Police should stop monitoring social media for alleged breaches of non-crime, free speech strictures and return to the fundamental tasks of catching criminals while protecting society, the head of the UK police watchdog said.

Sir Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, insists forces need to get the basics right and focus on the issues that matter to the public rather than being Orwellian arbiters of hurtful words and damaged feelings.

Arbitrating social media disputes should not be a police priority.

As reported by The Times of London, Sir Andy, ex-chief constable of Merseyside, told reporters the focus of law enforcement must return to neighbourhood policing.

“We need, at times, to allow people to speak openly without the fear their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law.”

Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) are recorded by police to help assess community tensions and try to head off trouble. Many critics see this as a threat to free speech.

Sir Andy’s plea comes after Father Ted writer Graham Linehan, 57, was arrested by armed cops over posts he made about trans issues.

Breitbart previously reported that in Linehan’s Substack he criticized how, “in a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak,” the government “mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer” over tweets he had written and shared.

The Irish comedian has vowed to sue the Metropolitan Police and seek asylum in the U.S. as he no longer feels safe in Britain, as Breitbart News reported.

Asked about the case, Sir Andy replied: “Was it a great public optic? No, it wasn’t. Lessons, I’m sure, will be learned in relation to it.”

He said such incidents detract from the good work police do daily, adding: “I’m a firm believer that non-crime hate incidents are no longer required, and that intelligence can be gathered in a different way, which would cause less concern to the public and make recording of such issues much easier.

“We need to separate the offensive from the criminal.”

Cooke talked to reporters as he launched the inspectorate’s annual state of policing report.

A review is now underway at the College of Policing, the body that the sets standards for law enforcement.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com

NATO airspace was violated by a “huge number of Russian drones” overnight, the Prime Minister of Poland said, as he triggered NATO’s Article Four while the alliance’s militaries directly shot down Russian UAVs for the first time.

“Last night the Polish airspace was violated by a huge number of Russian drones”, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in an address to the nation’s Parliament on Wednesday morning, telling the assembly: “This is not our war. This is not just a war for Ukrainians. This is a confrontation that Russia has declared on the entire world”.

Tusk said three or four of the 19 drones which entered NATO airspace “posed a threat” and were shot down. It is stated that the others came down by other causes, including running out of fuel, and the Polish military is now searching for remains, and has asked the public to remain vigilant and to report and find wreckage immediately.

In some cases, the drones crossed into Polish airspace from Ukrainian airspace, with the Ukrainian Air Force stating that it had detected eight drones overflying its territory and heading towards Poland. Others flew directly into Poland from Russia’s lockstep ally Belarus, which lies to its north-east and occupies some historic Polish territory lost during the 20th century.

There were no injuries or fatalities in Poland, but some property damage was recorded, including a home which local press says had its roof blown off.

Four airports in Poland’s east, Modlin and Chopin in Warsaw, as well as Rzeszow and Lublin, were closed overnight. Prime Minister Tusk told his parliament that this was not because a threat had been identified to the airports themselves, but because the military needed clear skies for an intensive all-night operation. Airports reopened on Wednesday after the military operation concluded, but with severe delays.

In comments this morning, Tusk called the incursion of Russian drones into Polish airspace an “unprecedented violation” and stated “most likely, we are witnesses to a large-scale provocation”. He said: “This is the first time Russian drones have been shot down over the territory of a NATO country”.

Tusk told Parliament that he invoked NATO’s Article Four after talks with the Polish President. This is not the better-known Article Five, which activates obligatory collective defence from all members, but rather one that triggers a consultation process. Per NATO itself: “Any member country can formally invoke Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty. As soon as it is invoked, the issue is discussed and can potentially lead to some form of joint decision or action on behalf of the Alliance. Whatever the scenario, fellow members sitting around the Council table are encouraged to react to a situation brought to their attention by a member country.”

Before today, Article Four has been activated seven times in the past, most recently in 2022 at the beginning of Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine.

Regarding the overnight operation, Tusk stated that ground defence systems were activated and several aircraft types were scrambled. From the Polish Air Force, modern Western equipment, including the F-35, F-16, and Black Hawk helicopters, was made airborne. Poland also deployed its older Soviet-era MI-24 and MI-17 helicopters. NATO assets from other member states, including Dutch fighter jets and Italian surveillance aircraft, as well as early warning and refuelling aircraft, were also deployed.

“The operation lasted all night”, Tusk said, noting “the first violations of Polish airspace were recorded at 11:30 PM, the last around 6:30 AM”.

