A Statement of Conscience on October 7 I will not start by saying ‘as a Muslim’ or ‘as an imam’, but as a human being. On October 7, over 1,200 innocent people were killed in a single day. Families were shot in their homes. Young people out dancing were hunted across open fields. Over 250 people, including children and the elderly, were dragged into Gaza as hostages. I think of a mother hiding in a safe room with her baby’s mouth covered. I think of a father listening as the line went quiet. I think of families who waited month after month for someone to come home, only to receive a coffin. I didn’t need my faith to recognize the evil of what happened. My heart told me first. But I’m a Muslim and an imam, and I owe the world one honest sentence: what was done that day was a crime against God. God teaches that whoever kills one innocent soul, it is as if he had killed all humanity. This day has an author: Yahya Sinwar. He planned it, ordered it, and knew what would follow. Every death of that day and war he started rests on him and Hamas leaders who sat in tunnels and foreign hotels and called slaughter a victory. It rests on every Palestinian leader who cheered, excused, handed out sweets, or said nothing. They chose this. They own it. But Sinwar did not invent himself. He was the fruit of a tree planted almost a century ago by the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas named itself in its founding charter as the Brotherhood’s branch in Palestine. The Brotherhood’s poison is slow. It arrives through study circles, youth camps, charity boxes, and kind words to lonely young men. Drop by drop, it teaches him that his religion is a political party, his neighbour is his enemy, the Jew is the cause of his sorrow, and God is pleased by rage. By the time the gun arrives, the soul is already taken. I have seen this poison in mosques where sermons became rallies and young men could recite slogans but not sit still for a verse on mercy. Every people that let the Brotherhood in has paid in blood and ruined generations. It has never built anything it did not first set on fire. Behind Hamas stands another hand: the IRGC. It was the IRGC’s money, weapons, and training that turned a hateful idea into an army. One calls itself Sunni and the other Shia, and they may curse each other’s creeds, but they are united in what they worship. It is not God. It is power. The same IRGC that armed the killers of October 7 shoots Iranian girls for showing their hair, hangs young men for asking to be free, and has left graves from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut. They speak in God’s name. So did Pharaoh speak in the name of heaven. So let me say this clearly. Hamas and the IRGC are not merely enemies of Islam. That would be too small a charge, as if their crime were only against us. They are enemies of God. God is the Giver of life, yet they deal in death. God calls Himself the Most Merciful, yet they have made cruelty a sacrament. God honoured the children of Adam, yet they look at a child and see a target or a shield. To murder what God created and sign His name to it is the oldest blasphemy. And we Muslims have been too quiet. Some of us were afraid. Some told ourselves it was not our business. Some, God forgive them, felt something other than horror that morning and never confessed it. Silence was the soil this poison grew in. I will not add to it. So on this anniversary, let us say plainly what our scripture already says. The Jews are not our enemies. They are our cousins in Abraham, and their dead were created by the same God who created us. Today belongs to them: the murdered, the hostages, and families who still set a place at the table. To them I say: I am sorry for what was done to you by men who used the words of my prayers. You’re not alone in your grief or remembrance. The enemies of God are those who murder in His name. We know their names. It is time we said them from our own pulpits, in our own voices, before they speak for us again. Imam Tawhidi

Are the French giving the protesters enough food aid? How many trucks are getting through?

A bank laundered money for terrorists and drug cartels and paid a fine. A restaurant gave me a job and sent me home with dinner. Guess which one I think about more. After I blew the whistle at @HSBC, every door in my industry closed. Not slowly. All at once. I had a degree, a record of being right, and no one who would return a call. I was sleeping on a camping cot in a studio apartment and I needed to eat. @PFChangs hired me. They did not ask about the bank. They did not treat me like a liability. They handed me an apron and a section and let me earn an honest dollar on a day when nobody else in America would. On the nights money was tightest, the kitchen sent me home with lo mein so I would have something to eat. Nobody made a speech about it. They just did it. I rebuilt my life between shifts. Everything I have now traces back to a restaurant that decided a whistleblower was worth hiring. Here is what I learned carrying plates that I never learned at a bank. Dignity does not come from the title on your badge. It comes from doing honest work well, every single shift, when nobody is watching and nobody is impressed. The people I reported kept their bonuses. I kept my self-respect. I would make that trade again. So I have a small ask. Eat at @PFChangs this week. Lunch, dinner, whatever works. And tip your server like they might be rebuilding their entire life between tables, because some of them are. I was. To the @PFChangs team, past and present: you did not just feed me. You gave me a place to stand while I figured out how to fight back. I will never forget it.

