southern border, but was overruled 8-1. Border-wall construction can now continue.”
The SCOTUS order on Monday was issued just hours after the San Antonio Express-News published an op-ed by departing Republican Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) condemning the border wall project.
“A border wall is not the best solution for portions of this environment,” Cornyn wrote. “… Private property owners and local stakeholders have raised serious concerns that a wall would infringe on property rights, cripple local economies, threaten culturally significant Native American sites and disrupt wildlife.”
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Border wall, Customs and border protection, Department of homeland security, Kristi noem, Markwayne mullin, Southern border, Us supreme court, Politics
‘Do not mess around with God’: Forrest Frank’s warning after midterms draws Glenn Beck’s praise
Last week, popular Christian music artist Forrest Frank responded to online celebrations of Democrat midterm wins, including X posts like “we’re gonna invent new genders you haven’t even imagined yet,” “we are gonna trans your kids so bad,” and “*throws Amex down at the abortion clinic* keep the tab open.”
Acknowledging that he tries to “stay out of politics” but sometimes feels compelled to “speak up,” Frank warned, “Do not mess around with God. Do not mess around with the family.”
“The final verse in the Old Testament reads as this: ‘He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers. Otherwise, I will destroy the land,”’ he quoted. “If we lose the family, we lose everything.”
Frank then gave his followers two pieces of advice.
“Pray, discern, read your Word, hold your family tight, lead your family. Let’s be the soldiers that we signed up to be for the kingdom,” he said. “And secondly, be encouraged because God is the victor. He wins. And at the end of the day, every knee will bow.”
BlazeTV co-founder Glenn Beck was moved by Frank’s boldness to step in “political” spaces that are really theological at their core.
“We’re not dealing with politics any more. We are messing with stuff that we should not be messing with,” he says, reiterating Frank’s warning.
While the threats to trans kids and abort more babies were likely intended to be satirical, Glenn knows they aren’t jokes.
“I know you’re not joking about transing vulnerable kids. … ‘We’re going to kill more babies.’ I know you’re not joking about being a communist,” he says, pleading for “God [to] have mercy on all of our souls.”
Even though there are millions of Americans who do not support gender ideology, abortion, and other left-wing initiatives, the country, Glenn explains, will be judged as a whole.
“This country swims or sinks together. A house divided against itself cannot stand. That’s Lincoln,” he says.
“When did he say that? When half the country was saying slavery is right and righteous, and it was being preached from the churches … and then other churches were preaching this is unrighteous.”
Lincoln’s America, Glenn says, “wasn’t divided on something small” but on the paramount question of “freedom or slavery, life or death, brutality or kindness.”
“That’s where we are,” he warns.
But Glenn’s message to his audience isn’t one “of darkness.”
“I want to bring you the message on how important your light is,” he says.
“If they are going to pray for hate, it is essential that you pray for love. You have to pray for peace and life and for our children and their children and our families and their families. We must pray for mercy.”
“Darkness,” says Glenn, “cannot conquer light” — not even “one pin light.”
“Today, that’s you doing whatever it is that you’re called to do in your family, in your job, in your neighborhood, in your office, with your friends, in the grocery store, wherever you are,” he says.
“Be that one pin light. Every decision you make is to counter evil. You are the balance that keeps our country from tipping into darkness.”
To hear more, watch the video above.
Want more from Glenn Beck?
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Christian music, Gender ideology, Glenn beck, Blazetv show
With Trump’s backing, Hegseth vows to fight impeachment
War Secretary Pete Hegseth made abundantly clear on Tuesday that he’s staying in the fight even though Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced eight articles of impeachment on Monday accusing him of high crimes and misdemeanors.
The articles of impeachment from Massie accuse Hegseth of: waging war in contravention of the War Powers Resolution of 1973; “ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties”; ordering extrajudicial killings; suppressing free speech; kidnapping former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro; and conducting an “unlawful war in Yemen.”
The proper remedy for such disagreements is ‘legislation. It’s debate. … It’s not handing the House and Senate floor to the Democrats so that they can run a show trial against the president and the secretary of war.’
At a press conference Tuesday, Hegseth called the impeachment effort a “farce” and a “political spectacle” driven by Massie’s “ego and resentment.”
