Category: Blaze Media
Lane Kiffin’s Coaching Controversy Epitomizes College Football’s Decline
Lane Kiffin is one of many villains in a sport that’s completely lost touch with what made it great in the first place.
Rejoice, Jared Leto fans! Time to fall asleep on your couch watching ‘Tron: Ares’
This week, “Tron: Ares,” the blockbuster that wasn’t, makes its final bid for profitability — hitting the streaming services, complete with a bonus deleted scene. As Hollywood continues its messy quest to restore its lost glory, what better time for a postmortem?
“Tron: Ares” tells us much. This trilogy-completing movie should have been a layup. With the film, Disney had a great existing piece of intellectual property and a time that could not have been better for a sequel. You can’t go a day on the internet without hearing about AI, surveillance, data centers, hacking, and other topics that the “Tron” universe is uniquely qualified to address.
I need to defend Jared Leto for a second.
The question was: Could Disney pull off a sequel to a pair of movies released in 1982 and 2010 while delivering a quality film that made compelling points on the future of Big Tech and the ever-changing interplay between AI and humanity? The Disney modus operandi is usually to serve up a disappointing experience of woke talking points, lazy writing, and uninspired filmmaking. “Tron: Ares” offered the studio the chance to buck that trend.
The centerpiece of the “Tron” universe is a digital world called the Grid. For the uninitiated, this alternate world, existing inside computer systems, appears as a neon-lit, mirror-smooth alternative to our own. Computer programs inhabit humanoid forms and live in strict, hierarchical societies.
Its well-crafted lore merits a catch-up. In the original “Tron” movie (1982), brilliant programmer Kevin Flynn is attempting to hack into the system of his former employer, ENCOM, to prove that another employee, Ed Dillinger, plagiarized Flynn’s work to get ahead at the company. Flynn ends up getting transported onto the Grid via particle laser and battles the Master Control Program that is attempting to influence the real world. He is successful, proves that Dillinger plagiarized his work, and ends up as CEO of ENCOM. The franchise gets its title from a program named Tron, which fights alongside Flynn.
In “Tron: Legacy” (2010), Kevin Flynn expands his Grid and ends up getting stuck there, vanishing from the real world. His son Sam has inherited control of ENCOM, now a top tech company, but refuses to step into a leadership role. He goes looking for his father and ends up having his own adventure on the Grid, working alongside his father to outwit Clu, the program that betrayed his father and took control of the Grid. His father sacrifices himself to allow Sam to escape back to the real world along with Quorra, a female “isomorphic algorithm.” That is, a computer program manifested onto the Grid without any human contribution. Sam and Quorra end the film setting out to make the world a better place with the grid technology.
High concept, low plot
Here’s where the slapdash takes over from the archetypal. “Tron: Ares” picks up 15 years later with a healthy dose of the now-classic Disney bait and switch. Forget Sam, Quorra, Tron, or any of the popular characters from the previous installments. Sam, in a “somehow, Palpatine returned”-level move, has “left ENCOM for personal reasons.” Instead, we are introduced to his replacement: Eve Kim (Greta Lee). The bait and switch, along with other now-classic Disney tropes, is present throughout the film, but more on that later.
Let’s break down the plot. (Warning: inevitable spoilers below.)
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Photo by Jean Catuffe/GC Images
There are two massive tech companies: ENCOM Technologies, now run by Eve Kim, and Dillinger Systems, run by Julian Dillinger, the grandson of Ed Dillinger from the first movie. These companies have figured out how to use particle lasers to bring things from the Grid into the real world. They basically just 3D-print tanks, ships, trees, people, anything at all, using nothing but electricity. How does that actually work? Never mentioned.
These Grid creations only last 29 minutes before disintegrating into dust and reappearing on the Grid. Eve Kim is determined to solve this problem by finding the permanence code, which Kevin Flynn supposedly hid somewhere. She holes up in Flynn’s old hideout in Alaska and starts looking for it while her male assistant, Seth Flores (Arturo Castro), sits around eating breakfast burritos and complaining that she doesn’t pay enough attention to him. Meanwhile, Dillinger Systems is presenting its new Master Control Program, Ares (Jared Leto). Julian Dillinger leaves out the fact that Ares only lasts 29 minutes, for which he is reprimanded by his mother (Gillian Anderson), who provides the conscience and competence at Dillinger.