BREAKING: Statement From Sean Davis, CEO and Co-Founder of The Federalist: Corrupt cop Jack Smith spied on The Federalist and accessed our communications during his lawless anti-Trump witch hunt. We are still working to determine which of our reporters were targeted by Jack Smith and which journalistic communications he and his thugs seized. The latest facts about Jack Smith’s illegal jihad were released by Sen. Charles Grassley during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Tuesday. The Federalist’s team of investigative reporters exposed the Russian collusion hoax. We exposed the Kavanaugh hoax. We exposed the Ukraine impeachment hoax. And The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway wrote the definitive account of how Democrats seized control of election infrastructure and destroyed the integrity of American elections in 2020. For over a decade, The Federalist has fearlessly exposed Deep State corruption and DOJ lies and lawfare. Spying on us was apparently part of Jack Smith’s plot to get revenge against us. The First Amendment is the bedrock of the American Constitution. A free press is integral to the American republic and our entire way of life. And Jack Smith fed the whole thing through a shredder in his insane and illegal attempt to rig the 2024 elections through lawfare, intimidation, and unconstitutional attacks on free speech and the First Amendment. As shocking as this news may be to some, I am not surprised to learn of this behavior by Jack Smith and the Biden administration. At the direction of the Biden administration, the federal government illegally censored The Federalist, tried to bankrupt us, and was eventually forced to admit it had zero legal authority to do any of it. We took these thugs to court and won when we learned of their illegal censorship efforts, and we will explore all legal options going forward to deal with Jack Smith’s lawless and un-American attempts to silence us by spying on us. Nobody in corporate media said a word in our defense when we were illegally censored. Outlets like CNN and the New York Times, which posture as First Amendment purists, had nothing to say about the Biden administration’s illegal attempts to punish us for our rigorous and accurate journalism. I have zero doubt that they will be similarly silent today, because they are partisan hacks who supported Jack Smith’s egregious lawfare every step of the way. Unlike corrupt corporate media, The Federalist will always fearlessly and accurately report the news, even in the face of never-ending Democrat assaults on the First Amendment, free speech, and freedom of the press. We will never back down, and we will never stop reporting the facts and defending the greatest nation and greatest people on earth. Hillary Clinton couldn’t stop us, Joe Biden couldn’t stop us, and Jack Smith’s corrupt thuggery won’t stop us.

Best way to sandbox an AI is to put it on a Delta flight – it will have no chance of accessing the Internet!

RT @GBNT1952: This is what Palestinians cheered in the streets. If you can watch this without being absolutely enraged, you are a degenerat…

