Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race just gave voters a preview of what the modern Democratic Party looks like once the “electability” wing gets out of the way: a democratic socialist front-runner sharing a stage with Hasan Piker and Ilhan Omar, promising the crowd that Wisconsin will never elect a Republican again.

On Sunday, Francesca Hong took the stage at South Milwaukee High School with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Hasan Piker — the Twitch streamer who has previously said that America “deserved 9/11.”

‘Wisconsin doesn’t need Mao-inspired Chinese communism.’

None of that stopped the crowd from giving Piker a standing ovation at the rally.

Piker livestreamed the whole event, called Wisconsin the birthplace of the American socialist movement “long before Zohran [Mamdani] and Bernie Sanders,” and promised that “a Republican will never be elected in this state ever again, once our movement is done.”

Asked if campaigning with a figure like Piker is a liability, Hong said the real risk is “not building the broadest coalition possible.”

Hong is a two-term state representative out of Madison, a former chef, and — by her own admission — a dues-paying, card-carrying DSA member, sitting on the Assembly’s Socialist Caucus.

RELATED: The Democrat civil war is real — and it is happening in Wisconsin

Joshua Lott/Getty Images

Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), a four-term congressman and the Republican front-runner for governor, has made Hong’s socialist tendencies the spine of his campaign.

Last month, Tiffany posted a response to Piker praising Mao Zedong: “Mao Zedong was responsible for the deaths of at least 40 million people. Wisconsin doesn’t need Mao-inspired Chinese communism.”

In another post prior to the rally, Tiffany attacked Hong’s apparent agreement with the DSA platform: “Does she want to abolish the police? Yep. Does she want to abolish prisons? Absolutely. Did she call for abolishing the U.S. Senate? Yes. Socialism is knocking on Wisconsin’s door. This November, we slam it shut.”

Though Hong has since distanced herself from the DSA outright, telling voters she doesn’t support “the full platform of the national DSA,” she signaled her support in late June for a number of socialist positions on Piker’s stream, where he rattled off a rapid-fire menu — repealing Act 10, abolishing ICE, public grocery stores, legalizing marijuana, a free Palestine, and many of the DSA’s priorities.

Hong said yes to essentially all of it, even tentatively backing a statue to be built of former Governor Scott Walker (R) solely for people to deface.

The “abolish the Senate” line has become the flash point of the race, largely due to how she has handled it.

She posted exactly that in February 2021, and as of Tuesday morning, the tweet is still live — yet her campaign told Fox News it “doesn’t exist,” saying, “Rep. Hong has never called for abolishing the U.S. Senate. Tiffany cannot produce a single statement where she did, because it doesn’t exist.”

Days later, Fox News’ Dana Perino asked Hong directly if there was anything on the Piker list she now disavows. Hong responded “no.” When pressed on the “abolish the Senate” line, she walked it back, calling it “nonsensical and non-practical at this time.”

She has since softened her stance on defunding police “as a first step towards abolishing” it, now arguing that “people can evolve.”

“She has spoken about police and prison abolition in the past as an aspirational goal, but it is not her current position, and it’s not something she will pursue as governor,” Hong’s communications director, Allison Geyer, told Fox. “She does not support replacing the presidency with the Supreme Court. Eliminating national borders isn’t her position either, and it’s not even part of the official DSA platform.”

In another notable but since-deleted tweet from 2020, Hong wrote, “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621.”

And in a 2019 post, ironically filled with typos, she described leaving a Culver’s restaurant early, “on the verge of a [sic] anxiety attack…to [sic] many old white people who didn’t think we spoke english [sic].”

Hong’s campaign account said that she stands by it — and that the restaurant’s fries “leave much to be desired.”

There’s also a more personal chapter that has resurfaced as a talking point about Hong’s fitness for office. In a 2023 magazine profile, Hong spoke candidly about a mental health crisis at 18 — a breakdown, self-harm, a week-long psychiatric hospitalization, and a later bipolar diagnosis after SSRIs and a lithium overdose.

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

Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez (D), viewed by many as the more electable option, dropped out in mid-July after problems surfaced about her campaign finance reports in which her fundraising was allegedly inflated by as much as $200,000.

Republicans cleared their field earlier. Bill Berrien, a manufacturer running on “family values,” dropped out last September after it surfaced that he had allegedly been following sexually explicit accounts online, including a nonbinary porn performer.

That left Tiffany as the clear front-runner — and notably, he isn’t running as a MAGA culture warrior despite boasting one of the most conservative voting records in Congress, leaning instead into a “folksy” identity of Packers and old-fashioned Wisconsin.

The polling shows why Democrats should be nervous. A Marquette Law School poll from late July had Hong at 38% in the field, Barnes, who dropped out last Thursday, at 16%, Crowley at 7% — more than 20 points ahead with a huge chunk still undecided — and Cook Political Report rated the race a toss-up.

Betting markets have swung hard toward Tiffany in the general: odds now have Hong at 57%, down 25 points since April, against Tiffany at 46%, up 34 points.

The Wisconsin primary election is August 11, with absentee voting under way and no way to change a ballot once cast.

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​Democratic party, Democratic socialist, Francesca hong, Hasan piker, Ilhan omar, Mao zedong, Tom tiffany, Wisconsin, Zohran mamdani, Politics 

West Midlands Police, the woke force in the United Kingdom that recently got exposed for trying to villainize the white victim of a black mob, appears to have taken DEI to an old extreme.

Non-Muslim WMP officers have been invited to partake in the Islamic practice of abstaining from drink, food, and certain other activities during Ramadan in an “act of solidarity” with the Muslims in their midst, according to a damning new Telegraph report detailing this apparent proselytization tactic spearheaded by the West Midlands Association of Muslim Police.

‘We should not be changing police culture to comply with the practices of one religion.’

The force told the Telegraph that the Islamic practice helps officers understand the “significance of Ramadan” for Muslims in the community. Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam.

Britain’s Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy, a Conservative member of parliament for West Suffolk, noted on X, “West Midlands Police encourages non-Muslim officers to fast for Ramadan. It recruits in mosques that host extremists. Such a mosque helped to recruit its last chief constable. It banned visiting Israeli football fans at the behest of Islamists. It’s corrupted by communalism.”

Annunziata Rees-Mogg, a former member of the European Parliament for East Midlands, asked, “Will they be ‘invited’ to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday too? Or is it one rule for one religion and different for others?”

RELATED: Viral video forces UK prosecutors to drop charges against white man arrested after being beaten

Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images (L); Christopher Furlong/Getty Images (R)

WMP told Blaze News in a statement, “The West Midlands Association of Muslim Police has, for a number of years, invited colleagues from all faiths and backgrounds to fast for a day to raise money for charity during Ramadan. Last year’s chosen charity was Children with Cancer UK. It is entirely a matter for officers and staff if they wish to take part.”