Eve finds the permanence code and successfully tests it, then gets a call from ENCOM’s necessarily diverse CTO Ajay Singh (Hasan Minhaj). He tells Eve that Dillinger has hacked ENCOM’s server and caused all sorts of damage. Basically, Julian learned that Eve has the permanence code, and he wants to get his toxic white hands on it.
The rest of the movie is a series of action scenes strung together by the bare bones of a story. Ares is sent into the real world to get the code from Eve. He comes close, forcing her to destroy the flash drive, but fails when he hits his 29-minute shot clock. Eve is then transported onto the Grid when another Dillinger agent shoots her with a particle gun. Once there, the code can be extracted from her now-digital mind. This process would kill her, but Julian orders Ares to proceed. Ares, who has shown signs of straying from his programming, goes rogue and helps her to escape, asking for the permanence code in return so that he can live in the real world. Eve agrees, and the rest of the movie is basically them running around trying to get the code (remember, Eve destroyed the drive, so now they have to find it again) before Dillinger’s new MCP, Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), catches them.
They end up finding a way to access it on Kevin Flynn’s old computer and send Ares onto the original Grid from the first “Tron” movie. Once there, he meets Kevin Flynn, or rather some sort of aspect or memory of him — it is never made clear — and gets the permanence code after Flynn determines that he is suitably curious (or something) enough to become human. Meanwhile, Athena is determined to catch Eve and brings a few Grid vehicles into the real world for a rather underwhelming final battle.
Things wrap up when Ares arrives back in the real world just in time to save Eve, while Ajay and Seth hack the Dillinger mainframe and shut it down, disabling Athena, whose sympathetic death scene feels like a DEI box-check. The film concludes with Eve using the permanence code to lead ENCOM in transforming various industries and Ares wandering the world under cover, learning how to live among humans.
The good, the bad, and the utterly predictable
There are three main takeaways from this film, but first I need to defend Jared Leto for a second. I know there are plenty of reasons, professional and otherwise, for people to dislike Leto, and I’m not necessarily disagreeing with them. However, I thought his performance in this film was quite good. The physical choices he makes in portraying his AI character add a subtle, uncanny-valley aspect to Ares. The best part of the performance, though, is the vocal work. Leto manages to give a digital quality to Ares’ speech without resorting to crude robotic tones. He uses careful pitch and tone changes and curates his pauses to give the effect of an LLM responding to a prompt, without losing the organic quality of human voice and speech. It is very well done, and the delivery works perfectly with the dialogue written for his character.
I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the acting in “Tron: Ares,” and some of it is warranted. However, as is so often the case, people are blaming the actors when a large part of the problem is bad dialogue. Seriously, you try turning the line “I don’t like sand; it’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth” into an earnest, romantic phrase. The acting in “Tron: Ares” is mostly fine, and in Leto’s case, it is very impressive. Sure, it’s not all amazing, but the dialogue is clearly the bigger issue. The exception is the portion written for Ares. I suppose feeding prompts into ChatGPT actually worked in that case.
Another issue is the Disney tropes that permeate the film. They didn’t bother me that much because they are so worn out at this point. There is, of course, the IP bait and switch, in which a studio baits an audience with a familiar IP, character, etc. and then switches it out for a DEI replacement. Throwing out the entire Flynn family and replacing them with a diverse CEO girlboss is the relevant example here. If you’re still falling for this move in A.D. 2025, let me just say, as a longtime “Star Wars” fan, you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.
Like any modern Disney movie, “Ares” adheres to what we might call the CCCC: color and chromosome competence correlation. Eve is a woman of color and therefore exceedingly competent and driven. Her Hispanic assistant, Seth, is light enough to be belittled for his manhood, but diverse enough to be portrayed as a competent force for good. Ajay, the CTO, is an Indian man. His complexion is darker than Seth’s, making him more competent. The film makes certain we know it is Ajay who actually manages to get into the Dillinger mainframe. However, being Indian means he is not dark enough to be excluded from male penalties. Therefore, he gets a personality that is Kash Patel turned tech bro, and part of his competence and drive are outsourced to his female assistant, Erin.
The CCCC applies across the moral spectrum. Julian Dillinger might be an evil tech villain, but he is also a white man and cannot, therefore, be competent or have real authority. These qualities are supplied by his mother, Elisabeth. Athena, the program who takes over as the Dillinger MCP, is played by a black woman (get it — Black Athena?) and is therefore competent and driven. Her failure is not her fault, but the result of Ajay truth-nuking the Dillinger Grid. In “Ares,” these tropes were too worn out to be troubling; they were just boring. I’m tired of being able to predict films after a passing glance at the principal characters.
