Day: November 27, 2025
Digos acting police chief relieved from post amid brgy captain slay –PRO11
The Police Regional Office 11 (PRO11) said Digos City Police Station acting chief Police Lieutenant Colonel Peter Glenn Ipong has been relieved from his post amid the probe into the fatal shooting of Barangay Tres de Mayo captain Oscar “Dodong” Bucol Jr.
Passenger allegedly opens emergency exit door on taxiing plane, deploys slide at Atlanta airport: police
A passenger is accused of opening an emergency exit door on a KLM plane, deploying the slide while the aircraft was taxiing in Atlanta, leading to the flight’s cancellation.
Joe Rogan thinks he’d get arrested if he hosted his show from the UK due to speech laws
Podcaster Joe Rogan told fellow podcaster Chris Williamson he would “get arrested” if he hosted his show from the U.K. due to the country’s restrictive speech laws.
College basketball player dies after suffering in-game injury
Connors State College sophomore basketball player Ethan Dietz died Tuesday after suffering a head injury during a game, school officials announced.
LAX travelers abandon cars, walk to airport as protesters block building during Thanksgiving rush
Unite Here Local 11 workers are protesting Flying Food Group at Los Angeles International Airport, blocking traffic and disrupting holiday travel.
Nick Saban makes case for Brian Daboll to fill Penn State’s head coaching vacancy
Nick Saban voiced support for Brian Daboll amid reports linking the former Giants coach to Penn State. Saban asserted Daboll would be an “outstanding hire” for the Nittany Lions.
#626 – Baby Me
Theo returns with a solo episode to talk about conspiracy Thanksgivings, freebasing garlic bread, and what he’s grateful for as the year winds down. He also responds to some of your voicemails and gets a major life update from Riley Mau. ———————————————— Read moreGetting Back to an ‘Honorable Manhood’Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com Read
Assistant Capitol Police chief accused by Rep. Massie of thwarting congressional J6 pipe-bomb investigation retires
Ashan M. Benedict, the assistant U.S. Capitol Police chief who a congressman alleges prevented two special agents involved in the discovery of a pipe bomb at the Democratic National Committee building from testifying before a U.S. House panel, has retired from the department, Blaze News has learned.
Rumors of Benedict’s retirement came one day after Blaze News published an investigation showing unexplained activity by the Capitol Police officers who discovered that bomb, who were overseen by Benedict. The announcement surprised some at the Capitol Police because his contract with the department was set to expire at the end of the month, on Dec. 1. Benedict came to the Capitol Police on Dec. 4, 2023, as assistant chief for protective and intelligence operations, which includes counter-surveillance teams. He later became assistant chief for standards and training operations.
‘They never looked for a third or fourth or fifth pipe bomb.’
Before he joined the USCP, Benedict was the DNC pipe-bomb incident commander for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In that post, he oversaw ATF’s response to the J6 pipe-bomb threat.
Capitol Police Chief Michael Sullivan distributed a bulletin Monday, Nov. 24, announcing Benedict’s retirement after less than two years with the USCP. Word had already circulated around the department on the Wednesday before that Benedict was leaving, two sources told Blaze News.
Word of Benedict’s retirement started percolating a day after Blaze News published an investigation showing the two USCP counter-surveillance agents who discovered the DNC bomb on Jan. 6, 2021, seemingly acting in a suspicious manner. The cops parked their car that afternoon and walked straight past a pipe bomb to another location, which Blaze News’ investigation discovered that the pipe-bomb suspect visited the night before. Then the officers returned to the DNC building, where one of them discovered the device.
Pipe-bomb suspect, construction worker, and police at a bush next to Congressional Black Caucus Institute.Photos by U.S. Capitol Police
“I went from 90% certain that some Capitol Police were involved in the Jan. 6 pipe bomb to 95% certain, and now I’m at 99% certain after this new story,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told Blaze News last week in an interview with Steve Baker broadcast on Matt Kibbe’s “Free the People” podcast and posted to X.
