Who is Watching the Canadian Border?

Biden: Maybe We'll Let Israel Hit Iran's Oil Infrastructure

Don't look now.

JWST and Hubble have studied the enormous storm in great detail.

Even if it does look amazing.

The idea is very old and likely has roots in mythology and folklore.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that California Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D) meme ban is unconstitutional. Judge John A. Mendez of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California noted that Newsom's AB 2839 "acts as a hammer instead of a scalpel, serving as a blunt tool that hinders humorous expression and unconstitutionally stifles the free and unfettered exchange of ideas which is so vital to American debate." Christopher Kohls, the satirist who sued in hopes of killing the ban, took to X, writing, "VICTORY! Lawsuit against Newsom has been won." Elon Musk, whose re-sharing of one of Kohls' memes appears to have prompted Democrats to push the ban, wrote, "California's unconstitutional law infringing on your freedom of speech has been blocked by the court. Yay!" Background Kohls, who goes by Mr Reagan online, shared a Kamala Harris campaign ad parody on July 26. The video used many visuals present in real Harris ads in circulation at the time but had a new script read by a convincing AI-generated Harris soundalike. "I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate," says the AI voice in the nearly two-minute video. "I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire. I am both a woman and a person of color. So if you criticize anything I say, you're both sexist and racist." 'Parody is legal in America.' The video enjoyed significantly more traction after Elon Musk retweeted it, netting hundreds of millions of views. Of course, Democrats in and outside the Harris campaign were apoplectic. Mia Ehrenberg, a spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, told the Associated Press, "We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity and security Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump." Newsom also appeared prickled by the success of the parody video, writing, "Manipulating a voice in an 'ad' like this one should be illegal. I'll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is." Musk once again retweeted the offending video and wrote to Newsom, "I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America." It is worth noting, no such professor exists. Humorless Democrats As promised, Newsom ratified two pieces of censorious legislation on Sept. 17. The first, AB 2839, banned the distribution of advertisements or other election-related communications containing "materially deceptive content" within 120 days of an election, and in some cases, 60 days after an election. The term "materially deceptive" was defined thusly: "audio or visual media that is digitally created or modified, and that includes, but is not limited to, deepfakes and the output of chatbots, such that it would falsely appear to a reasonable person to be an authentic record of the content depicted in the media." Assembly member Gail Pellerin, the Democrat responsible for AB 2839, said in a statement, "With fewer than 50 days until the general election, there is an urgent need to protect against misleading, digitally-altered content that can interfere with the election. With the enactment of AB 2839, California is taking a stand against the manipulative use of deepfake technology to deceive voters." The second piece of legislation, AB 2655, the so-called "Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024," would force social media companies to censor users' politically protected speech deemed "materially deceptive." Like Pellerin, Newsom — who just passed a law barring all local governments from requiring voters to provide proof of identification — characterized this legislative push as a way to shore up election integrity. In response to the bill-signing, Musk doubled down, reposting the video with the caption, "The governor of California just made this parody video illegal in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Would be a shame if it went viral." Kohl sues — and wins Kohl, represented by the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, filed a lawsuit within hours of Newsom's ratification of the censorial legislation, claiming AB 2839 violates the First and 14th Amendments. The complaint noted AB 2839: "constitutes an impermissible and unreasonable restriction of protected speech because it burdens substantially more speech than is necessary to further the government's legitimate interests in ensuring fair and free elections"; "bars and chills speech based on content, viewpoint, and speaker"; "is not content-neutral because it targets only AI-generated election-related speech"; "is not speaker-neutral because it exempts actual candidates from using AI in their own favor if they include a disclaimer in their content"; and "contains no exemption for parody or satire." Judge Mendez granted Kohl a preliminary injunction against the ban Wednesday: "AB 2839 does not pass constitutional scrutiny because the law does not use the least restrictive means available for advancing the State's interest here." A 'powerful reaffirmation of free speech values in a world of new technology.' The judge agreed that counter speech is less restrictive than outright censorship and emphasized that lawmakers' fears of a digitally manipulated media landscape does not give them "unbridled license to bulldoze over the longstanding tradition of critique, parody and satire protected by the First Amendment." Mendez, who expressed sensitivity to the risks posed by AI and deepfakes, further noted that AB 2839 is unconstitutional "because it lacks the narrow tailoring and least restrictive alternative that a content based law requires under strict scrutiny." Adam Schulman, senior attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, called the ruling a "powerful reaffirmation of free speech values in a world of new technology." Michael Shellenberger, the CBR chair of politics, censorship, and free speech at the University of Austin, said of the ruling, "Free speech, not censorship, is the solution to bad info. Wonderful repudiation of totalitarians @GavinNewsom @KamalaHarris & @Tim_Walz." Musk congratulated Kohl, writing, "Score one for the people's right to free speech." Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said in a statement to Politico that the governor's office was "confident" the courts would ultimately uphold the state's ability to regulate deepfakes. "Deepfakes threaten the integrity of our elections, and these new laws protect our democracy while preserving free speech," said Gardon. "Satire remains alive and well in California — even for those who miss the punchline." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Blaze Media national correspondent Julio Rosas joined Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) in North Carolina this week to assess the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and distribute supplies to those in need in small communities outside Asheville.Aerial footage showed destroyed buildings, fallen trees, washed-out roads, and severe flooding in some areas.'These people have taken a serious hit.'On the ground, Blaze News spoke with individuals at Broad River Fire & Rescue. “Probably about two inches of water in here,” one individual on the fire rescue team told Rosas, referring to inside the fire station. “And in two minutes, it was to my knees. And I looked outside, and it was chest-deep.”The man explained that as the water rose, he retreated up the stairs to the second floor of the fire station. “The doors buckled, and the water came through,” he explained.The rush of water moved a pickup parked at the front of the department halfway down the building, the emergency responder explained. He stated that one of the fire trucks was totaled by the flood.“It was unbelievable,” he continued. “I’ve been here my whole life, and I’ve never seen anything like it. My grandmother talked about the 1916 flood, and from what she told me, this is on the order of that.”Another individual on the fire rescue team stated that there was nearly six feet of water in the fire department bay.“You can see the water mark on the wall,” he remarked.When asked what he would like Americans to know about what is going on in the area, he told Rosas, “Just communities planning together, helping each other. Families helping families.”“These smaller communities, a lot of the families will band together. They share their food, their water,” he added.Another volunteer, Mike Cannon, who has 40 years of rescue experience, told Rosas that he arrived on Sunday morning.“Words can’t describe it,” he stated. “This is the worst one I’ve been to. We’ve been to Harvey and Hurricane Florence, Tropical Storm Irene in Vermont. And those are our benchmarks, but I’ve never seen devastation like there is here in North Carolina.”“They’ve got a lot of resources both in state and out of state and federal,” Cannon said. “But I guess my thought process on this is that there are lots of areas that are completely cut off that are gonna take a long time for help to get into them. And the power grid does not look good around here. I would imagine that that’s going to take some time to repair and these people are going to need a lot of help.”“I know they’re probably resilient, like a lot of people are, but these people have taken a serious hit here in their personal lives and their property,” he added.He noted that the landslides in the area were like none he had ever seen before. “Just a recon flight in this one fire district that we’re in, I counted over 125 landslides yesterday and I stopped counting,” Cannon said. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson is going viral but not for anything she did on the court. The Aces center is currently under fire for a resurfaced clip from a year ago that’s already garnered over 20 million views on X. Jason Whitlock and Steve Kim discuss the damning footage. - YouTube www.youtube.com In the video, Wilson, who’s courtside, tells teammate Kelsey Plum the following: “Us, as black women, Paige [Bueckers] reminds me a lot of you. Like you say, ‘It’s not really about me.’ She knows. And she knows how her privilege has gotten her to that point,” Wilson told Plum. “And also, like, she’s good at basketball, obviously. Like, she understands her privilege. It’s, like, what pushes her over the top in a sense. It reminds me a lot of you, and I mean that as a compliment,” Wilson continued, “praising” Plum. Steve translates Wilson’s comments: “Hey white girl. You know what, you cracker a** cracker, you have a lot of white guilt, and I approve.” “This is the problem that a lot of people have with Caitlin Clark fans and supporters — they don't buy into [the white privilege narrative],” he explains, adding that “one of the more interesting aspects of this fan-hood is that some of the biggest supporters of Caitlin Clark are not whites; they're actually black males.” “Many of these people, like A’ja, are so used to being able to dispense and force white guilt upon others that when people don't comply, then it becomes something they can't even handle,” Steve continues. “This [WNBA] playoff ratings dip post Caitlin Clark is the sports version of white flight and gentrification.” Jason agrees, calling Steve’s comparison “a good analogy.” Wilson’s comment “was a message being sent to Caitlin Clark,” he says, adding that it’s also “a message to Nike.” “A’ja Wilson has a signature shoe and logo with Nike. No one's going to buy her shoe; no one cares, but Nike is bending over backwards trying to please A’ja Wilson and Dawn Staley and the whole BLM crowd by” acting like they have “to promote A’ja first.” “So there's a mindset that A’ja has to adopt to justify getting treatment she knows she doesn't deserve,” says Jason, comparing Wilson to retired NBA player Tim Duncan, who he says was a great player but not one who sold shoes. “She has to adopt this mindset of ‘I'm owed this, and you white girls need to back your a** up while I get what's owed to me,” he explains, calling it “endless reparations.” Steve says the marketing of A’ja Wilson’s shoe is basically just suppressing Caitlin Clark’s up-and-coming shoe. “They are marketing A’ja Wilson by suppressing anything having to do with the most popular player in the league by far,” he says, joking that Clark’s shoe needs to be named “Air Suppression.” To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip above. Want more from Jason Whitlock?To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

In Episode 366 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger head to Charlestown, New Hampshire, to witness the 1850 robbery of the Connecticut River Bank. The bandits made off with all of the money in the vault, but somehow lost it a few hours later. The crime of the year was downright weird. BECOME A LEGENDARY PATRON: https://www.patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends CREDITS: Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger Edited by: Ray Auger Theme Music by: John Judd SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST FOR FREE: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Podcasts | TuneIn | iHeartRadio JOIN OUR SUPER-SECRET: New England Legends Facebook Group