Like the tropes, the film’s treatment of AI is just boring. The “Tron” universe is full of interesting AI potential, but “Ares” doesn’t go for any of them. The permanence code, which is a double helix as opposed to regular binary code (maybe I’m just a tech neophyte, but I thought that was cool), is never explained or explored. There is no real attempt to look at what the 3D-printed Grid creations actually are and what makes them work. If you can digitize a person’s mind by bringing him onto the Grid, that opens up all kinds of fascinating possibilities. “Ares” does not explore any of these paths. Rather, it goes for the same old “what if AI started becoming human” line that is pretty worn out at this point. Gareth Edwards’ “The Creator” did the whole “you should empathize with AI when it acts human” routine much better, but it isn’t very convincing in that film, either. In “Tron: Ares,” the wasted potential just makes the result more frustrating, which brings us to the final point and the biggest issue I have with the film.
At the end of the day, “Tron: Ares” is slop. It is content conceived and designed to be just that and nothing more. AI could have written this film, which might be by design (in which case, my apologies, Jesse Wigutow, I was not familiar with your game), but I don’t think so. It is not just the lack of explanations or the fact that anyone with an IQ above room temperature could predict the entire film after 10 minutes. Everything in this film feels like it was cut and pasted from a general template for “popular high-budget sci-fi movie.”
Who will take these missed opportunities?
So what went wrong? Well, leaving aside the obvious “don’t be woke” talking point, the main issue was misunderstanding the sort of IP the filmmakers were dealing with. At its core, “Tron” is a story about computers, not just a sci-fi universe of shiny alternate realities. Ignoring this fact robs “Ares” of the necessary thematic continuity for any good sequel. Instead, the film relies on cheap nostalgia and throwaway references, refusing to use the unique set of tools it has to tell a compelling story.
To take just one example, the ability to digitize the human mind — that alone offers a more compelling and relevant story. If you can digitize the human person, storing people on the grid, what does that say about the human soul? What does it mean for surveillance, incarceration, and memory? In a time of privacy concerns and AI data-farm controversies, a computer server with the ability to store, alter, or destroy human consciousness — not to mention the capacity for independent evolution and generation — sets up a whole list of compelling questions, themes, and plot points.
If you want to understand what I’m getting at, compare the soundtrack — an album by Nine Inch Nails that sounds more like GPT — to the “Tron: Legacy” soundtrack by Daft Punk, a now-legendary, pitch-perfect expression of the computer/reality synthesis that the franchise just couldn’t live up to.
The soundtrack isn’t the only place where “Tron: Ares” is a downgrade from “Legacy.” So let me offer some advice: If you find yourself looking to stream an AI-themed sci-fi movie, just watch “Tron: Legacy.” It’s not perfect, but the soundtrack is great, the CGI holds up well, and the writing and acting actually bear the mark of real human beings.
Nazi SpongeBob, erotic chatbots: Steve Bannon and allies DEMAND copyright enforcement against AI
United States Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked by a group of conservatives to defend intellectual property and copyright laws against artificial intelligence.
A letter was directed to Bondi, as well as the the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael Kratsios, from a group of self-described conservative and America First advocates including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, journalist Jack Posobiec, and members of nationalist and populist organizations like the Bull Moose Project and Citizens for Renewing America.
‘It is absurd to suggest that licensing copyrighted content is a financial hindrance to a $20 trillion industry.’
The letter primarily focused on the economic impact of unfettered use of IP by imaginative and generative AI programs, which are consistently churning out parody videos to mass audiences.
“Core copyright industries account for over $2 trillion in U.S. GDP, 11.6 million workers, and an average annual wage of over $140,000 per year — far above the average American wage,” the letter argued. That argument also extended to revenue generated overseas, where copyright holders sell over an alleged $270 billion worth of content.
This is in conjunction with massive losses already coming through IP theft and copyright infringement, an estimated total of up to $600 billion annually, according to the FBI.
“Granting U.S. AI companies a blanket license to steal would bless our adversaries to do the same — and undermine decades of work to combat China’s economic warfare,” the letter claimed.
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Letters to the administration debating the economic impact of AI are increasing. The Chamber of Progress wrote to Kratsios in October, stating that in more than 50 pending federal cases, many are accused of direct and indirect copyright infringement based on the “automated large-scale acquisition of unlicensed training data from the internet.”