“I’m doing this on probability. The probability may even be higher than that.”
The officers were not seen searching any other areas for explosives in any of the extensive video available and reviewed by Blaze News, and they did not continue searching after the DNC device was found at 1:05 p.m. on Jan. 6.
The USCP has since confirmed that one of its agents found the pipe bomb near the DNC park bench, but there is no video showing that because key cameras were turned away from the DNC building at the time. The fact that the DNC bomb was discovered by plainclothes Capitol Police officers, and not merely a pair of passersby, was not made public until Blaze News broke that news in January 2024.
Following that story, Massie told Blaze News he was determined to interview the agents, but did not get much cooperation from Capitol Police. Massie referred to the agents as “man-bun guy” and “backpack guy” (the one who discovered the bomb). By this time, the agents were under Benedict’s command.
Key cameras that cover the Democratic National Committee building were turned away during bomb discovery and disposal.U.S. Capitol Police
The Capitol Police never made “backpack guy” available to Massie, but on Jan. 30, 2024, they did eventually send his partner, accompanied by Benedict, to speak with the congressman in a meeting that was not recorded or transcribed.
“So they came over to my office, but not ‘backpack guy,’” Massie said. “’Man-bun guy’ came over, and he had a handler, who would often interrupt and answer questions for him.”
‘They just kind of wander off. Their job was done. They had found the second pipe bomb.’
Two congressional investigators sat in on the meeting alongside Benedict, the police officer, and Massie. “In the conversation with the counter-surveillance officer in my office, Ashan Benedict would frequently interrupt the officer, answer before the officer could reply, or qualify the officer’s answers,” Massie told Blaze News. “There was an effort by our committee staff to get Benedict to sit for a transcribed interview, but he successfully evaded that effort.”
Massie asked the agent who sent him and his partner to the DNC building, as opposed to some other high-visibility potential target.
“How did you know to go look there?” Massie said he asked. “And it wasn’t a real good answer, something like, ‘That was my sector’ or something. You know, ‘We’re assigned sectors, and that’s just the sector that I look in.’”
According to the January 2025 report of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, three two-man Capitol Police counter-surveillance teams were dispatched to look for other bombs after discovery of the Capitol Hill Club device.
Massie said he showed a video to the men, depicting the slow, nonchalant response from the Secret Service, Metropolitan Police Department, and Capitol Police to the discovery of a bomb that potentially could have killed them all.
‘He never told me about this other bush.’
“Look, there’s pedestrians still walking around, and this is allegedly a pipe bomb,” Massie said. “And that’s when his handler [Benedict] stepped in and said, ‘Well, you don’t want to alarm people when you have a lot of crowds. You know, when you find a bomb or something, you can’t yell, ‘Bomb!’ You gotta just play it cool.’”
Video showed there were no crowds near the DNC bomb site. Occasional pedestrian traffic continued on the sidewalk within feet of the bomb, and vehicle traffic was not immediately stopped on nearby streets. Commuter trains continued to rumble over the adjacent train trestle for 15 minutes after discovery of the bomb.
Massie said his next question “elicited the oddest body language I’ve ever seen in a meeting and no real answer.”
“Well, so then you obviously went looking for another pipe bomb, right?” Massie recalled. “You found two of them within 30 minutes. You must believe the whole place is riddled with them if you’re finding them this quickly.
“I actually knew part of the answer. I watched the video of where he went after,” Massie said. “They just kind of wander off. Their job was done. They had found the second pipe bomb. They never looked for a third or fourth or fifth pipe bomb, and they didn’t have an answer to me for why the search for pipe bombs was over once they found the second pipe bomb. No answer. Weirdest meeting in the world.”