Remember. She approved of this

This is absolutely incorrect. I have been the Washington Bureau Chief (or Washington Political Editor — previous title) of Breitbart since October 2015. I was a reporter at Breitbart from December 2012 until then. So I’ve been here 14 years basically. I know every in and out of this fight. We did NOT have pool access during Biden which was NOT a decision by the Biden White House but by the WHCA. So it’s actually WORSE than Vance is saying. The media themselves ganged up on us and in a totally underhanded way altered their rules to try to silence us. The WHCA is a corrupt organization and @JacquiHeinrich knows this all and yet does nothing to fix it. Here’s the truth of what happened: We actually got our first hard badge during the end of the Obama administration. The Obama White House was actually very nice to us, and while we had clear political disagreements they were fine to work with and we did great stories from there. We had hired our first White House correspondent then, and he covered the White House and regularly attended press briefings. He also occasionally did pool coverage. It was a huge moment for us. We had the hard badge credentialed White House correspondent up through the beginning of Biden and believe it or not, the Biden White House did allow us into some briefings. Whether they called on us was a different story. Happened occasionally. But we never had hard badge problems actually. To be clear, at some point during Biden Administration, we went separate ways with our then White House correspondent and didn’t refill the role until Trump term 2 so we didn’t have a hard badge correspondent during that time. But that was our decision not Biden White House — who to be clear and I’ve seen some of them talking about this never stripped us of that. But there is a MASSIVE difference between access to the briefing room and briefings and pool access and that’s where the legacy establishment media are so underhanded and dishonest. Up until THIS administration pool access had been solely determined by the WHCA. The WHCA when Trump won the first time colluded with the Senate Press Gallery to change its membership rules — this happened early 2017 — to strip us of our voting membership which we began under the Obama administration. The Senate Press Gallery stripped us of our Capitol credentials based on a lie — that has since been rectified and we have them on the Hill again — and the WHCA stripped us of voting membership, which we had, by changing its rules arbitrarily. The WHCA does NOT allow under these new arbitrary rules any member without voting rights to have POOL ACCESS. Pool is the key — it’s where the President and key members of the administration interact with a smaller group of press daily than the broader entire White House press corps. That’s like when you see the president taking questions in the Oval Office or something. So we were stripped from the pool BY THE REST OF THE MEDIA during TRUMP TERM 1. Biden did not fix this during his term; Trump term 2 HAS FIXED IT, they added new media to the pool and we regularly have our White House correspondent in the pool and he asks great newsworthy questions often of the President, Vice President, and cabinet officials. The WHCA still does not allow people like us to be voting members; it still does not allow people like us to be members of the pool. The ONLY reason we have that access is because the Trump White House has gone out of their way to add the new media components to press coverage and overrode the WHCA to add new media to the pool. So it’s actually way more complicated than what Vance is saying— in fact the truth makes the media look even worse because it was the MEDIA who censored us thereby making all these people whining about what Trump is doing massive hypocrites (as far as I’m concerned for what it’s worth I could care less whether they have press badges and what not but the idea they are crusaders for the First Amendment is ridiculous nonsense) — but what Sam is saying here is absolutely untrue. Because of the WHCA we didn’t have pool access then. So it’s technically not Biden’s fault or Trump fault in term one, but until Trump term 2 the White House didn’t lift a finger to help us when the rest of the media ganged up on us to try to silence us. Because of what @karolineleavitt and her team did in this administration, Trump term 2 is actually genuinely the most transparent administration I’ve covered and that dates back to Obama — I covered both of Obama’s terms, Trump’s first, Biden, and now Trump term 2. All that said, we should all be asking ourselves why a cartel of global corporations— the WHCA is exactly that — is so hellbent on silencing an outlet with approximately just under a hundred journalists with laptops. Why do they hate us so much? Maybe it’s because time and again we continually show them up and beat them to absolutely massive stories. Maybe just maybe these mega corporations like FOX, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, NYT, WAPO, AP, etc are using their collective corporate power through a corrupt institution to silence the one little guy who regularly kicks their asses in news. Just saying.

Want to go out on a limb: in 10 years people will be cranky that there aren't enough data centers in poor or minority communities