The letter cited the president on “winning the AI race,” quoting remarks from July in which he said, “When a person reads a book or an article, you’ve gained great knowledge. That does not mean that you’re violating copyright laws.”
The conservative letter aggressively countered the idea that AI boosts valuable knowledge without abusing intellectual property, however, claiming that large corporations such as NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and more are well equipped to follow proper copyright rules.
“It is absurd to suggest that licensing copyrighted content is a financial hindrance to a $20 trillion industry spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year,” the letter read. “AI companies enjoy virtually unlimited access to financing. In a free market, businesses pay for the inputs they need.”
The conservative group further noted examples of IP theft across the web, including unlicensed productions of “SpongeBob Squarepants” and Pokemon. These include materials showcasing the beloved SpongeBob as a Nazi or Pokemon’s Pikachu committing crimes.
IP will also soon be under threat from erotic content, the letter added, citing ChatGPT’s recent announcement that it would start to “treat adult users like adults.”
RELATED: Silicon Valley’s new gold rush is built on stolen work
Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The letter argued further that degrading American IP rights would enable China to run amok under “the same dubious ‘fair use’ theories” used by the Chinese to steal content and use proprietary U.S. AI models and algorithms.
AI developers, the writers insisted, should focus on applications with broad-based benefits, such as leveraging data like satellite imagery and weather reports, instead of “churning out AI slop meant to addict young users and sell their attention to advertisers.”
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Glenn Beck’s fiery response to Mark Kelly’s tantrum over Hegseth’s Franklin meme
On November 28, the Washington Post published an explosive report accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of war crimes connected to the Trump administration’s controversial military strikes on alleged drug trafficker boats in the Caribbean — a claim even the New York Times refuted with five official sources.
Hegseth then trolled his critics by posting an AI-generated meme parodying the children’s book franchise “Franklin the Turtle.” The image depicts Franklin dressed in military gear firing a rocket launcher from a helicopter at drug-smuggling boats, the fake book cover reading, “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.”
The meme infuriated military veteran and Democrat Senator Mark Kelly (Ariz.). In a press conference on December 1, he accused Hegseth of acting like “a 12-year-old playing army.”
“It is ridiculous; it is embarrassing; and I can’t imagine what our allies think of looking at that guy in this job, one of the most important jobs in our country,” he spat.
“He is in the National Command Authority for nuclear weapons, and last night, he’s putting out on the internet turtles with rocket-propelled grenades killing,” he continued.
Glenn Beck finds Kelly’s remarks a bit ironic. Kelly is, after all, currently under Pentagon investigation for contributing to a video put out by six Democrat lawmakers urging active-duty military and intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders” — an act President Trump labeled “seditious behavior.”
“Let me ask you, where were you on the leadership of the Pentagon when they pulled out of Afghanistan? Were you saying, ‘What are our allies thinking about that?’” Glenn fires back.
He then brings up Biden’s secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, who in January 2024 secretly underwent prostate cancer surgery and was hospitalized for complications without informing President Biden, the White House, or his deputy for days, sparking a major scandal over transparency and national security risks in the chain of command.
“You want to talk about being in line with the nuclear weapons?” Glenn scoffs.
“More importantly, Mr. Kelly, let me ask you: What do you think our allies thought about the health of our nation when several Democratic senators got together and, for the first time in American history, pulled a Venezuela and questioned the military and said, ‘We will hold you responsible for any crimes against humanity. By the way, we’re not telling you what those are. We’ll judge when we get back into power. And don’t listen to the commander in chief’?” Glenn asks, referring to the traitorous video Kelly helped create.
“If people in the Duma would have made that exact same video and said, ‘Question the authority of Putin,’ … how would we analyze that? Would we think that Putin was strong? Would we think that their society is strong? Would we think that they’re a nation that can defend itself, will defend itself, is willing to go to war?” he continues, pointing out the glaring irony of Kelly’s criticism of Hegseth.
Hegseth’s Franklin meme, whether you agree with it or not, isn’t the scandal the left desperately wants it to be. But the video put out by the “seditious six,” which Glenn says is clearly “trying to collapse the United States, make our enemies stronger, and foment a color revolution.”
“So, please don’t preach to me about how embarrassing it is that he’s putting a cartoon out,” he continues.
To hear more of Glenn’s scathing commentary, watch the clip above.