Overnight, the Polish military’s Operational Command of the Armed Forces in Warsaw issued a warning to civilians in the Podlaskie, Mazowieckie, and Lubelskie voivodeships (regions) to stay at home while the operation continued. An emergency message sent to mobile phones in Poland read: “Attention!…  inform services about drones and locations where they fall. Do not approach them.”

The drones that made their way to Poland were apparently part of a larger overnight strike on Ukraine, with Kyiv saying they’d detected 415 Russian drones and 42 missiles launched. Ukraine’s Air Force said they shot down or otherwise downed 386 drones and 27 missiles. At least one person was killed in Ukraine by the strikes.

Rogue drones and missiles have found their way into Poland in the past over the course of the Ukraine War, with such incidents accepted as accidental but dangerous. Yet the incursions overnight were distinct for their increased number and sustained duration. In addition to Poland’s Tusk questioning whether the incursions are a deliberate “provocation” by Russia, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky made it clear that he views it as an attack on NATO, with Moscow testing “the limits of what is possible” to ascertain whether a response would follow.

Identifying the drones over Poland as Iranian-designed ‘Shahed’ suicide bomb aircraft, Zelensky said such large numbers could not be dismissed as an “accident”. He wrote: “An extremely dangerous precedent for Europe. Whether there will be further steps depends entirely on the coordination and strength of the response. The Russians must feel the consequences. Russia must feel that the war cannot be expanded and must be ended.”

Later, Zelensky also stated that the number of Russian drones that entered Poland may be more than the 19 initially reported by Tusk, suggesting it could have been as many as 24.

The European Union’s Kaja Kallas, a politician from Estonia, a former Soviet-occupied country now bordering Russia, echoed similar sentiments. She wrote on Wednesday morning that Europe had just witnessed “the most serious” violation of its airspace and that “indications suggest it was intentional, not accidental”. She called this an escalation of the war.

Moscow itself has not commented on the events of the night whatsoever. Still, Russian state media has reported that some drones were shot down over Poland overnight and repeatedly emphasised that the origin of the drones has yet to be proven. The BBC noted that Moscow media also promulgated the claim that far from being Russian drones over Poland, the aircraft were in fact a Ukrainian false-flag attack intended to draw NATO into the conflict.

The Belarusian government — a full-throated ally of the Kremlin, which is in a nuclear-weapon sharing agreement with Moscow, and which lets Russia use its territory to launch attacks into Ukraine — put out a substantial statement on the incursions, claiming the drones had gone to Poland by accident. Chief of the General Staff of Belarus Major General Pavel Muravyeika wrote on Wednesday that during the course of the night’s “exchange of strikes” between Russia and Ukraine — Ukraine of course having launched its own drones against Russia as part of its proactive defence as it does every night — some drones “lost their track as a result of the impact of the parties’ electronic warfare”.

It is certainly true that to save ammunition, Ukraine does attempt to redirect or bring down enemy drones by using electronic countermeasures to confuse the onboard flight systems, crashing them harmlessly away from built-up areas. Indeed, this has been cited as a reason behind previous single cases of drones and missiles crashing in Poland’s borderlands in the past. Yet, whether this will be accepted as reasonable for such a large number of sustained arrivals overnight is unclear, and Western capitals are unlikely to smile upon the Belarusian suggestion that this is essentially Ukraine’s fault, even if the drones were indeed Russian.

Belarus also claimed it had proactively cooperated with the Polish government throughout the night, asserting that it had notified Warsaw of “lost” drones it was tracking as they approached its airspace. Muravyeika claimed: “… our forces and equipment on duty exchanged information on the air and radar situation with the forces and equipment on duty in Poland and the Republic of Lithuania. In doing so, they alerted them to the approach of unknown aircraft to their countries’ territory.

“This allowed the Polish side to respond promptly to the actions of the drones by scrambling their forces on duty. In fairness, it should be noted that the Polish side also informed the Belarusian forces on duty about the approach of unidentified aircraft from the territory of Ukraine to the border of the Republic of Belarus.”

This story is developing, more follows

Poland placed its air defenses at the highest stage of alert early Wednesday after up to 10 Russian attack drones entered Polish airspace. Rzeszów Airport in eastern Poland has been closed due to “unplanned military activity related to ensuring state security,” according to an official Notice to Airmen (NOTAM). Rzeszów Airport serves as the hub for military resupply efforts supporting Ukraine.

There are reports on X that Polish Air Force fighters have engaged some of the Russian drones.

Reportedly, President Trump has diverted a planned motorcade to an unannounced location, rumored to be the Pentagon’s operations center.

This event takes place in the context of a large-scale Russian drone attack on areas of Western Ukraine. I hesitate to call the areas targets because the Russians don’t seem to quite understand the concept. It is more likely that the drones over Poland are simply lost rather than targeting Poland.