“This is an initiative which is undertaken at a number of organisations around the country,” the WMP continued. “The West Midlands has a large and diverse population, including many Muslim residents, and it is important for officers and staff to understand the significance of Ramadan to those communities.”

The West Midlands Association of Muslim Police did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

The British police establishment has been flirting with the Islamic practice of Ramadan fasting for years.

According to a WMP Museum blog post dated March 28, 2024, “During Ramadan Muslim colleagues who are fasting are supported and accommodated when they need to break fast. Information is shared with non-Muslim colleagues to help them to understand what Ramadan is all about, sometimes leading to non-Muslim officers and staff joining in to support their colleagues.”

A video shared to the West Midlands Association of Muslim Police Instagram account in April 2022 about “the Ramadan experience” and the “mandatory” practice of fasting features testimonials by multiple apparent white non-Muslims about their participation in the fasting challenge held at the Derbyshire Constabulary, which is overseen by the WMP.

According to documents obtained by the Telegraph through freedom of information requests, the WMP’s Muslim fasting plan was cited as a best practice in the DEI training overseen by New Forest District Council — a local government in Hampshire, England.

“During the month of Ramadan, [West Midlands Police] supports its fasting colleagues through the use of flexi-working arrangements to ensure that they have time with their families,” a memo from the council reads. “What’s more, increasing numbers of non-Muslim staff have taken up fasting each year as an act of solidarity with their Muslim colleagues, adding to the family feel of WMP culture.”

The United Kingdom officially remains a Christian nation, but Shadow Justice Secretary Timothy emphasized that there should be “no special measures in place for any faith” in the police force.

“We should not be changing police culture to comply with the practices of one religion,” Timothy told the Telegraph. “Expectations should be uniform, and non-Muslim police being encouraged to fast in Ramadan is wholly inappropriate.”

The conservative lawmaker suggested that it is time for the United Kingdom to “abolish the Public Sector Equality Duty, which provides the legal framework for much of this, and ensure there is one rule for all of us — not special treatment for certain groups.”

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​Islam, Dei, United kingdom, Woke, Faith, Politics 

Was the latest Caitlin Clark controversy genuine outrage — or a staged production? After two teenage girls sitting courtside at a WNBA match were publicly screamed at for using signs to thank Sophie Cunningham for standing up for women in sports, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock believes the answer is obvious.

“Here’s what the cameras won’t show you,” he begins. “Sitting courtside almost shoulder to shoulder with those two teenage girls, there’s this older woman with her own pre-printed sign. ‘No hate in these United States.’ A counterprotester planted, and yes, I’m using the word ‘planted.’”

“In the same frame, rebuttal already made, ready for the shot. Two kids thank an athlete. And there’s a grown activist positioned right next to them with the comeback in hand,” he says.

“Spontaneous fan moments don’t come staged like that,” he adds.

Whitlock doesn’t even believe the presence of the teenage girls was organic.

“This whole thing seems staged, including the two cute little teenage girls juxtaposed against this tatted up, angry, unattractive older woman. This is like a movie script. All of this stuff feels scripted,” he says.

“The media will run the owner’s apology all day,” he continues. “They will not show you that sign. They will not show you all the casting that was done here. The owner got punished. A five-game suspension. She can’t come back to the arena … for five games. There’s some sort of fine.”

“But the coverage still pivoted to ‘why won’t the golden goose, why won’t Caitlin Clark apologize for this?’” he says, adding, “Somebody assigned these roles before the ball went up. The owner plays the heel, the media plays the prosecutor, and Caitlin Clark is cast as the defendant in a trial where the verdict was tight before she woke up.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Sophie cunningham, Jason whitlock, Womens sports, Transgender, Seattle storm, Indiana fever, Caitlin clark, Fake, Wnba, Blazetv show 

In a media environment drowning in division, distorted messaging, and anti-American sentiment, Blaze Media is proud to bring you conservative voices that challenge the prevailing narrative with clear, patriotic, and principled commentary and analysis.

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that Nick Freitas is joining our lineup.

A decorated Army veteran, former state legislator, and podcaster with 1.5 billion video views and a combined audience of more than 6.5 million across major platforms, Freitas embodies everything we cherish here at Blaze Media: an unapologetic love of America, a fierce commitment to free speech, and the courage to defend our founding principles without apology. For him, politics isn’t about spectacle. It’s about statesmanship and rallying Americans to resist the ideological capture and cultural rot by strengthening their families, communities, and civic institutions.

Freitas is eager to bring his platform — built on the enduring American ideals of honoring God, faithful fatherhood, constitutional liberty, biblical masculinity, and disciplined leadership — to the Blaze Media audience.

“I’m honored to join Blaze Media,” he said. “I truly believe that the key to saving our country is once again learning and living the principles that made it great in the first place: faithfulness to God, the belief in strong families, and the insistence on individual liberty combined with personal responsibility. Blaze has consistently invested in voices that believe America is worth preserving and that our best days lie ahead. I’m excited to keep building alongside a team that shares those convictions.”

We couldn’t agree more.

“Nick has built something increasingly difficult to create in today’s media environment: trust,” said Tyler Cardon, chief executive officer of Blaze Media. “His audience hasn’t grown by accident. It’s grown because he shows up with clarity, conviction, and consistency, week after week, and because he’s genuinely fun to watch. That’s a rare combination and exactly the kind of voice we want in the Blaze family.”

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” launches today on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

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

Don’t just hear about Nick Freitas joining the Blaze Media lineup — start watching him fight for the country we love.

​Blaze media, Blazetv, Nick freitas, Blazetv show 

George Kamel knows what it’s like to feel buried by debt. After paying off his own debt and becoming a net-worth millionaire in less than a decade, the Ramsey Solutions personality has made it his mission to help others take control of their finances.

And with young Americans struggling in the current economy, Kamel tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey that while it may feel “hopeless” — it’s not.

“I see a lot of chatter on X about the affordability crisis and how Baby Boomers just don’t get it. They don’t get what Millennials and Gen Z are facing. What do you think the real problem is? Do you think it is more of a spending problem, the same problem that people have always had … or do you truly think that young people today have it uniquely hard?” Stuckey asks Kamel.

“Well, there’s the data part, and there’s the emotion part. And I do think that when it comes to intergenerational conversations, we’re not hearing each other. The Boomers hear complaints and they go, ‘Oh, shut up, it was hard for me too,’” Kamel responds.

“The Millennials are going, ‘I don’t think you understand what a $400,000 mortgage at 6% actually costs.’ And so there’s a math reality to it that back in the Boomer’s days, the average home was two to three times the average income, the median income,” he continues.