Massie said he still wants to see the officer who actually found the bomb and interview him, his partner, and Benedict under oath for transcribed interviews. “Those need to be transcribed interviews. They need to be sworn in. I feel very strongly about that,” he said. “But the reality is the FBI should be doing these things.”
“How did they know exactly where to look, including the place [Congressional Black Caucus Institute bush] where the pipe bomber tried to place a bomb?” Massie asked. “It was police, it was Capitol Hill Police that found these bombs, and they got there. But … I hope they went and bought lottery tickets after finding these, after going to these two locations.
“But when you take them all together, and the fact that I got to interview these, it’s at least one of these guys [who discovered the bomb], and he never told me about this other bush,” Massie said. “He didn’t have answers for why they didn’t look for more bombs after they found the second one. And then we’ve got the ATF person in charge of the bomb stuff happening on Jan. 6 is now at Capitol Police handling the interview?”
Sources have said the two special agents, who are known to Blaze News, are still with the Capitol Police. The one who discovered the bomb is now the Capitol Police’s liaison to the FBI — the agency charged with investigating the pipe bombs. His partner, who accompanied Benedict to meet with Massie, still works in the intelligence section.
Benedict’s retirement is just the latest disclosure in two months of developments in the long-unsolved pipe-bomb case.
Questions and requests for comment sent to Benedict and the two officers were not returned in time for publication.
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Federal judge limits warrantless detentions by ICE in Colorado — White House fires off defiant response
A federal judge partially sided with a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union against warrantless detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the administration vowed to appeal it.
Federal Judge R. Brooke Jackson said in his ruling that the warrantless detentions violated the restriction that said individuals must be deemed a flight risk to be justifiable.
‘Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in “racial profiling” are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE. What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the US — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.’
“Immigration officials are entrusted with enforcing immigration laws and are authorized to pursue an aggressive deportation agenda,” Jackson wrote in the ruling. “They may arrest and initiate removal proceedings against individuals they believe are present without lawful status. But in carrying out these responsibilities, they must follow the law.”
One of the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit is 19-year-old Caroline Dias Goncalves, a student at the University of Utah who was detained after a routine traffic stop in Mesa, Arizona, in June. The deputy released her with only a warning, but he passed on her information to ICE officials, who detained her a few miles down the road.
Jackson said ICE agents had improperly ignored the flight risk stipulation or improperly applied it.
“Plaintiffs are four individuals who had deep and longstanding ties to their communities, including parents, spouses, children, stable employment histories, and active participation in their local churches,” Jackson said. “No reasonable officer could have reasonably concluded that these plaintiffs were likely to flee before a warrant could be obtained.”
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, released a statement vowing to challenge the ruling at the Supreme Court.
“This activist ruling is a brazen effort to hamstring the Trump administration from fulfilling the president’s mandate to deport the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” McLaughlin said.
“Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE. What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” she added. “There are no ‘indiscriminate’ stops being made. DHS conducts enforcement operations in line with the U.S. Constitution and all applicable federal laws without fear, favor, or prejudice.”
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Jackson further ordered the government to refund the costs incurred by the four defendants. The judge denied a request from the plaintiffs to obtain the training requirements at ICE, but added that if the government did not comply with the order, the plaintiffs could renew the request.
“The Supreme Court recently vindicated us on this question elsewhere, and we look forward to further vindication in this case as well,” McLaughlin concluded.
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We’re not a republic in crisis. We’re an empire in denial.
Forms of government are not laboratory specimens. You cannot line them up like competing scientific theories, test them under controlled conditions, and then apply the “correct” model to every nation on earth.
The United States learned that lesson the hard way in places like Afghanistan. The George W. Bush vision of exporting liberal democracy across the world was delusional because cultures differ and human beings are not blank slates. People must be governed in ways that align with their nature and customs.
If conservatives wish to make the United States a republic again, they must begin by admitting what America has become.
Government forms have limits. They are not universal ideologies that can fit any situation, and when nations ignore those limits, they fail. America keeps expanding beyond what a republic can bear and refuses to admit it, with predictable consequences.