That said, this report, if it pans out, marks a huge escalation in the war. Dropping the occasional drone in Romania is just bad manners. Dropping ten or so into a country that is ready and eager to have a go at the Russians could turn out to make someone’s days interesting. The most likely effect of this will be Poland and NATO extending an air defense zone over Western Ukraine.

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Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) just said the quiet part out loud, and boy, was it loud: 

“Law enforcement isn’t to PREVENT crime! Law enforcement solves crime, okay? That is what they are supposed to do.”

Let that sink in. A sitting member of Congress actually believes cops are glorified janitors, here to sweep up the bloody mess after criminals have wrecked your life, not stop the crime in the first place.

This is what happens when Democrats spend years demonizing police. They’ve so thoroughly warped their worldview that “law enforcement” no longer means “enforcing the law.” It means showing up with a clipboard after the fact, maybe filing a report, maybe solving the case, if you’re lucky. Your protection? Not their concern.

Imagine telling a firefighter, “Hey, don’t worry about preventing the blaze, just show up after the house burns down and investigate what happened.” Or a doctor: “Don’t bother with prevention, just identify the cause of death.” That’s not just idiotic, it’s dangerous.

RELATED: Pre-Crime Monitoring? The FBI Thwarts a Potential School Shooting in North Carolina

Report: LAPD Being Pulled From ‘Crime Suppression Efforts’ to Provide Security for Kamala Harris

But here’s the kicker: Crockett’s worldview is exactly why Democrat-run cities look like crime scenes. Chicago, New York, San Francisco, places where policing has been stripped down to “crime response” instead of “crime prevention.” And the result? Criminals emboldened, families terrified, businesses fleeing.

Democrats call it “reimagining policing.” Normal people call it anarchy.

Police exist to deter crime as much as to solve it. Their presence alone prevents countless crimes every day. But to Crockett and her squad-adjacent pals, that’s inconvenient; it clashes with the left’s narrative of cops as the bad guys. So they rewrite the job description: protect criminals, abandon citizens.

SEE ALSO: The Left’s Assault on America’s Defining Principles Continues, and Kamala Harris Couldn’t Love It More

Washington State Is Seeing a Surge in Violent Crime and There’s No Mystery Why

Here’s the truth Democrats don’t want to admit: When you strip cops of their preventive role, you put regular Americans in the crosshairs. You tell mothers in bad neighborhoods, “Sorry, you’re on your own.” You tell shopkeepers watching theft skyrocket, “File a report online.” You tell families, “We’ll get to you after the fact.”

Crockett may think this is some clever hot take, but it’s really the distilled essence of Democratic governance: everything reactive, nothing preventive, and the public always left holding the bag.

Law enforcement’s job is clear: Prevent, protect, and pursue justice. If Jasmine Crockett can’t grasp that, maybe she should take a ride-along in her own district and explain to the next carjacking victim why cops are just “crime solvers,” not protectors.

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President Donald Trump warned Hamas on Sunday that it had one last chance to reach a hostage deal, or else.

The consequences were not specified, but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are currently poised to commence an attack on the last Hamas strongholds in Gaza City, in northern Gaza.

Trump posted to Truth Social:

Everyone wants the Hostages HOME. Everyone wants this War to end! The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one! Thank you for your attention to this matter.
DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Earlier this weekend, as Breitbart News reported, the Trump administration passed a last-minute hostage deal proposal to Hamas from Special Envoy Steve Witkoff via columnist Gershom Baskin, who has been an intermediary before.

The terms of the deal were not clear, but likely involve the release of all 48 remaining Israeli hostages, some 20 of whom may still be alive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, responded to foreign and domestic criticism of Israel’s military posture by telling his Cabinet that he would rather achieve victory over Hamas than a good eulogy in the international press.

“f I need to choose between victory over our enemies and malicious propaganda against us, I choose victory over our enemies, as opposed to the opposite. I do not want stories that we have been beaten by our enemies and for us to be eulogized well in the global media. I choose victory,” he said.

Update: The Times of Israel reported Sunday evening (early Monday morning local time) that Hamas said it is willing to negotiate, based on a framework that would see the release all of the “prisoners” (possibly meaning all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody, not necessarily all of the Israeli hostages), in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza (perhaps including buffer zones established by Israel) and an end to the war.

The Hamas statement did not mention disarmament, nor did it mention the Israeli demand that it leave power — only that it would agree to an “independent” committee of Palestinians to govern Gaza.