“And nowadays, it’s five to six times the median income. So there is a legitimate math problem here to solve this affordability crisis. And it sounds very woe is me and cynical,” he adds.

While the problem is real, Kamel points out that it may be slightly exaggerated and cheered on by the media.

“I think it’s overblown in the media because it gets a lot of clicks. And who doesn’t want to have an empathetic voice telling them that they’re not crazy, that they’re not alone,” he says.

“And so I feel like my job on the money side is to say. ‘You’re not crazy, and this isn’t hopeless,’” he adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Affordability crisis, Boomers, Debt, Finances, George kamel, Millennials, Dave ramsey, Allie beth stuckey, Blazetv show 

The top women’s tennis player in the world is standing up for young girls in the ongoing public debate about protecting their sports.

Aryna Sabalenka, the current World No. 1 with 24 singles titles in her career, spoke to reporters ahead of the National Bank Open in Toronto on Sunday. There, Sabalenka fielded a question about the Women’s Tennis Association’s updated policy on gender screening.

‘I don’t agree with this kind of stuff in sport.’

A reporter asked the Belarusian how she felt about the new rules, which include a one-time test for athletes to prove they are women.

Sabalenka gave a straightforward reply:

“I think it’s really important to keep the fairness in our tour, and it’s obvious that biologically, right, the men are way stronger than women.”

The 28-year-old continued, hinting that it may have taken the WTA longer to implement the policy than she would have hoped.

“I feel like it would be not really fair for the women to compete against biological men. So, I believe it took them a little while to make this decision, and, yeah, I support it.”

Sabalenka included remarks about wanting to focus on herself and the tournament, but still unequivocally stated she is in favor of the testing.

“If they want to test us all, I’m happy to do that. It’s pretty fair, and let’s keep it that way,” she added.

RELATED: Pressure mounts against WNBA to adopt ‘biological women’-only policy: ‘Women’s sports are for women’

The WTA updated its eligibility policy in late July to reflect the implementation of the gender-screening process, offering definitions of both male and female.

“In this policy, ‘biological male’ means an individual who, regardless of their legal sex or gender identity, has an SRY gene and therefore has or previously had testes or streak testes,” the policy states.

“Biological female” is defined as “an individual who, regardless of their legal sex or gender identity, has no SRY gene and therefore has or previously had ovaries or streak ovaries.”

Further in the document, the governing body states that “a player must demonstrate their eligibility to compete in WTA Tournaments by means of SRY Screening.”

“If the SRY Screen is negative for the presence of the SRY gene, the player will be permitted to compete in WTA Tournaments. Unless there is reason to believe a negative result is in error, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime test,” the WTA explains.

RELATED: ‘It’s not fair’: No. 1 women’s tennis player states obvious truth about transgender athletes in women’s sports

Robert Prange/Getty Images

Sabalenka was ahead of the curve on this topic, having shared similar remarks when promoting the Battle of the Sexes exhibition match in December.

Before losing 6-3, 6-3 in two straight sets to Nick Kyrgios in Dubai, Sabalenka told host Piers Morgan, “I think it’s just not fair to a woman to basically face, like, biologically man.”

She emphasized that she didn’t think it was fair for a woman to work her entire life to “reach her limit” only to then face a man, knowing they are “biologically much stronger.”

“So for me, I don’t agree with this kind of stuff in sport,” she added.

Kyrgios was asked the same question by Morgan; he simply said he had “nothing to add” because he feels “the exact same way.”

Sabalenka faces Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima on Tuesday night at the National Bank Open.

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​Tennis, Women’s sports, Transgenderism, Sports 

Jordan Salinas had already seen one mass shooting.

In October 2021, he was at the Boise Towne Square mall when a gunman opened fire, killing two people and wounding several others. Salinas remembers thinking about his brother, who uses a wheelchair, and what would happen if the two of them ever found themselves trapped in such a situation.

Fire extinguishers can be used incorrectly too. That’s not an argument for limiting their use to professional firefighters.

So he did something about it. He began training.

Last Saturday afternoon, almost five years later, Salinas and his girlfriend pulled into the parking lot of the newly opened In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls, Idaho. People were streaming out of the restaurant. At first, Salinas figured there had been some kind of kitchen fire.

Then he heard gunshots.

What happened next is worth lingering over, if only because we’ve been told so many times that it doesn’t really happen.

Salinas drew the semiautomatic pistol he was carrying and moved toward the shooting.

The gunman, identified by police as 24-year-old Chad Williams, had already killed three people and wounded seven. Salinas fired at him. So did an off-duty Idaho state trooper who happened to be nearby.

Neither man delivered the movie-ending kill shot. Williams eventually died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

But Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks says their intervention mattered. “We believe their actions drove the suspect from the scene, preventing further casualties,” he said.

In other words, not one, but two good guys with a gun showed up. And things could have been a lot worse if they hadn’t.

Myth busters

If the phrase “good guy with a gun” sounds corny, blame former NRA chief Wayne LaPierre, who turned it into a slogan after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre famously said.

Ever since, journalists and gun-control advocates have devoted considerable energy to informing us that this seemingly self-evident proposition is, in fact, a “fantasy.”

Salon was still at it in 2024, publishing a story headlined “‘Manipulation of fear’: New analysis blows hole in ‘good guy with a gun’ myth.”

The article, originally published by Common Dreams, described armed self-defense as an “enduring myth” propagated by “right-wing politicians and the powerful gun lobby.” The Center for American Progress report on which it was based went further, calling the good-guy-with-a-gun idea one of the gun lobby’s “most personal and insidious” myths.

“The Bulwark” wasn’t troubled by ambiguity either. In a 2024 podcast episode titled “Debunking the ‘Good Guy with a Gun’ Myth,” it brought on gun-control activist Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was murdered in the 2018 Parkland school shooting.

There’s a grim irony here. Guttenberg is now among the Parkland family members suing the Broward Sheriff’s Office over what they say was its negligent response to the massacre. Eight years later, the case is finally headed toward trial.

In other words, one of the men enlisted to debunk the usefulness of an armed “good guy” lost his daughter in a massacre in part because the armed good guys who were supposed to protect her failed to act.

Exception or rule?

On the rare occasion that the “myth” debunkers provide a real-world example, it doesn’t always make the case they think it does.

Consider the Trace. The nonprofit newsroom devoted to gun violence returned to the familiar theme last December with a story headlined “There Was No ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ in Salt Lake City.”

This time, at least, there was a good reason for the skepticism. An armed member of a volunteer safety team at a Salt Lake City No Kings protest opened fire on a man carrying a rifle and accidentally shot and killed an innocent demonstrator.

A tragic mistake? Absolutely. Evidence that an armed bystander can make a chaotic situation even worse? Certainly. That’s one reason carrying a firearm entails considerably more responsibility than carrying a reusable shopping bag.