A couple years ago, Mikala Sposito applied for a work ethic scholarship from my foundation. She asked for $2,700.00 to help realize her dream of becoming a welder. (Actually, her first dream was to become an Olympian. As a kid, she excelled at horseback riding, dance, soccer, and track, but not quite at the Olympic level. So, Mikala adjusted her dream and focused on something within her reach. Precisely the kind of commonsense approach to making a living we try to encourage.) Toward that end, Mikala filled out the application, jumped through all the necessary hoops, and signed the S.W.E.A.T. Pledge, as all applicants must. According to our internal ranking system, which is inherently subjective and relative to each batch of new applicants, Mikala scored a 94, and was awarded $2,100.00, or roughly 80% of what she asked for. This is typical of the average percentage awarded to an excellent applicant. As a rule, we almost never award the entire amount requested. We want our recipients to have some skin in the game, and we encourage all applicants to apply for additional scholarship funds elsewhere, which Mikala did. But in this case, if I had it to do over again, I think I’d have awarded Mikala the full $2,700.00. Why? Because this woman is precisely why I award work ethic scholarships in the first place, as recent headlines prove. Headlines all over the country that identify Mikala Sposito as the sole welder to represent Team USA in the upcoming @WorldSkills Competition in Shanghai. This is a very big deal. The World Skills competition is often referred to as the Olympics of the skilled trades, so it looks like Mikala’s dream is coming true after all. And it seems to me her journey is worth a brief encapsulation. Before she applied for a scholarship from mikeroweWORKS, Mikala demonstrated an affinity for welding in SkillsUSA. As a senior at Dexter High School, she won 1st Place at the SkillsUSA Michigan high school competition and went on to place 14th nationally. Then, as a freshman at Washtenaw Community College, she repeated her success by taking 1st Place in the Michigan college division. She then advanced to nationals, where she finished 8th in the country. That earned her an invitation to the Team USA pre-trials, which whittled the nation's top 16 young welders down to three. At the final USA Weld Trials at the Robotics Technology Park in Huntsville, Alabama, each competitor was evaluated on precision, safety, technical execution, craftsmanship, and multi-process capabilities under extreme time constraints. Mikala Sposito took the Gold, officially becoming the first woman to represent the United States in welding at WorldSkills. Next week, she’ll face off against the absolute best of the best from all over the world. I should point out that Mikala would prefer it if the press didn’t make a big deal of her gender, and I completely understand. (She’s a welder – not a “weld-her.”) But today, the industry is in desperate need of proof that women can and do excel in the trades. Nationally, just 4.3% of tradespeople are female. At mikeroweWORKS, our female applicants are closer to 20%, but I assure you that percentage could be much higher. Companies are anxious to recruit talented welders of any gender, and women need to understand and believe the opportunities are real. Mikala prove that in spades, and I want to offer her my sincere congratulations, and invite all of you to do the same. Because Mikala Sposito is exactly what our country needs a lot more of. People who understand that talent is never enough to compensate for laziness. In her application, she wrote, “Hard work beats talent any day of the week, and nobody is going to outwork me. Period.” She also connected with every point of the S.W.E.A.T. Pledge but said the final tenet resonated with her the most. “Some people choose to be lazy. Some people choose to sleep in. I choose to work my butt off.” My favorite quote, however, is Mikala’s response to seasoned professionals who see her wield a torch and call her a “natural.” “I’m not a natural,” she says. Far from it. And none of this came easy. I worked and trained 60-80 hours a week for two years to get here.” Regardless of what happens in Shanghai, the job offers are already piling up, including the most recent from SpaceX. She hasn’t graduated yet, but the future looks bright, and I for one would not bet against her. PS. I never do this, but since my name is in the title of the foundation, I suppose I can. Mikala – please accept the additional $600 you requested from mikeroweWORKS two years ago. Shanghai is expensive, and since you’re representing all of us, we’d like to provide you with a little walking around money. The check is in the mail. Now…go get the gold!

Daughter commented that her Tesla saved a dogs life tonight on FSD. I keep seeing video's where people say a Tesla would have killed the dummy they tossed out into it's path etc. I probably would have hit the dog if I was driving, seeing that the dog was black, coming out of shadows etc. She said the car did a full panic brake stop from 40mph. #Huntersville @Tesla

Remember when I sued you in both state and federal court to open the beaches of Orange County that you maliciously closed, and you lifted the order so as to moot our cases before the hearings? You knew it back then too, Governor.