Hegseth also argued that surrender at this stage would present America’s adversaries with a “propaganda victory” and set the stage for future prosecution of warfighters down the chain of command.
“In the 250 years of our American republic, no secretary of war or secretary of defense has ever been impeached for carrying out lawful military operations,” said Hegseth. He alluded to military interventions in recent decades — in Lebanon, Kosovo, Iraq, and Syria — which did not result in the impeachment of his predecessors.
Hegseth argued that the allegations from Massie are not high crimes and misdemeanors but rather “policy disagreements,” and suggested that the proper remedy for such disagreements is “legislation” and “debate.”
“It’s debate. It’s the next presidential election. It’s not handing the House and Senate floor to the Democrats so that they can run a show trial against the president and the secretary of war while Republicans still control Congress and should be delivering wins for the American people.”
The war secretary further defended his job and refuted Massie’s allegations that various military operations were unlawful, stating, “Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen — every one was a lawful operation ordered by the commander in chief, then ordered by myself, notified to Congress, and executed by American warriors who did their jobs.”
“This is not about me,” said Hegseth. “Politicians in Washington have accused the sailors and the pilots who struck narco-terrorist boats of war crimes for doing their job.”
RELATED: Iran conflict was ‘crucial’ factor in Republican rout: Exit polls
“Put the secretary on trial today, and the men and women who carried out those orders tomorrow,” Hegseth warned.
Hegseth — who dodged a question about Vice President JD Vance’s criticism that Republicans were wiped out in the midterm election because of the Iran conflict — alluded to previous attempts to impeach President Donald Trump and suggested that those pursuing his own ouster now “will fail again.”
President Donald Trump reiterated his support for the war secretary in a Truth Social post on Tuesday morning, writing, “Pete Hegseth gets an ‘A’ PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!”
On Monday, the day before the press conference, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to Blaze News, “Secretary Hegseth will not back down or be deterred by politicians seeking to score partisan points or launch phony investigations where no wrongdoing exists.”
“The Department of War has followed the law and our Secretary will continue to stand and fight every single day to support and defend the Constitution, lead our troops, and protect America.”
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Department of war, Donald trump, Impeachment, Iran, Pentagon, Pete hegseth, Politics, Thomas massie, Venezuela
‘This is how you rig elections’: Stephen Miller’s wife slams Wikipedia for scrubbing Abdul El-Sayed’s past
Political campaigns spend tens of millions trying to clean up their candidates’ public image. Campaign managers buy TV ads. They test slogans in focus groups and flood mailboxes with leaflets that portray swamp creatures as borderline saints. But in modern elections, those traditional PR blitzes matter far less than what happens on a single online reference page.
The recent election of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan offers a textbook case study in how public memory gets manipulated right before voters step into the booth. In recent months, a rather prolific Wikipedia editor using the handle CopyleftEverything has carried out a massive makeover of El-Sayed’s profile page. Between October 10 and November 1, the spin merchant made 17 edits to the page, adding over 15,000 bytes of content while the entry racked up roughly 1.64 million views.
Wikipedia restricted edits to El-Sayed’s entry to protected user classes.
The edits weren’t routine formatting touch-ups or fixing minor typographical errors.
The account removed a 1,642-byte section describing El-Sayed’s attempt to hire Lenore Goldman as a Jewish community liaison, alongside documented tension between his team and Michigan’s Jewish community. It sanitized the description of El-Sayed’s ally Hasan Piker, a political commentator who has repeatedly claimed that America deserved 9/11, from a controversial left-wing streamer to a neutral commentator. It inserted favorable notes regarding endorsements from former president and current podcaster Barack Obama as well as Kamala Harris, who remains the nation’s most reliable provider of unintentional comedy.
CopyleftEverything also altered the wording surrounding El-Sayed’s medical credentials, shifting the text from stating he had never held a medical license to stating he simply hadn’t pursued one.
Replying on X to reporting about the extensive edits by narrative manipulation analyst Ashley Rindsberg, Katie Miller, wife of new White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, responded bluntly: “This is how you rig elections.”
She’s right.