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‘Your nightmare is finally over’: Trump pardons Texas Democrat who opposed Biden’s border policy
More than a year and a half after a Democrat congressman was indicted on federal charges under the Biden presidency, President Trump has announced that he will be granting an “unconditional pardon.”
On Wednesday morning, President Trump announced on social media that he will be granting a “full and unconditional PARDON” for embattled Texas Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar.
‘It has tested our faith in ways we never expected, but it has not broken it. We still believe in justice.’
In the post, President Trump slammed Joe Biden for weaponizing the Department of Justice and the FBI against his political opponents — including members of his own party.
Trump suggested that Cuellar was targeted by the Biden regime because of his unflinching demands for tighter border security.
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH. It is unAmerican and, as I previously stated, the Radical Left Democrats are a complete and total threat to Democracy! They will attack, rob, lie, cheat, destroy, and decimate anyone who dares to oppose their Far Left Agenda, an Agenda that, if left unchecked, will obliterate our magnificent Country,” Trump said in the post.
“Because of these facts, and others, I am hereby announcing my full and unconditional PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Imelda. Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!”
In the Truth Social post, Trump included a letter written by the Cuellars’ daughters, Christina and Catherine, who asked for a full and unconditional pardon.
In the letter, they wrote, “This ordeal has taken a deep emotional and financial toll on all of us. It has tested our faith in ways we never expected, but it has not broken it. We still believe in justice. We still believe in America — a country built on truth, fairness, and compassion, even during the hardest of times.”
Cuellar and his wife were indicted on several federal charges related to bribery in May 2024, though they were never convicted.
At the time, Trump said, “Biden just Indicted Henry Cuellar because the Respected Democrat Congressman wouldn’t play Crooked Joe’s Open Border game. He was for Border Control, so they said, ‘Let’s use the FBI and DOJ to take him out!’ This is the way they operate.”
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Woke ‘Franklin the Turtle’ publisher and Democrats lose their minds after Hegseth shares hilarious meme
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shared a meme on Sunday depicting the eponymous star of the children’s book franchise “Franklin the Turtle” and the television adaptation “Franklin” dressed as an American soldier, perched on the side of a Bell UH-1 helicopter, and firing a rocket-propelled grenade at maritime drug-runners.
The AI-generated illustration, shared after lawmakers from both parties expressed concerns over American strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea, was made to look like the cover of a book in the series, complete with a title — “A Classic Franklin Story: Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.”
‘We doubt Franklin the Turtle wants to be inclusive of drug cartels … or laud the kindness and empathy of narco-terrorists.’
The viral meme, which Hegseth captioned “for your Christmas wish list” and had over 25.6 million impressions on X on Wednesday, evidently enraged various liberal media personalities and Democrats as well as the Toronto-based publisher of the Franklin books.
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) also complained about the meme, stating on the Senate floor, “He wants to be taken seriously, but yesterday he posted a ridiculous tweet of a cartoon turtle firing on alleged drug traffickers — a sick parody of a well-known children’s book. This man is a national embarrassment.”
Kids Can Press said in a statement, “Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity.”
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Photo by Rick Madonik/Toronto Star via Getty Image
“We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent, or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts these values,” added the Canadian publisher.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell responded to the publisher’s condemnation, stating, “We doubt Franklin the Turtle wants to be inclusive of drug cartels … or laud the kindness and empathy of narco-terrorists.”
Unfortunately for Kids Can Press and Democratic critics, their condemnations of the fictional turtle’s enlistment in MAGA memes appear to have only helped fuel the desire by trolls to depict Franklin in other provocative fake titles including, “Franklin Guards the Woman’s Locker Room,” “Franklin Gets Falsely Accused of War Crimes,” “Franklin Assists with 20 Million Deportations,” “Franklin Explains What Fauci Deserves,” and “Franklin Learns about George Floyd’s Autopsy.”
One fake book cover titled “Franklin Gets a New Job” features an image of the turtle, this time dressed up as a Department of Homeland Security agent, arresting the eponymous Latin American star of the animated children’s show “Dora the Explorer.”
Another fake cover titled “Franklin and Pete Hegseth Laugh at Communists” features an image of the war secretary and the turtle riding their bikes past four slovenly leftists.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) also got in on the fun.
Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who was among the Democratic lawmakers who urged the military last month to “refuse” allegedly illegal orders from the Trump administration, called on Hegseth to resign on Tuesday in the wake of a report claiming that the war secretary ordered SEAL Team 6 to leave behind no survivors in a recent boat strike.