Mamdani Lays Wreath At Tomb Of The Unknown Hijacker buff.ly/Fqnok61

Dario has written that we need to “pace the frontier,” and Sam has agreed. People may be surprised by my response: go ahead. You guys are the frontier. By any reasonable metric — market share, revenue growth, model capability — the two of you have a duopoly on frontier intelligence. You’ve also claimed the lead is widening because of recursive self-improvement. I don’t see what you see in the lab. If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible. But stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission. Stop pretending antitrust law has to be suspended so you can form a cartel. Stop pretending you need a regulatory approval process that supersedes product liability. Stop pretending METR is independent when it is intertwined with Anthropic’s investors and staff. Stop pretending you need those same evaluators to police competitors who aren’t even at the frontier. Most of all, stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic. You face massive product-liability exposure if your products enable a truly damaging cyberattack. The market already punishes models that behave in unpredictable or unauthorized ways. After the Hugging Face episode, it is simply good business for OpenAI and Anthropic to trade some raw power for reliability and predictability. Call it alignment if you want. It is also just giving customers what they want. Pacing the frontier would also create breathing room for a more intelligent conversation about regulation than Bernie Sanders’ “shut it all down.” China is very unlikely to join a global agreement, as you know, and that has to be taken into account as well. So go ahead and pace the frontier. You are the ones setting it. The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it. Demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system. So just do it. If you do, you’ll buy goodwill for the next conversation. If you don’t, we’ll know this was just another bid for regulatory capture — or an election-season psyop.

North Carolina’s finest being a visible presence on the highways to protect and serve. 😂 @NCSHP

The richest man in the world took a break from building rockets and cars and satellites and came to DC to help the GOP cut insane spending. Handed them talent, a blueprint, everything. Not only did Congress refuse to cut the spending, they basically ran him out of town.

I had just finished one of the darkest meetings of my life. I’m sitting there staring at my legal team while they’re explaining to me that the infant formula I imported into the United States was considered contraband. Contraband. I didn’t even understand what they were telling me. I knew I was facing absolute disaster. Financial ruin. Years in prison. But none of that was really going through my head. I kept thinking about my wife and my triplets. My kids were going to grow up without their father. That night I got obliterated. Absolutely trashed. I was staying at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, far away from home, and I just wanted my brain to shut off. I couldn’t make sense of any of it. I was angry. Scared. Disgusted with myself. Everything dark that can run through a man’s head was running through mine. I woke up the next morning and needed to find some kind of reason in all of it. So I got in my car and started driving around neighborhoods I didn’t know, looking for a Greek Orthodox church. I found one. I parked, walked up and tried the door. It opened. There was a woman inside who looked surprised to see me. She told me they weren’t normally open on a weekday and asked what I needed. I said, “Can I just go inside and pray?” She looked at me for a second. I think she knew immediately that something was wrong with me. She said yes. Then she said something I will never forget. “You know, we’re usually not open. I just came here to do some work and forgot to lock the door.” That was the first sign. I walked into an empty church and sat in the front pew. And I tried to pray. Have you ever actually tried to pray when you’re completely broken? I don’t mean repeating a prayer because you know the words. I mean really trying to speak to God when your mind is going in a thousand directions and you can barely put a sentence together. I couldn’t do it at first. I knew the wrong I had done in my life. Not infant formula. My life. Who’s not a sinner? Eventually I looked up at the icon of Christ and got the words out. Take me out of this mess. Forget about me. Don’t ruin my kids’ lives. My wife is as much of a saint as anyone I know in this world. My triplets deserve their father. Don’t take me away from them. I’ll do whatever needs to be done. I’ll try to live a righteous life as far as a flawed man can. Just show me what to do. And then something happened that I have never been able to forget. For the first time in my life, I heard Him. Words. Follow My signs, and I’ll save you. I froze. I didn’t understand what had just happened. I was shocked. Stunned. Scared. Everything. But I listened. I’ve been following the signs ever since. Years passed. There were more dark days. There were moments I thought this would never end. But it ended. I’m home. My wife has her husband. My children have their father. And I’m free. I don’t expect everyone reading this to understand what happened in that empty church in Philadelphia. That’s okay. I know what happened to me. One of the darkest days of my life became one of the brightest. I need to make a visit back to that church, and close this chapter. I need to pray there again. I’ve never told this entire story publicly before. God bless you.