Deep cover
A difference large enough to drive a fleet of ambulances through exists between never obtaining a medical license and choosing not to pursue one. The first states an objective administrative fact; the second offers an incredibly accommodating narrative.
When a candidate’s past includes plenty of controversy, voters rely on search engines and encyclopedia entries for the facts. Removing documented history regarding relations with local faith communities or altering official background details converts a reference tool into a shadow campaign platform.
Public records show El-Sayed’s father, Mohamed El-Sayed, served as a board member for the Islamic charity Life for Relief and Development. In 2014, the charity reached a $780,000 federal settlement over unauthorized financial transfers to Iraq during 2002 to 2003. Investigative reports entered into evidence during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial linked early leadership within that organization to Muslim Brotherhood networks in North America. Furthermore, his father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, served on the board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan. Given El-Sayed’s recent election victory and his cozy relationship with the dangerous organization, Americans in Michigan and beyond are entitled to ask questions and expect honest answers. When digital entries are deliberately distorted right before an election, voters lose the ability to assess that record for themselves.
RELATED: Don’t trust the socialists — tech won the midterms
Tom Baker/Getty Images
Interestingly but not surprisingly, Wikipedia restricted edits to El-Sayed’s entry to protected user classes, while Mike Rogers’ page, his Republican opponent’s, remained open to edits. On November 1, the same active account inserted material directly into Rogers’ entry about allegations of campaign funding.
The future of fudging
The platform’s left-leaning favoritism becomes critical when evaluating the future of AI.
Modern AI models sometimes invent facts out of thin air, but that’s becoming rarer by the day. They train heavily on open-source web repositories like Wikipedia, and sites like Wikipedia know it well. “In the AI era, Wikipedia has never been more valuable,” the Wikimedia Foundation proudly proclaims. When a candidate’s background gets scrubbed from the source site, AI tools mistake the glorified propaganda for baseline truth.
When voters ask ChatGPT or Claude about a candidate’s record, the algorithm regurgitates the edited version without mentioning the deleted paragraphs. Digital reputation management no longer requires buying commercial ads. One only needs to maintain control over a few key web entries just before the polls open.
To those who dismiss these editing skirmishes as nothing more than a nothingburger, the real danger isn’t just that a single web page was modified but that the public history of an incoming U.S. senator was actively altered without disclosure, leaving voters with an incomplete record on Election Day. Anyone who consulted Wikipedia before voting for El-Sayed has every reason to feel cheated.
When reference platforms claim impartiality while serving as pre-election PR vehicles, the entire foundation of an informed electorate crumbles. Conservatives have long argued that media institutions operate in a hostile, contemptible manner. Their arguments are grounded in reality.
If an anonymous editor can alter medical credentials, remove documented community clashes, and insert campaign talking points without oversight, political campaigns will stop spending money on traditional ads altogether. An editor will simply hire digital squads to rewrite candidate histories in real time, ensuring that voters only ever see what the campaign wants them to see.
Democratic accountability relies entirely on voters having access to facts, no matter how ugly they may be, before making their choice at the ballot box. When those facts are systematically tampered with on the world’s primary reference source, voters lose their ability to hold candidates accountable for their past sins.
Those who control the past control the future. And in the digital information age, the left appears to hold the upper hand.
Tech, Abdul el-sayed, Wikipedia, Katie miller, Stephen miller, Media
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Patients lose when politicians play pharmacist
Imagine learning that the pharmacy filling your prescriptions must change owners — or close — not because it failed patients, but because lawmakers object to its corporate parent. That is a risk Arkansas and Tennessee are taking with their restrictions on pharmacies affiliated with pharmacy benefit managers.
Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate drug discounts, administer prescription benefits, and manage pharmacy networks for insurers and employers. Some belong to companies that also own insurers, mail-order pharmacies, and retail drugstores. These arrangements can reduce administrative costs and coordinate care. They can also concentrate market power.
If regulation forces those systems apart, patients could lose key benefits, and lawmakers will be guilty of getting in a patient’s way, rather than out of it.
As an economist, I question the wisdom of addressing that problem by forcing a particular business structure out of the market. Patients, not competing corporate interests, should determine whether a reform succeeds.