Evidence that the “good guy with a gun” is a myth? That’s harder to see.

Especially considering how gun control advocates treat cases in which a bystander with a gun acted safely and responsibly.

Faint praise

I’ve written about this curious phenomenon before.

In July 2022, 20-year-old Jonathan Sapirman entered the Greenwood Park Mall outside Indianapolis carrying a rifle, a pistol, and more than 100 rounds of ammunition. He killed three people in just 15 seconds.

Then 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken shot him.

Dicken was shopping with his girlfriend. He had no military or law-enforcement background. He was legally carrying a Glock pistol and, from roughly 40 yards away, hit Sapirman repeatedly, then moved closer while directing fleeing shoppers toward an exit.

Greenwood Police Chief James Ison called Dicken’s actions “nothing short of heroic.”

CNN agreed — sort of.

“Making Dicken’s heroism perhaps even more remarkable,” the network explained, “is the fact cases of an armed bystander attacking an active shooter are rare.”

Thanks, CNN.

And so the usual cycle plays out: Armed civilian stops a shooter; media reports it, when the story is too conspicuous to ignore; then somebody rushes in to remind readers that what they just watched happen never happens.

RELATED: Aim true: Anna Thomasson sets her sights on empowering women through firearms training

Matt Himes

How often is ‘never’?

But are people like Elisjsha Dicken really that rare?

Last August, two gunmen opened fire on a house party in Harvey, Illinois, hitting five people, including a 4-year-old child. A concealed-carry license holder returned fire, killing one alleged shooter and wounding the other, who was taken into custody.

Last year in Rapid City, South Dakota, police say a man attempting to steal merchandise from a convenience store pulled a knife when confronted by an employee. A customer drew a pistol and held him there until police arrived.

In the latter case, nobody got shot or stabbed. Funny how these stories sometimes end before there’s much of a story to report.

In Chicago in October 2024, a 23-year-old man driving by saw another man fighting with a woman and stopped to help. Police say the other man pulled a gun. The bystander — a licensed concealed carrier — pulled his own and shot him.

That same month, also in Chicago, a group of men allegedly attempted to carjack a 47-year-old driver, spraying him with some kind of chemical agent. The driver, another concealed-carry license holder, opened fire, hitting one of the alleged attackers. He survived.

You can argue about any one of these cases. You can argue about gun laws, concealed carry, training requirements, crime rates, suicide, accidents, domestic shootings, or any of the other considerations that make gun policy more complicated than an NRA bumper sticker.

What you can’t plausibly argue is that armed citizens never use guns successfully to defend themselves or other people.

Yet somehow we’ve moved from “How often does this happen?” to “It never happens.”

Disarming statistics

According to the FBI’s active shooter reports, armed citizens stopped just 14 of 350 active shooters between 2014 and 2023 — a measly 4%.

If that number sounds familiar, it should. It’s the kind of statistic regularly trotted out to debunk the “good guy with a gun.”

Economist John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center says there’s a big problem with that calculation: The FBI is missing a lot of active shooter incidents.

Applying what it says is the FBI’s own definition of an active shooter, CPRC found 515 incidents over the same period — 165 additional shootings that never made it into the FBI dataset in the first place.

That’s important because many of the missing incidents ended with an armed citizen stopping the shooter. If those shootings aren’t classified as active shooter incidents, the good guys who stopped them don’t get counted either.

CPRC also identified five cases the FBI did count but, it argues, mischaracterized the armed civilian’s role. In two, armed civilians caused shooters to flee but weren’t credited with stopping them because police later made the arrests. In two others, armed civilians were classified as security personnel.

Put it all together, and the difference is enormous: The FBI’s reports credit armed citizens with stopping 14 of 350 active shooters, or 4%. CPRC says the actual number is 180 of 515, or 35%.

Gun rights, right time

Sometimes the guy with the gun isn’t a good guy. Sometimes he’s frightened, reckless, drunk, or stupid. Sometimes he mistakes the victim for the attacker. Sometimes the presence of another gun makes a chaotic situation even worse.

Fire extinguishers can be used incorrectly too. That’s not an argument for limiting their use to professional firefighters.

And here’s the strange thing about this whole debate: The “good guy with a gun” isn’t even the principal argument for the right to own a gun.

The Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee Americans the right to keep and bear arms on the condition that a sufficient number of them eventually stop mass shootings. Nor does anyone need to prove that armed civilians routinely save the day in order to justify owning a firearm for self-defense.

The occasional good guy who happens to be in the right place when a bad guy starts shooting is simply one of the benefits of living in a country where ordinary citizens can be armed.

Jordan Salinas acted heroically. If there’s a general “lesson” to be derived from his actions, it’s one that is modest and hard to dispute: When a murderous man starts shooting innocent people, having another responsible, trained, and courageous person nearby who can shoot back can make a difference.

That appears to be precisely what happened in Twin Falls. How often does it have to happen before we can stop pretending it doesn’t?

​Active shooter, Elisjsha dicken, Fbi, Good guy with a gun, Gun rights, Jordan salinas, Mass shootings, Nra, Parkland shooting, Salt lake city, Sandy hook, Second amendment, Self-defense, Twin falls shooting 

Jordan Salinas told the Idaho Statesman he pulled up to the In-N-Out Burger off of Blue Lakes Boulevard in Twin Falls around 2:30 p.m. Saturday when he saw people running out of the fast-food restaurant.

The 35-year-old thought it was a kitchen fire, the Statesman said — until he heard the “pop-pop-pop” of gunshots.

‘As soon as some rounds started coming at him, everything changed … all that bravado he had immediately crumbled.’

Salinas added to ABC News that he saw a person aiming a rifle at passing cars: “I peeked around the right-hand side of that sign closest to the road, and that’s where I saw the individual with his rifle pointed at the vehicles.”

Turns out Salinas happened upon a deadly shooting at the fast-food restaurant — which opened for business only last month — that took the lives of three victims and left seven others injured.

Salinas did not run from the danger; instead he ran toward it, the Statesman said, adding that Salinas characterized his response as “automatic” and “mechanical.”

The paper said Salinas reached for his shoulder holster and pulled his FN Five-Seven — a semi-automatic gun with a suppressor on the barrel — and then went through four steps borrowed from the military that he’d been drilling every week for years.

More from the Statesman:

Observe. Salinas ran from the car, gun drawn. Video posted to social media shows a man slinking behind In-N-Out signs and shrubs, seeking out the source of the gunfire.

Orient. Hidden from view, he established sight lines. He reminded himself to stay disciplined on the trigger. Soon, he saw a man, who police later identified as 24-year-old Chad Williams, standing by the drive-through window. He watched as Williams lifted a rifle to his shoulder and fired toward cars.