Luna responded with a fake Franklin cover titled “Franklin Shows His Classmates How to Identify a Spook.” The fake cover features an image of the turtle directing his fellow woodland critters’ attention to an apparent caricature of Slotkin on a chalkboard.
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How Texas slammed the gate on Big Tech’s censorship stampede
Texas just sent a blunt message to Silicon Valley: You don’t get to censor Texans and then run home to California.
In a world where Big Tech routinely decides who may speak and who must be silenced, Defense Distributed v. YouTube, Google, and Alphabet has become a defining moment in the national fight over digital free expression. The shock isn’t the censorship at issue; it’s the fact that Big Tech — for once — lost.
In a time when Americans are desperate for leaders willing to stand up to media and tech conglomerates, Texas showed what real resolve looks like.
Defense Distributed, a Texas company, committed the unpardonable offense of promoting the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
Our videos and ads — some of them simply announcing court victories — were throttled, suppressed, or removed by YouTube and Google. None of this surprised us. These platforms built vast empires on controlling information and burying viewpoints that fall outside their ideology.
Texas prepared for this fight
The surprise is that Texas saw this coming and armed itself for the conflict. HB 20 — now Chapter 143A of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code — directly prohibits viewpoint-based censorship by major platforms. The law doesn’t hint, suggest, or politely advise. It states outright: Social media companies may not censor Texans for their viewpoints, and lawsuits brought under this chapter stay in Texas courts no matter what boilerplate corporate contracts say.
So when Defense Distributed filed suit, YouTube and Google reached for their favorite escape route: forum-selection clauses that force nearly every challenger into California courts, where Big Tech enjoys home-field advantage. It’s a delay tactic, a cost-inflation tactic, a shield against accountability — and it almost always works.
But Texas slammed that door shut before they reached it.
No escape
HB 20 doesn’t merely frown on these clauses; it voids them. The statute declares that any attempt to waive its protections violates Texas public policy — public policy the law describes as “of the highest importance.” The legislature anticipated Big Tech’s usual playbook and locked the gates years in advance.
The federal court recognized this. Judge Alan Albright ruled that transferring the case to California would directly undermine Texas’ strong public policy. Under federal law, courts cannot enforce a forum-selection clause that contradicts a state’s deeply rooted interests — especially when the legislature spells those interests out with the clarity found in HB 20.
Silicon Valley does not hear the word “no” very often. Big Tech’s money, influence, and political allies usually clear the path. But in a federal courtroom in the Lone Star State, Texas’ commitment to protecting its citizens from ideological censorship outweighed Silicon Valley’s customary dominance. The court refused to let YouTube and Google drag the case back to California.
The fight stayed in Texas — exactly where the legislature intended.
A national shift and a model for states
The timing matters. Americans now understand that Big Tech can shape elections, suppress dissent, and curate truth itself. HB 20 was mocked by the press, attacked by activists, and targeted by corporate lobbyists from the moment it passed. Yet today, it stands as one of the most potent legal tools in the country’s fight against digital censorship.
HB 20 is no longer just a statute; it is proof that a state with conviction can push back and win.
RELATED: Big Tech CEOs should leave policy to the politicians
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
This victory is more than a procedural ruling. It affirms that Big Tech’s era of unchallenged authority is not inevitable. Defense Distributed didn’t merely keep our lawsuit in Texas; we preserved the principle that powerful corporations cannot hide their censorship behind “terms of service” fine print.
Texas drew a line in the sand, and — for once — Silicon Valley stopped.
In a time when Americans are desperate for leaders willing to stand up to media and tech conglomerates, Texas showed what real resolve looks like. This ruling promises that citizens still have a fighting chance, that speech still matters, and that even the world’s largest corporations remain subject to the laws of a state determined to defend its people.
Leftists melt down after Idaho bar announces month of free beer if you help ICE find, deport illegal aliens
The Old State Saloon in Eagle, Idaho, achieved national prominence last year when it launched what it deemed “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month.”
The punch line? The plucky watering hole chose June for its 30 days of celebrating all things straight — which, of course, immediately ignited fuses dangling from left-wing noggins given that June has long been Pride Month and all.
‘WE ARE PLANNING A HUGE PROTEST THIS WEEKEND AT UR POS SALOON! GOD DOESN’T LIKE UGLY AND Y’ALL GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL!’