Arkansas enacted Act 624 in 2025 to bar PBMs from holding pharmacy permits. A federal judge blocked its enforcement before the law took effect, and the state appealed. Tennessee’s FAIR Rx Act, scheduled to take effect July 1, 2028, generally prohibits a corporate group from holding more than a 5% interest in a pharmacy while also controlling both a PBM and a health insurer. Companies that cannot comply may have to sell pharmacy operations.
The states’ concerns are legitimate. A PBM that determines which pharmacies enter a network and how much they are reimbursed has an obvious incentive to favor its own affiliates.
Yet an ownership ban is an unusually blunt remedy. It targets the corporate structure even when lawmakers have not established that breaking it apart will lower costs or preserve access. Integrating pharmacy operations with a PBM can offer logistical advantages, specialized clinical support, and simpler coordination for patients with complicated prescriptions. Those efficiencies are possible, not guaranteed; consolidation can also conceal costs and disadvantage rivals.
The immediate question is what happens to patients during a forced separation. CVS has warned that Tennessee’s law could require it to sell or close 136 pharmacies and stop some mail-order services. That is the company’s claim, not a prediction that all those stores will close. But legislators ought to be able to answer a basic question before imposing divestiture: Who will fill the prescriptions if the existing providers leave?
RELATED: Your recovery may depend on the pharmacist down the street
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Access is already precarious for many Americans. A 2025 study cited by the Goldwater Institute estimated that 57.1 million people live in pharmacy deserts; another 28.9 million depend on a single pharmacy whose disappearance could leave them with few nearby choices. Those figures do not prove that PBM ownership bans will cause closures. They show how much damage even an avoidable disruption can do.
Independent drugstores are indispensable in many communities. Their complaints about reimbursement and patient steering should not be brushed aside. But a small pharmacy’s difficulty matching a national company’s delivery network or specialty services is not, by itself, evidence that the larger model should be prohibited. Competition should reward pharmacies that serve patients well, whatever their ownership.
There are other tools available. Lawmakers can demand transparent reimbursement arrangements, meaningful audits, safeguards against steering patients to affiliated pharmacies, and enforcement against deceptive pricing practices. Congress has already enacted PBM reforms for Medicare Part D, with important provisions scheduled to begin in 2028. Those rules deserve a chance to work before legislators assume sweeping divestiture is the answer.
RELATED: Joy Behar’s TrumpRx rant shows how elites think
Gary Gershoff/Getty Images
If regulation forces those systems apart, patients could lose key benefits, and lawmakers will be guilty of getting in a patient’s way, rather than out of it. Regulators have a painful history of blocking transformative business practices and have often picked sides that obstructed innovators, encouraged by incumbents whose market share is under threat.
Lawmakers in Arkansas and Tennessee are interfering with business models that may genuinely benefit patients. They have decided that sacrificing vertical integration and efficiencies in a capital-intensive industry by separating PBMs from pharmacies will better serve patients. History tells us bureaucracy and good intentions are poor ingredients when redesigning complex markets and supply chains.
They should focus on protecting Americans rather than deciding which business models deserve to win in the marketplace.
Medicare part d, Pharmacy benefit managers, Prescription drugs, Federal judge, Arkansas, Tennessee, Pbms, Cvs, Goldwater institute, Patients, Doctors, Politicians, Opinion & analysis
The big-city bill collectors are knocking at the statehouse door
Kathy Hochul (D) last week won another term as New York governor by roughly 20 points. Democrats also flipped governors’ offices in Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada. If you live in a small town or suburb in any of those states, here’s a question worth asking: Who will be paying for what comes next?
Most of the postelection attention has focused on Congress. I would keep an eye on the governors’ offices and legislatures, because that is where a great deal of your money gets allocated.
The serious question is whether state spending is justified, how long it lasts, and which communities bear the cost. A governor should be able to answer without hiding behind the word ‘free.’
I live in upstate New York, not far from the dairy farms where I grew up. For most of my life, New York City might as well have been another state. Whatever its mayor did didn’t seem to affect us very much. I have changed my mind about that, and I think people who live far from big blue cities should, too.