Decide. “OK,” Salinas thought. “This is the guy.”

Act. He leveled his pistol with both hands and fired.

Salinas told ABC News the suspect seemed calm as he aimed at cars but that his demeanor shifted once shots were fired in his direction.

“He seemed unusually comfortable aiming that rifle at those cars,” Salinas noted to the news network, adding that “as soon as some rounds started coming at him, everything changed … all that bravado he had immediately crumbled.”

RELATED: Suspect in deadly shooting at Idaho In-N-Out died of self-inflicted gunshot wound; 2 ‘heroic’ bystanders fired at him: Police

Salinas told the Statesman he felt “no fear” before, during, or after pulling the trigger.

“There’s a task that needs to be done, and we’re the ones who need to do it,” he added to the paper.

Salinas wasn’t alone in defending others that day. The other good guy with a gun was an off-duty state trooper, Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks told the Associated Press, adding that their efforts diverted the gunman from the In-N-Out.

“We believe their actions helped drive the suspect away from the scene, preventing further casualties,” the chief said, according to the AP. “We want to take a moment and commend the actions of the off-duty officer and the citizen and their heroic action to stop this incident.”

Police who responded to the shooting found the body of the suspected gunman — identified as 24-year-old Chad Williams — in an area near the restaurant, Twin Falls spokesperson Josh Palmer said, according to the AP. The outlet, citing police, said the suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Salinas is a health care worker — the full-time caregiver of his wheelchair-bound brother — the Statesman said, adding that he began training seriously after a 2021 shooting at the Boise Towne Square mall took the lives of two victims and injured several more.

Gunmen, Salinas told the paper, went after “soft targets” — and that a person in a wheelchair and his aide would be as soft as they come.

So Salinas has been shooting on weekends and training in the desert outside of Eden, a small town in eastern Jerome County, the Statesman said.

However, the paper said Salinas had never even pointed his gun at an animal and never thought he’d need to use anything he was practicing.

“Everyone says, ‘It’s not going to happen here,’” Salinas noted to the Statesman. “But what if it does?”

On Sunday, the day after the deadly shooting, Salinas’ drinks at his regular coffee shop were on the house, the paper said, adding that friends and strangers shook his hand.

“My buddies are over at Sportsman’s buying ammo because of you,” a customer said, according to the Statesman.

The paper added that another customer opened his computer to a meme showing Salinas’ bearded silhouette in black against the yellow of a Gadsden flag with a pistol pointed across the screen — and underneath was a three-word phrase:

“Idaho shoots back.”

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​2nd amendment, Protecting others, Idaho, Fatal shooting, Guns, Jordan salinas, In-n-out burger, Crime 

Coldcard, one of the better-known hardware wallets in the Bitcoin world, shipped a firmware bug that weakened the secret keys protecting customers’ money. By Saturday afternoon, Galaxy Research had identified three waves of suspected theft totaling 1,367.05 Bitcoin, worth about $88.6 million, across 4,585 addresses.

That is the observed damage, not necessarily the final bill. Galaxy’s method spots a particular attacker’s habits on the public Bitcoin ledger. The researchers warn that another thief could change a few details and blend into ordinary wallet traffic, making additional thefts much harder to count. An address is not the same thing as a person, either, so 4,585 addresses does not mean 4,585 victims. The actual number of people robbed remains unknown.

The danger had not passed by Saturday evening. Galaxy warned that exploitation was ongoing and said it had sent roughly 600 suspected attacker holding addresses to federal investigators, compliance teams, and independent cyber investigators.

Coinkite says it must assume somebody used artificial intelligence.

Coldcard gave the same warning Sunday: “The threat remains real and ongoing”.

If your Coldcard generated the seed words for your wallet on affected firmware, do not assume that installing an update makes the existing wallet safe. It doesn’t. Coinkite, the company behind Coldcard, says users must install corrected firmware, create an entirely new seed, verify it, and move their Bitcoin.

If that’s you, move it carefully. Panic is how a security emergency becomes a second security emergency.

That’s the first lesson for us all.

What a Coldcard actually does

Bitcoin never sits inside a Coldcard. The coins remain on Bitcoin’s public ledger. The device protects the private keys that authorize a transaction, while a 12- or 24-word seed phrase is the master backup from which those keys can be recreated. Whoever can reconstruct that seed can spend the money. The Coldcard documentation explains that its devices generate BIP-39 seeds and derive wallets from them.

Coldcard appealed to the sort of Bitcoin owner who takes security seriously. It is Bitcoin-only, which keeps the codebase narrower. It can sign transactions while separated from an internet-connected computer, passing a partially signed Bitcoin transaction by MicroSD card or QR code. Its firmware can be inspected, and its current models use dedicated secure-element chips to guard secrets. Those features are the core of Coinkite’s security pitch, and they address real risks.

An air gap helps prevent malware on a laptop from reaching into the signing device and stealing a private key. The Coldcard can examine and sign a transaction without handing that key to the online machine. Signed transaction data comes back across the gap; the private key does not. That is how the company’s offline signing workflow is designed.

The air gap did not stop this attack.

The attacker did not need to connect to the Coldcard, crack its PIN, break into a safe, intercept a MicroSD card, or trick the owner into approving a transaction. The vulnerable wallets were in trouble from the moment their seed phrases were created.

The keys looked random. They weren’t random enough.

Bitcoin security depends on numbers so large and so unpredictable that guessing the right one is, for all practical purposes, impossible. A properly generated Coldcard seed was intended to have at least 128 bits of entropy. Think of entropy as the size of the field an attacker must search. At 128 bits, the field is absurdly large.

Coinkite now estimates that affected Mk2 and Mk3 seeds had roughly 40 bits of effective entropy. Later Mk4, Mk5, and Q devices mixed in additional material, but the company estimates that affected seeds from those models reached only about 72 bits. Coinkite published those preliminary figures in its technical account of the bug. Block’s independent engineering analysis is even less comforting: On later devices, only 32 bits from the secure-element digest reached the software generator’s state, and hashing the resulting output could not manufacture entropy that was never there.

RELATED: Your private chatbot data is at risk. Here’s what to watch for

Moor Studio/Getty Images

Here is the short version. In March 2021, Coinkite changed the code used to create wallet seeds while integrating the same elliptic-curve library used by Bitcoin Core. The cryptographic library was sound. The plumbing was not. A call that was supposed to reach the Coldcard’s hardware random-number generator instead resolved to MicroPython’s deterministic software fallback, seeded largely with a device identifier and timing values. Coinkite says the vulnerable change reached seed generation in its 4.x firmware; Block traces the underlying code change to March 1, 2021.