Well, the Old State Saloon once again is managing to poke at the left — this time offering free beer for a month to all those who help Immigration and Customs Enforcement capture and deport illegal immigrants.
The bar’s Saturday X post reads, “ALERT: Anyone who helps ICE identify and ultimately deport an illegal from Idaho gets FREE BEER FOR ONE MONTH at Old State Saloon!”
On the same day, the Department of Homeland Security reposted the saloon’s offer with a humorous GIF underscoring how floored the agency is with the promotion helping its cause — and the repost has received a whopping 3.7 million views. The Old State Saloon replied, “Let’s go! Deport them all!”
Part of the deal, however, is that those who want to claim the month-long sudsy prize must “send a detailed email with any evidence, photos, videos, summary of events, dates, and times” to deportations@oldstatesaloon.com.
One person asked the bar, “Hold up! Is there a limit per month? Limit on months?” Old State replied, “2/day for one month” and “at our discretion, may award multiple months to one person if multiple illegals are deported.”
Photographer: Yuvraj Khanna/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The bar on Sunday announced its “first big winner” of the free beer offer: Ryan Spoon, vice chair of the Ada County Republican Central Committee in Idaho. Spoon told Newsweek he “had a free Moon Dog Amber Ale” and “a great chat with the owner, Mark Fitzpatrick, whom I also consider a friend.”
More from the magazine:
Spoon previously made headlines when he publicly called for immigration raids on state Representative Stephanie Mickelsen’s farm, alleging the employment of undocumented workers. Days later, immigration agents visited Mickelsen Farms, leading to the arrest of one employee.
With all the attention the bar’s offer of free beer is generating, it should come as no surprise that a wave of left-wing backlash has been quickly growing.
But the Old State Saloon isn’t backing down from any of it — in fact, the bar is reposting on its X page the nasty feedback it has been receiving. The missives range from what clearly are fake one-star reviews — aimed at lowering the bar’s average customer scores — to some interestingly worded threats.
One of them read: “I hope you get swatted like all the sad little MAGAT bitches who think they’re doing something right. You’re not, you racist piece of s**t. I’ll be dancing a jig in a week when your busted-up s**thole is closed forever. Maybe I’ll stop by first [to] see if a cleansing fire might be the ticket.”
“U RACIST ASSHOLES!” another message read. “WE ARE PLANNING A HUGE PROTEST THIS WEEKEND AT UR POS SALOON! GOD DOESN’T LIKE UGLY AND Y’ALL GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL! BITCHES.”
Old State offered the following reply: “You better hurry up because according to all your criminal friends, Old State Saloon will be burned down by then! Let’s be real: You aren’t going to do anything. But you sounded pretty tough for a minute there.”
What’s more, on the day after the launch of the free beer campaign, Old State actually took things to another level, noting that the month of December is now “Merry Snitchmas” and a collection of new specials is on tap: “Manly American Mondays — all American citizen males who support ICE get one free beer! Ladies’ ‘I’m Telling’ Tuesdays — BOGO for American woman willing to tell ICE about any illegals, to get them deported. Wednesday: American heterosexual couples get 10% off their entire bill. Get married and make American babies, if at all possible!”
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We built abundance and lost the thing that matters
We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.
We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt, or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.
You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.
What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.
Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.
We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.
When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.
The crisis beneath the headlines
It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.
Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.
You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.
We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.
So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.
The quiet return of meaning
And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.
The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.
Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.
RELATED: A nation without trust is a nation on borrowed time
Denis Novikov via iStock/Getty Images
Where renewal begins
We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.
Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.
These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.
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Flock Safety: Is any driver safe from its AI-powered surveillance?
Buckle up, America — because if you’re driving anywhere in this country, you’re already under surveillance.
I’m not talking about speed traps or red-light cameras. I’m talking about Flock Safety cameras, those sleek, solar-powered, AI-driven spies perched on poles in your neighborhood, outside your kid’s school, at the grocery store, and along every major road.
The Institute for Justice has filed a federal lawsuit arguing that Flock effectively builds detailed, warrantless movement profiles of ordinary people.
These cameras are not just reading your license plate. They’re building a digital DNA profile of your vehicle — make, model, color, dents, bumper stickers, roof racks, even temporary tags — and logging where you’ve been, when, and with whom you’ve traveled.
And guess who has 24/7 access? Your local police, HOAs, apartment complexes, and private businesses — all without a warrant, without your consent, and often without you even knowing they exist.