Zohran Mamdani took over New York City Hall in January promising free buses, free child care, and city-run grocery stores. He calls himself a democratic socialist, and to his credit, he never hid his ambition to enlist Albany in his efforts. A city can make promises on its own. Paying for those promises is another matter entirely.
In February, Mamdani presented a $127 billion preliminary budget and warned that without state permission to raise taxes on wealthy residents and corporations, he might have to increase city property taxes by 9.5%. The final budget adopted in June was $125.8 billion, without that proposed property tax increase. But the argument about state help was hardly theoretical.
Hochul and Mamdani announced $1.5 billion in additional state support over two fiscal years. Part of it reversed costs that earlier administrations had shifted onto the city; $500 million was one-time assistance.
Separately, Albany budgeted $2.4 billion for child-care assistance statewide, including money for New York City’s programs. Those are different appropriations, and the distinction is worth making. So is the fact that taxpayers across New York have a stake in them.
A lot of that money comes out of the pockets of people in Elmira and Buffalo who will never ride one of Mamdani’s free buses. And the city isn’t finished looking for other people’s money. Its adopted financial plan projects a $6.44 billion gap in fiscal 2028 and gaps exceeding $8 billion in each of the two years after that. Those are the city’s own estimates, not a hostile guess from somebody upstate.
The serious question is whether state spending is justified, how long it lasts, and which communities bear the cost. A governor should be able to answer without hiding behind the word “free.”
RELATED: The day after tomorrow: A new GOP
Tom Brenner/Getty Images
Other states face their own versions of this problem. Illinois approved a transit-funding overhaul that redirected gas-tax revenue, raised regional sales taxes, and changed tollway financing to help Chicago-area transit. Those decisions have winners and losers. Georgia just elected Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor, as governor. I would be curious how many voters in Valdosta or Dalton have started asking whose priorities she will carry into the state Capitol.
My career has been in the energy and utility business, and I have seen how rules written in Albany can reach people who never asked for them. In 2024, New York enacted a Climate Change Superfund Act designed to collect $75 billion over 25 years from major fossil fuel companies, starting in 2028. Lawmakers called it a “bill for industry.” I would have liked to hear more about how much could eventually be passed along to customers, including farmers and families who heat their homes with propane.
Federal courts blocked that law earlier this year, and New York has appealed. The state isn’t collecting those billions — yet. But the attempt tells us something about the spending and taxing ideas that can get traction in Albany. Texans with a new Democrat governor of their own might take a look before anyone in Austin proposes a similar experiment.
RELATED: Trump conquered the Republican Party. What a waste of a victory.
Brendan SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Cities sometimes deserve state aid. Fine. Make the case and open the books. Statewide policy reaches everyone, including communities without a big-city mayor sitting across the table from the governor. A promise aimed at one constituency can become an obligation for many others.
Last week’s election was a hard one for conservatives. I won’t pretend otherwise. But elections are battles, not the whole war. A lot of us poured everything into Washington while barely learning who was running for governor in our own states. The left has spent years organizing in statehouses. Mayors like Mamdani with expensive agendas are counting on it.
The next election will be here soon enough, and it won’t be only about the White House. Learn your state senator’s name. Watch what your biggest city asks the capital to pay for. Ask the governor what it will cost, who benefits, and what happens when the money runs out. And the next time a mayor promises something for free, find out who is actually paying for it. Odds are it’s you.
Democratic socialist, Free buses, Kathy hochul, Keisha lance bottoms, New york city, New york governor, Property taxes, State budget, Upstate new york, Zohran mamdani, Atlanta mayor, Texas, Federal courts, Opinion & analysis
Massachusetts teen charged with threatening to kill Trump on social media, feds say
Tewksbury police said they seized a revolver-style firearm at the home of a teenager who had allegedly posted threats to kill President Donald Trump on social media accounts.
That teenager, Trenton Touch, was in federal court for an initial appearance in Boston Monday, according to NBC 10 Boston. He remains in federal detention pending a detention hearing next week.
‘I heard a loud explosion which got me out of bed… There was a lot of screaming and yelling and they put him in a car and took him away.’
Meta alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in September about threats made on Instagram by multiple accounts, according to an affidavit reported by CBS News.