The software fallback supplied the rng_get() function the build expected, with the same signature as the intended implementation. The hardware code was present in the finished firmware, so earlier reviews confirmed that it existed. They did not verify that the seed-generation path actually reached it. A preprocessor check also asked whether a setting existed, not whether the setting was enabled. Nothing in the build process caught the mismatch, and seed creation kept calling the deterministic fallback. Coinkite’s explanation is unusually candid about how its review missed the failure.

That’s our second lesson. Even a savvy company doesn’t inherently rise to the security of the tech.

The code was available for inspection from the start. Coldcard’s March 2021 announcement even promoted reproducible builds that let developers compare the published source with the firmware binary. The vulnerable seed path remained in released products for more than five years.

With the search space cut down, an attacker could generate candidate seeds offline, derive their Bitcoin addresses, and compare them with the public blockchain. A match reveals a spendable key. No contact with the victim is required. Block describes a wallet address or public key as a validation oracle for candidate seeds.

Coinkite says it must assume somebody used artificial intelligence to inspect old versions of its public firmware and find the flaw. The company also says it had recently asked a leading AI model to review the code, and that model missed the bug.

Our third lesson is that all “leading” AI models are not the same.

After the bug became public, an Aug. 2 Reddit post supplied a vivid but limited demonstration. The poster said Claude Code found the broken path after receiving only a generic instruction to check for vulnerabilities and thinking for eight minutes. The screenshot shows the model distinguishing the correct hardware TRNG path from the broken ngu.random software PRNG path. It does not show the full prompt, model version, checked-out firmware revision, internet permissions, or complete session transcript. The post supports rapid AI-assisted reproduction, not a claim that Claude Code discovered the original exploit or that the thief used it.

Bitcoin Optech separately reports that several developers reproduced the attack with help from frontier AI models. AI involvement is plausible. The attacker’s identity and tools remain unknown.

‘I did everything right’

The ledger gives us totals. It does not show the years people spent building those balances.

Canadian entrepreneur Jonathan Goodman says 18.25245043 Bitcoin disappeared from his wallets between 9:36 and 9:43 p.m. on July 29. His Coldcard sat in a bank safe-deposit box, he said, while his backup keys were kept in a different safe. The device had never been connected to the internet. When he opened a watch-only wallet from his cottage, he saw the withdrawals. Goodman put the loss at more than $1.6 million Canadian and said he was filing reports with police and the Ontario Securities Commission.

“Perhaps the hardest part about this is that I did everything right,” he wrote.

Bitcoin to 1 Mil (@1MillionBTC2025) said 1.3 Bitcoin accumulated over seven years was gone; the post included no transaction record. Bitcoin commentator Oliver Velez said he followed “every accepted rule of Bitcoin self-custody” and still lost a material amount. These are public self-reports, not independently verified claims. They arrived amid the large pattern of theft Galaxy had already found on-chain.

One particularly grim account began on Reddit and then spread across X. A 39-year-old poster said he had spent eight years accumulating two Bitcoin as protection against inflation and hoped the money would provide a cushion before age 50. The Reddit post did not include a transaction ID, and commenters questioned its authenticity, so it should be treated as unverified. The story spread because it resembled losses that were already visible on-chain.

RELATED: Are you inhaling microplastics?

solar22/Getty Images

The rush to escape creates its own hazards. X user lunymoon13 said he moved funds toward a temporary hot wallet after hearing the warning, sent a successful test, and then discovered the remaining stack had been drained. The cause of that loss has not been established. Even with the clock running, verify the destination and backup before moving the rest.

The backlash includes people who did not lose funds. Chris Masterjohn said he had bought two Coldcards but never used them. Responding to a developer’s review of the commit history, he wrote, “Will never touch the company again.” The same post blamed competitive pettiness for the code change. The developer analysis documents the broken call path; it does not establish that motive.

Who is affected?

The important question is where the seed was created, not which device holds it today. Moving a weak Coldcard-generated seed into a Ledger, Trezor, software wallet, or newer Coldcard does not strengthen it. Block specifically warns that an exported seed remains vulnerable after import into another wallet.

Coinkite’s latest advisory identifies Mk2 or Mk3 firmware 4.0.1 through 4.1.9 as affected. Block’s engineering team includes version 4.0.0, which Coinkite publicly released on March 17, 2021, in the vulnerable range. That discrepancy should be resolved in the promised formal review. Until then, the safe course is to treat any Mk2 or Mk3 seed generated on a 4.x release before fixed version 4.2.0 as potentially affected. Also affected are Mk4 or Mk5 seeds generated before standard version 5.6.0 or Edge version 6.6.0X, and Q seeds generated before standard version 1.5.0Q or Edge version 6.6.0QX. Coinkite initially said the newer models were unaffected, then expanded the warning after further investigation. Its current advisory supersedes that early assessment.

There are two important qualifications. Coinkite says a seed created with at least 50 fair, independent, private dice rolls has at least 128 bits of outside entropy and is not endangered by this particular bug alone. A strong, unique BIP-39 passphrase also puts another barrier between an attacker and the funds. A short quotation, reused password, patterned phrase, or one clever dictionary word does not count. Even users with strong passphrases are being told to replace affected seeds as soon as practical.

The device PIN is not that passphrase. It protects access to the physical Coldcard. It does nothing against somebody who has reconstructed the seed elsewhere. Coinkite’s advisory makes the same distinction.

What affected Coldcard owners should do now

The blunt answer: Move the Bitcoin out of the wallet controlled by the affected Coldcard seed. Installing new firmware does not repair that seed. A strong passphrase may buy time, but it is not a repair either. Coinkite says the money must move to an entirely new seed.

Use Coinkite’s official advisory, not a link in an email, direct message, or reply. The emergency creates perfect working conditions for phishing and fake “recovery” services.

The cleanest exit is a new seed generated on a different hardware wallet with current firmware. Do not import the old Coldcard words. That carries the vulnerability into the new device. Even Coldcard’s Sunday statement pointed customers toward Bitkey, Ledger, Trezor, Jade, and BitBox.

Write down and verify the new backup. Check the wallet fingerprint and receive address on the new hardware screen. Send a small test transaction. Once it arrives at the correct wallet, move the rest. Keep the old backup until the transfer is confirmed, but never enter it into a website or give it to anyone offering help.

Do not throw away the affected Coldcard. The company says the device could become important if stolen funds are recovered. That is not an announcement that recovery has happened. Keep the device secure.

Coinbase as an emergency bridge

Public threads are full of shaken owners asking whether they should park their Bitcoin on Coinbase or another exchange. If the choice is between leaving money under a seed that thieves are actively searching and using an established exchange while a replacement wallet arrives, temporary exchange custody may be the less dangerous option.