Worse than you think
I’ve been warning drivers for decades about government overreach, from cashless tolls to black-box data recorders. But Flock Safety? This is next-level.
Founded in 2017 in Atlanta, Flock has exploded into a $3.5 billion surveillance empire with over 900 employees and a single goal: blanket every city in America with cameras. As of 2024, it has already deployed 40,000 to 60,000 units across 42 states in more than 5,000 communities. That’s not a pilot program. That’s a national tracking grid.
Here’s how it works — and why it should terrify every freedom-loving American.
Pure surveillance tools
Flock’s Falcon and Sparrow cameras don’t enforce speed or traffic laws. They’re pure surveillance tools.
Mounted on utility poles, traffic signals, or private property, they use automated license plate recognition (ALPR) and Vehicle Fingerprint™ technology to capture high-resolution images of your vehicle’s rear, including the license plate with state, number, and expiration, plus the make, model, year, color, and unique identifiers like dents, decals, roof racks, spare tires, even paper plates. They record the time, date, and GPS location, using infrared imaging for 24/7 operation, even at 100 mph from 75 feet away.
The data is uploaded instantly via cellular networks to Flock’s cloud servers, stored for 30 days, and accessible through a web portal by any approved user. That includes police departments across state lines through Flock’s TALON investigative platform. Drive from Georgia to New York, and every Flock camera you pass logs your journey. No warrant needed in most states.
RELATED: Why states are quietly moving to restrict how much you drive
F8 Imaging/Getty Images
Staggering scale
The scale is staggering. Milwaukee has 219 cameras with 100 more planned. Riverside County, California, uses 309 cameras to scan 27.5 million vehicles monthly. Norfolk, Virginia, has over 170 units. Raleigh, North Carolina, has 25 and counting.
Nationwide, Flock claims it logs over one billion vehicle scans per month. These cameras cost $2,500 per year per unit, are solar-powered with no wiring required, and can be installed in hours. HOAs love them, schools want them, police can’t get enough, and new units go up daily, often without public notice or approval.
Flock CEO Garrett Langley loves to brag about Flock’s crime-stopping potential. But what he doesn’t mention is that you’re tracked whether you’re a criminal or not.
No opting out
There’s no true opt-out for the public — every passing car is still scanned and logged — but some neighborhoods and agencies use Flock’s SafeList feature to avoid nuisance alerts. SafeList doesn’t exempt anyone from being recorded. It simply tells the system not to flag certain familiar plates (residents, staff, permitted vehicles) as suspicious. The camera still captures the vehicle, stores the image, and makes it searchable; it just won’t trigger an alert for those approved plates.
Flock cameras can photograph more than a license plate — sometimes the interior of a car, passengers, or bumper stickers — but this varies by angle and lighting, and the system is not designed to gather facial images.
Privacy nightmare
This is a privacy nightmare. The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation call it mass surveillance. A small-town cop in Ohio can search your plate and see everywhere you’ve driven in Florida. Rogue officers have abused ALPR before, stalking exes, journalists, activists. Data breaches? Flock says its cloud is secure, but we’ve heard that before.
A 2024 Norfolk, Virginia, ruling initially held that Flock’s system amounted to a Fourth Amendment search requiring a warrant. But that decision was later reversed on appeal. Meanwhile, the Institute for Justice has filed a federal lawsuit arguing that Flock effectively builds detailed, warrantless movement profiles of ordinary people. If that case succeeds, it would be a true game-changer.
Yes, finding a kidnapped child or stolen car is good. But at what cost? This creates a chilling effect: Will you avoid a protest, a church, a gun shop, a clinic, knowing you’re being logged? This isn’t safety. This is control.
Fighting back
So what can you do right now? Start by finding the cameras — contact your police, city council, or HOA and ask where the Flock cameras are and who has access.
Demand transparency: Push for public hearings, warrant requirements, data deletion after 24 hours, and no sharing outside your jurisdiction. Support the fighters like the ACLU, EFF, and Institute for Justice. Spot the cameras yourself — look for black poles with tilted solar panels and a small camera box.
It’s time to post your opinions on X, call your reps, show up at meetings — let’s stop the surveillance.
Flock’s CEO dreams of a camera in every U.S. city. But liberty isn’t free, and it shouldn’t come with a tracking device.
Drop your thoughts below — I read every comment. Share this information with every driver you know. Because if we don’t fight now, soon there’ll be nowhere left to hide.