Investigators connected the threats to the 18-year-old from Tewksbury, Mass., according to a U.S. Attorney’s press release.
He was arrested on gun charges in October and later federally charged with making threats against the president.
Touch threatened to kill the president and also threatened to shoot up a school, according to the press release.
Prosecutors said a direct message Touch allegedly sent on June 21, showed a firearm with a message reading, “im gonna kill trump.”
Prosecutors said Touch frequently praised mass shooters as “heroes,” and specifically those who participated in “racially motivated violent extremism.”
Touch’s neighbors said they heard loud sounds from a law enforcement action early on Oct. 26, according to CBS News.
“About 6 o’clock in the morning I heard a loud explosion which got me out of bed and I’m a Vietnam veteran and it shook me up,” said Richard Frank to CBS News.
“They were running up between the two houses, there was another flash bang and then they brought a gentleman out,” he added. “There was a lot of screaming and yelling and they put him in a car and took him away.
At his home, according to the Department of Justice, investigators also seized “multiple military-style or military surplus items including camouflage clothing, a ballistics helmet, military-style knives and a hatchet.”
Investigators also claimed to have found items related to white supremacist and Nazi ideology, according to an affidavit reported by CBS News.
A separate search at his grandparents’ home in New Hampshire recovered a firearm that prosecutors said appeared to match the firearm photographed in the Instagram post, according to the affidavit.
If convicted ,Touch faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. He may also be ordered to supervised release for up to three years.
RELATED: Marines condemn ‘disturbing’ anti-Trump statement by veteran — he’s running for Congress
“Trenton Touch is an alleged white supremacist who now stands accused of threatening to kill the president. Based on the evidence recovered by FBI Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task Force – including a firearm, military-style knives, a hatchet, and a ballistics helmet — he allegedly had the means to do it,” said Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the Boston division of the FBI.
“Your FBI will continue to work closely with our partners, using every tool available, to protect the public and stop people from turning violent rhetoric into action,” he added.
Touch was ordered to be held on $50,000 cash bail on state firearm charges in Lowell District Court, according to Tewksbury police.
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Federal bureau of investigation, Politics, Donald trump
They’re blaming Sara Gonzales’ H-1B investigations for turning Texas blue: ‘I don’t think I’m that important’
Apparently, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is so powerful that she single-handedly turned Texas blue.
At least, that’s the bizarre narrative forming after the midterm bloodbath, with critics and trolls blaming her investigations into H-1B visa fraud for the GOP’s losses and hurling racist accusations and threats her way.
“So there has been this really strange and, you know, troubling narrative bubbling online in the wake of the election, and I, you know, who can blame them? There are certain people that exist that are just — they’re just not all there,” Gonzales says.
“They can’t connect things together, and they’re just having some trouble understanding what led to the midterm massacre. And somehow it’s my fault. It was my H-1B investigations that turned Texas blue,” she continues, before reading one comment she received on X.
“Your dumb, nasty rhetoric is why the Republicans lost. Stop doing more damage and stay the f**k away,” a man wrote.
Many have also accused Gonzales’ H-1B investigations of being racist, which she points out she’s “not targeting any specific race.”
“We have busted Indian, Pakistani, and Chinese fraudsters this year. We are all about equality when it comes to if we get a tip that something crazy is going on and we want to pursue it, we’re just going to go out and do it,” she says.
“It doesn’t matter what the person looks like,” she explains. “In fact, what we typically prioritize are the bigger the scam, the better, right? The more out in the open it is, the better. The easier that we can prove the fraud and connect the dots, the better.”
“We’re not out here to target a specific ethnicity. And so it’s not my fault that the niche that I happen to be investigating involves foreigners,” she continues. “That’s just the nature of how visas work. And it’s also not my fault that the vast majority of H-1B visas and H-4 visas, by the way, are taken by Indians.”
“So if you have a problem with that, I guess you have a problem with math,” she adds.
Gonzales also doesn’t believe it’s possible that the entire state of Texas turned blue because of her, joking, “I don’t think I’m that important.”
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Sara gonzales, Texas midterms, H-1b visas, Investigation, Blazetv show
First responders run toward danger. Why do we keep running them down?