It is still a trade. In a hosted Coinbase.com account, Coinbase controls the private keys. Coinbase Wallet is a different, self-custody product, so make sure you know which one you are using. Coinbase’s agreement says withdrawals can be subject to outages, downtime, and company policies, and Bitcoin held there does not have FDIC or SIPC protection.

Anyone choosing Coinbase should secure the account before sending money. Coinbase calls two physical security keys its highest-security two-factor setup. Get the Bitcoin deposit address from the official app or a manually typed Coinbase URL, verify the network and address, send a test, and then move the balance. Do not follow deposit instructions from an email, text message, phone call, or direct message.

What owners of other hardware wallets should do

Do not move Bitcoin merely because another company’s hardware wallet failed. Ask where your seed came from.

If Ledger, Trezor, Jade, BitBox, or another wallet generated the seed and that seed never came from an affected Coldcard, this particular bug does not apply to it. Check for notices from your own manufacturer, use only its official firmware tools, and keep the seed backup offline. Do not type the words into a computer or website to “check” them.

If an affected Coldcard created the seed and you later imported it into another device, move the Bitcoin. Changing hardware does not add randomness to an old seed.

RELATED: Thousands of lawyers caught using AI — and it’s only getting worse

DAVID MAIALETTI/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

Multi-signature owners have one more question: Could the affected Coldcard keys meet the spending threshold without the other devices? Galaxy says wallets where the answer was no were protected from this attack, but the weak Coldcard key should still be rotated. Do not build a complicated multi-signature wallet in the middle of a panic. For large balances, though, a planned setup using keys from different manufacturers prevents one broken generator from holding the entire stack hostage.

If the Bitcoin is already gone, preserve the wallet addresses, transaction IDs, amounts, dates, screenshots, device and firmware details, and records showing how you acquired the coins. Report the theft to local law enforcement and to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. The FBI says transaction hashes, receiving addresses, amounts, and timestamps are the most useful details, and it warns that services promising to recover stolen cryptocurrency for an up-front fee may be running a second scam. Recovery is uncertain, but a prompt, detailed report gives investigators something to trace.

An air gap is not magic

The published analyses describe a failure in Coldcard’s secret generation, not a break in Bitcoin’s ledger or signature algorithm. The product failed at the most basic point in the custody chain: making a secret that nobody else can guess.

“Don’t trust, verify” sounds good on a T-shirt. In practice, verifying this bug required following a function call across libraries, build settings, and linker behavior. Almost no ordinary customer can do that, which is why customers bought the little plastic signing device in the first place.

Final lesson? Public code does not inspect itself. An air gap protected the secrets from the internet. It could not save secrets that were too predictable at birth.

Coinkite has released fixes and migration instructions. In its Sunday statement, the company said it halted shipments, destroyed its remaining Coldcard inventory manufactured with vulnerable firmware, and had begun working directly with customers. Its lawyers may coordinate with law enforcement, and a technical postmortem is coming. The statement did not say that stolen funds had been recovered or describe a reimbursement plan.

The company still owes customers a full account of how this passed review, how many people were harmed, and what it plans to do for those who trusted its product with the savings of a lifetime.

Check where your seed came from. If affected Coldcard firmware created it, move the Bitcoin to a new seed created somewhere else. If another wallet created it, do not turn one company’s failure into a rushed mistake.

​Bitcoin, Tech 

Some people turn to deliveries, others choose Uber; in China, regular people can sell their faces.

Both face-selling and face-stealing are on the rise in China, with significant controversies coming out of some high-profile cases.

‘Coffee break? Between meetings? Turn those extra minutes into edge-of-your-seat moments.’

On Chinese websites like New Claw, regular people can upload their photos to license their likeness for AI and subsequent use in films, TV shows, or video games.

The platforms feature catalogs of user images, from self-taken photos or studios. Producers or filmmakers can then browse faces by age, gender, and descriptive categories like “supermodel.”

On these websites, Rest of World reported, users can earn anywhere between $15 and $700 for their likeness to be used in AI content. Users do have the choice about where their faces can appear and what kind of content they are used in.

One website called ID.actor focuses on legal protections for one’s likeness as its main selling point.

“In the AI era, your face is an asset,” the website reads when translated. “Let your face go from ‘stolen by AI’ to ’empowered by AI.'”

Long Lyu, operations lead at New Claw, told Rest of World that “whether actors and models choose to license their faces on our platform or not, AI has already disrupted the industry.”

Lyu added, “Selling the rights to their photos gives them a way to earn, while continuing their careers offline.”

RELATED: Televised poker is blowing the cover of its best players — on purpose

Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The main use for AI likeness in China has reportedly been for the category of “microdramas.”

These are wildly popular in the communist country and are available through a dedicated app created by TikTok parent company ByteDance. The platform Hongguo is specifically designed for the Chinese minidramas.

In the United States, Peacock is jumping on the microdrama craze in categories like “Romance, Billionaire, College [young adult] Romance, Fantasy, Action, and more.”

The platform describes the content as “mini-bursts of drama with maximum intrigue,” which are designed to be watched quickly and are “built to binge.”

“All you need is a little spare time,” Peacock says. “Coffee break? Between meetings? Turn those extra minutes into edge-of-your-seat moments.”

According to Chinese website People.CN, about 128,000 AI microdramas were launched in the first quarter of 2026. This accounts for more than 95% of the content in the genre.

RELATED: Robot teacher program gets scandalous — as link to sex doll company revealed

ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images

Face-stealing has also become a significant problem with the increase of face-selling; hundreds of lawsuits popped up in China over the unauthorized use of likenesses.

Hongguo was recently accused by two influencers of stealing and altering their faces for use in a microdrama that garnered 40 million views.

“I was genuinely shocked. It was clearly me,” said Christine Li. “It was so obvious that they used a specific set of photos I took two years ago,” she said about her social media pictures, per France24.

Rest of World also reported that the Guangzhou Internet Court in China has already heard approximately 700 cases related to AI face theft in the last three years.

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​China, Artificial intelligence, Likeness, Intellectual property, Tech 

Republicans were able to reach an agreement to vote Todd Blanche’s nomination through the Senate Judiciary Committee despite some senators’ concerns about the president’s “anti-weaponization fund.”

Blanche’s nomination for attorney general passed the committee Tuesday with a vote of 12 to 10 along party lines. It will now go before the entire Senate, which is controlled by Republicans.

‘Well, there’s nothing we could do to rein in the president, when he said he likes the fund, wishes it still exists.’

Democrats blasted the holdouts for caving on their demand that the Trump administration agree in writing to abandon the fund.

“To state the obvious, Mr. Blanche’s statement on the slush fund and the IRS immunity agreement are not signed by the parties to the settlement agreement and are therefore unenforceable,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee.