In its classical form, a republic rests on a set of virtuous citizens capable of self-government through shared beliefs, values, and customs. Citizenship is limited and precious. It conveys as many responsibilities as rights. Citizens do not gain the vote simply because they reside inside a border. They earn it through constant engagement with the body politic. They are soldiers, business owners, family men, and stalwart church members. They have shown both a willingness to sacrifice for society and the capacity to contribute meaningfully to it.
The phrase “self-governing” can mislead because it suggests isolated, autonomous individuals. That is not what classical thinkers meant. A republic needs the lightest touch of any governmental form because the community reinforces itself. Citizens hold each other to account.
From Aristotle to Machiavelli to the American founders, the assumption was the same: A republic requires a virtuous people bound by thick ties of identity and shared moral expectations. Formal authority exists, but most of the real enforcement happens through custom and communal pressure, with the civil magistrate stepping in only when necessary. A republic works only when its people possess enough virtue and cohesion to govern themselves.
That is why republics are rare. They have a strict limitation: scale.
Most successful republics in history have been compact city-states with contained populations capable of maintaining identity and virtue. Once a republic expands, it must incorporate people who do not share its customs or worldview. In “The Prince,” Machiavelli warns rulers who wish to expand that they should only conquer nations sharing similar religion, language, and heritage. That common ground allows the conquered population to assimilate.
Ruling peoples with radically different cultures is far more difficult because the subjects cannot easily accept the rule of a leader whose assumptions differ so dramatically from their own.
A country that does not share culture, religion, tradition, or heritage cannot function as a republic because the people lack the common ground necessary for self-rule. The gaps are too wide to be bridged by normal political debate. A stronger form of authority becomes necessary to bind disparate groups together.
This is why kingdoms and empires are far more common throughout history. Most populations do not possess the cohesion or virtue required for republican government and must instead be ruled by a king. Empires are simply multicultural kingdoms, held together by an emperor who forces cooperation among groups that otherwise could not form a single polity.
Even classical empires understood the need to respect the character of their diverse subjects. Wise rulers did not attempt to make every people act the same. They allowed local custom to continue as long as taxes were paid and troops supplied. Local leaders were often retained. Sometimes a local king stayed on his throne but only if he showed deference to the emperor. The multicultural empire required a much stronger hand, though wise emperors used that power sparingly.
This historical reality explains much about the behavior of modern liberal democracies. Many citizens wonder why their leaders insist on importing large numbers of foreigners despite popular opposition. Cheap labor and imported voters are part of the answer, but in the end, it comes down to the pursuit of raw power.
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Blaze Media Illustration
Large-scale immigration introduces deep cultural differences that destabilize the political order, and the only way to manage that instability is more centralized authority. A liberal democracy that becomes too diverse must govern in the manner of an empire. Its leaders must exercise the level of authority required to hold multiple nations together under one state.
The fact is, multicultural societies trend toward authoritarianism. They must. The differences are too great to manage through ordinary civic persuasion. This dynamic intensifies when the state attempts to integrate its various peoples rather than allowing them to exist separately. By transforming their democracies into multiethnic empires, Western leaders acquire imperial levels of power while maintaining the appearance of popular rule.
No republic can survive the level of diversity now celebrated as a civic virtue.
If conservatives wish to make the United States a republic again, they must begin by admitting what America has become. The country has been transformed into a multicultural empire and is governed accordingly. It grants immense power to its ruling elite in the hope that it can manage the instability produced by extreme diversity.
A republic cannot endure under these conditions. America must end immigration, scale back its foreign ambitions, and cultivate a shared, virtuous culture. Without these steps, talk of republican revival is performative. The structure of a republic cannot survive the substance of an empire.
If Americans will not reclaim the unity that makes self-government possible, then they will be ruled, not represented. Republics are earned. Empires are endured.