America has no shortage of superheroes. The trouble is that some of the people who come closest to being superheroes in real life have spent years being treated like villains.
When a gunman opens fire, police officers are expected to run toward the bullets. When a house catches fire, firefighters enter while families flee. When a child stops breathing, paramedics race against the clock. These are the daily realities of Americans who accept extraordinary risks, often without knowing whether they will return home to their own families.
A comic book cannot fix recruitment problems or repair every strained relationship between police and the communities they serve. It can, however, remind young people that bravery and public service are worth aspiring to.
Yet too many first responders work in a political climate that treats their professions with suspicion and sometimes leaves them short of the staffing and support they need. There are consequences when public service becomes something people are reluctant to pursue.
After George Floyd’s death in 2020, the movement to defund the police became a national cause. New York City leaders announced roughly $1 billion in NYPD cuts and transfers, although independent budget analysts found that much of the announced reduction involved accounting changes rather than actual spending cuts. Minneapolis council members pledged to remake the police department, but voters rejected the proposed replacement in 2021.
Those political battles were about real disputes over policing and accountability. They also told prospective officers that their work could become a public controversy overnight. For departments already struggling to recruit, that was hardly an invitation to sign up.
A February 2026 Government Accountability Office report found that officer resignations and retirements generally increased from 2019 through 2024, contributing to staffing losses. A later survey of police agencies showed some recovery in 2025, although staffing remained below its level at the beginning of 2020. Recruiting and keeping experienced people remains a serious challenge.
Crime itself has moved in a better direction. The FBI reported another substantial decline in violent crime in 2025. That is welcome news. It is no reason to take the people who respond to emergencies for granted.
RELATED: Young Americans can’t afford the future Washington won’t build
Afry Harvy/Getty Images
Rebuilding confidence requires sensible policies, decent pay, equipment, and public accountability. It also requires restoring the honor attached to answering a call for help. That is the part of the problem Michael Letts is trying to address.
Letts founded InVEST USA, which helps provide body armor to first responders. Now he has turned from protecting officers physically to defending the public image of their calling. His project is “Bulletproof: Blackweed,” a superhero comic created by Letts and written by Redd Harvey.
Its heroes are a police officer, a paramedic, and a firefighter. They battle dangerous enemies and confront threats to their communities. Letts hopes the story will introduce young readers to courage, faith, sacrifice, and the idea that service deserves admiration.
“For years, I’ve worked to protect the people who protect us physically,” Letts told me by phone in an interview for this article. “With ‘Bulletproof,’ I want to help protect that calling itself. Children should grow up understanding that courage, service, and sacrifice are worth admiring, and that the people who run toward danger deserve our respect.”
He is right about the need to give young people better models of heroism. Popular culture helps shape what children admire and what they hope to become. A child who sees police officers only through scandals and headlines may never consider the possibility that the profession also demands extraordinary courage.
RELATED: Why does God allow the wicked to win elections?
Klenger/Getty Images
There is an obvious danger in swinging too far the other way. Real first responders are human beings, not comic-book characters. Some make terrible mistakes; some abuse the authority entrusted to them. Honoring the badge does not require excusing misconduct. Indeed, the public cannot respect a profession that refuses to hold its own members accountable.
But a culture that recognizes only the failures can be just as dishonest as one that refuses to acknowledge them. Most Americans will never need a superhero. They may very well need a firefighter to climb a staircase through smoke, a paramedic to restart a heart, or an officer to stand between them and someone intent on doing harm.
A comic book cannot fix recruitment problems or repair every strained relationship between police and the communities they serve. It can, however, remind young people that bravery and public service are worth aspiring to. Those ideas should not be controversial.
America needs first responders who have the tools to do their jobs, the trust of their communities, and a reason to believe the next generation will be proud to follow them.
If “Bulletproof: Blackweed” helps even a few children see the person behind the uniform, its achievement will extend beyond the comic-book page.
Nypd budget, Police accountability, Police officers, Emergency response, First responders, George floyd, New york city, Defund the police, Fbi, Firefighters, Police, Superheroes, Political violence, Opinion & analysis
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