“The parties could still sue to enforce the agreement and the cop-beaters fund can easily be revived with a new order from the Department of Justice 15 minutes after Mr. Blanche is confirmed as attorney general,” he added.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, one of the previous dissenters, told reporters afterward that they got the assurance they needed to approve the nomination.

“Well, there’s nothing we could do to rein in the president, when he said he likes the fund, wishes it still exists,” he said. “But the fact of the matter it’s dead, and that’s all we could do under these circumstances.”

President Donald Trump had excoriated Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) for stalling the nomination in order to seek assurances that the fund was dead. Tillis is retiring, and Cornyn was defeated by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary runoff this year.

RELATED: Trump administration DEFIES ultimatum from Clinton judge on anti-weaponization fund

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas enthusiastically supported the nomination.

“America is safer today because Todd Blanche is serving at the Department of Justice. Now it’s time for the Senate to confirm him,” he wrote on social media.

Passing the Senate is complicated by the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has been hospitalized for weeks and is reportedly in a rehabilitation facility over health issues.

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​Todd blanche, Senate judiciary committee, Donald trump, John cornyn, Dick durbin, Politics 

Late last month, Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the chatbot Claude, agreed to a whopping $1.5 billion settlement resolving copyright claims over its acquisition and use of millions of pirated books to develop its AI models, making it the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history.

According to court documents, Anthropic’s Project Panama involved the purchasing of millions of physical books in bulk, which hydraulic cutting machines then sliced the spines off of so that the pages could be fed into high-speed scanners to train Claude.

The remnants of the books were then shredded — and that’s the part that disturbs Glenn Beck the most.

“The book is not discarded; it’s shredded. … It’s destroyed on purpose because now the digital copy is now considered enough,” he warns.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn imagines a future where physical books are a thing of the past and the terrifying implications of such a dystopia.

Digitally preserving all books is a “fine goal” as long as it doesn’t involve the destruction of physical books, says Glenn.

But Project Panama did not appear to share that restraint. Not only did internal Anthropic planning documents that surfaced in court filings describe the operation as an “effort to destructively scan all the books in the world,” but employees were also explicitly told: “We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”

And the books they went after weren’t just any titles sitting on a Barnes & Noble shelf. Reporting shows Anthropic heavily pursued older, used, and out-of-print volumes, including obscure and hard-to-find titles.

“These rare, rare bookstores started getting phone calls [asking] … ‘Do you have these titles? … We’ll buy all of them,” Glenn summarizes.

A judge later ruled that Anthropic’s destructive scanning of lawfully purchased books qualified as fair use under copyright law. The court reasoned that converting legally acquired print books into digital copies for internal use was transformative, with the destruction of the original books supporting that conclusion because Anthropic was not retaining both physical and digital libraries.

While destroying books may be legal, it’s certainly infuriating to a great many bibliophiles and history buffs.

“Men and women who have dedicated their lives to protecting books, to protecting history, these rare books — they were obviously outraged. When I read the story, I was outraged,” says Glenn, noting that some of the titles Anthropic destroyed “were the single remaining [copies] left … in the world.”

While Glenn wants American AI companies to build “the smartest systems on Earth” using books, he doesn’t want tangible copies destroyed, especially when those copies are rare or out-of-print titles.

“Books are civilization’s memories. Scan them, learn from them, preserve them — but never confuse scanning with shredding,” he pleads.

The destruction of physical books is something Glenn has warned about for years, which is why he always urges his audience to “buy paper copies.”

“A book is a witness,” he says. “Once it’s printed, it can’t quietly change overnight. Nobody can sneak into your library at night and rewrite page 247; nobody can update chapter 5 while you’re asleep.”

Not so with digital files.

“I’m not claiming Anthropic is secretly changing books. I’m saying something more simple and much more dangerous: Without the original, there is nothing left to check against the file,” says Glenn. “The original is the referee. You destroy the referee and eventually somebody else decides what the score was.”

“That’s not paranoia. This is history. You cannot destroy the original because any digital copy can be changed, and you have nothing to check it against.”

To hear more, watch the video above.

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​Glenn beck, Artificial intelligence, Anthropic, Claude, Book burning, Blazetv show 

Yet another white woman who devoted her time and energy to welcoming third-worlders into Europe has wound up dead, apparently at the hands of the very sort of military-age foreigner she was trying to help.

The corpse of a 38-year-old Scottish woman who was volunteering with a refugee support group in Greece was discovered on July 18, stuffed into a suitcase in an abandoned building in Athens.

‘The testimony of the wife has been crucial.’

The Hellenic Police announced on Sunday that investigators were able to lift the victim’s fingerprints despite the body being found in a state of advanced decomposition. With the fingerprints and the help of both Interpol and American authorities, police identified the victim as Elisabeth-Jane Ross of Edinburgh.

Ross, who previously volunteered with the refugee assistance group One Heart, entered Greece on June 26 and was staying in the port city of Piraeus until July 10, when she left for an unknown destination.

On Thursday, police arrested Sharif Ahmadzai, a 26-year-old Afghan national, on suspicion of robbing and murdering Ross. They seized a replica pistol and a knife at his residence.

The Afghan — a super lightweight boxer who made his way by boat to Greece in 2016 after first making stops in Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey — allegedly used Ross’ bank cards to make withdrawals and used her phone to contact her friends and family in an apparent attempt to mislead them about her whereabouts and demise.

Ahmadzai, who with his Christian wife runs a refugee-support ministry, was allegedly also caught by surveillance camera leaving Ross’ address and wheeling around what appears to be the same suitcase in which the victim’s body was discovered.

RELATED: Asylum-seeking boyfriend of American mother flees Ireland after her brutal murder

Afghan and Syrian migrants descend on the Greek island of Lesbos in October 2015. Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/Getty Images.

The suspect’s wife, an American named Alaina Hall, is said to have reported Ahmadzai to the police after Ross was identified as the victim, reported the Independent. After becoming concerned about Ahmadzai’s absence from their home on the evening of July 15, Hall — who has a child with the suspect — checked a shared location tracking app and discovered that he was at Ross’ apartment, where the victim is believed to have been killed, according to the Daily Mail.

A police source told the Times (U.K.), “The testimony of the wife has been crucial. Without her and CCTV evidence, we would not have been able to find this man.”

According to the now-scrubbed website for the couple’s refugee support organization, Hall met Ahmadzai in 2016 when volunteering in a migrant camp.

The Afghan, whom the Hellenic Police claim has admitted to killing Ross, is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

Ross’ body was discovered just days after the discovery of the remains of 43-year-old American mother Jamey Carney in Ireland. The prime suspect in the murder of Carney is 28-year-old Ahmad Al-Saqar, Carney’s romantic partner and a Middle Eastern asylum-seeker who fled the country on a plane bound for Turkey.

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​Afghanistan, Migrants, Asylum-seekers, Murder, Greece, Politics