It is not clear whether the Hamas response actually meets President Trump’s demands, and appears designed to create the appearance of agreement in order to generate pressure on Israel not to proceed with its attack on Gaza City.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

President Donald Trump evoked one of the most iconic battle scenes in the history of cinema in a meme Saturday and sent Democrats into various states of shell shock.

On Truth Social, Trump posted an AI-generated photo of himself in the role played by actor Robert Duvall in the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, rebranding it as “Chipocalypse Now” and writing, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

WATCH — Is Chicago NEXT?! Trump Calls City “Hell Hole”:

It’s a reference to the president’s rebranding of the Department of Defense and the administration’s anticipated crackdown on illegal immigration in the Windy City, which is pictured in the background of the photo.

Trump’s words evoke Duvall’s famous line during his calvary unit’s helicopter assault in the Vietnam war: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory”:

The post brought a predictable response from Democrats and media critics.

The Drudge Report, no longer a conservative media aggregator, led with the image and the headline: “Trump Unhinged.”

Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Saturday called Trump’s post “not normal.”

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Pritzker wrote on X. “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

President’s Trump’s latest trolling of Illinois and Chicago politicians comes after days of their tough talk and threats in opposition to an immigration crackdown expected in the country’s third largest city and the possibility of troops being used in the effort.

As Breitbart News reported Friday, equipment and federal personnel have been arriving at Naval Station Great Lakes, on the shores of Lake Michigan north of Chicago, in preparation for the operation.

Pritzker has promised a lawsuit if military personnel are involved. And while critics are blasting Trump for the use of a violent war image, Chicago’s own Mayor Brandon Johnson has provocatively urged Chicagoans to “rise up” in violence against federal law enforcement officers.

The Trump administration has also reserved the option to dispatch the National Guard, as it did in Los Angeles, if there is a violent reaction to the immigration roundup.

WATCH — Trump: Los Angeles Would Be ‘Burning to the Ground’ Without National Guard:

The president has also proposed that Chicago’s crime problem — which includes hundreds of shootings and homicides each year, mostly on the south side — could be dramatically reduced by a local law enforcement effort aided by the National Guard, similar to the effort in past weeks in Washington, DC.

When asked last Tuesday about sending National Guard troops into the city, Trump said, “We’re going,” but quickly added, “I didn’t say when. We’re going in.”

Johnson, despite his own threats of citizen violence against the Trump crackdown, appeared to try to take a higher road as he posted on X.

“The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” he said. “We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump.”

Even California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) had to get in on the pile on, posting on X, “The President of the United States is deploying the military onto US streets and using our troops like political pawns. DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BECOME NUMB TO THIS.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) called the president a “draft dodger.”

Political commentator turned long-time Trump critic Bill Kristol simply wrote, “Fascism.”

Former Obama strategist David Axelrod wrote, “He’s TRYING to provoke a confrontation. Don’t take the bait, Chicagoans.”

Those critics. and many others, all reposted the “Chipocalypse” image. If the president’s aim was to have the image go viral on social media, his detractors may have given him a helping hand.

Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more

After seven months as Secretary of Defense, strike that, I mean Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth seems to be struggling to gain control of the Pentagon. Despite a handful of high-profile firings, there are indications that the system is still attempting to promote officers who were most active in pushing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.

Item:

General Kenneth Wilsbach is rumored to be a top contender to fill the slot as Air Force Chief of Staff after the surprise retirement of General David Allvin. Wilsbach turned over command of Air Combat Command in August. Ordinarily, he would have retired, but DOD confirms he has not yet retired, though his retirement should have been effective on September 1, and his official bio page is still open. Yet, in his recent command assignments, he has pushed DEI as a priority.

Item:

President Trump has nominated Lieutenant General John Braga to take command of Joint Special Operations Command. Yet he was a big proponent of DEI. By the way, I do not endorse the memo included in the tweet below. Those things are boilerplate, and I’ve signed some of them myself.

Perhaps most troubling was Braga’s role in attempting to force-feed women into special operations units. Like the decision to ensure women graduated from Ranger School, he appears to have started with his conclusion and worked backward, ignoring the evidence and feedback, to achieve what he wanted.

This is the report. The tone is one of impatience with any hint that women should not serve in Special Operations Forces combat assignments.

Admittedly, both generals may have been bending with the prevailing political winds. This kind of spaghetti spine is not needed today. The nation and the U.S. military need leaders of principle who have stood up for what was right.

Perhaps most troubling, and maybe linked, is the person in charge of general officer promotions. That would be the civilian Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Military Personnel Policy Stephanie Miller. Here, retired intelligence Chief Warrant Officer Sam Shoemate brings the receipts.

Why do woke General Officers continue to get promoted while reinstatement of unlawfully discharged personnel continues to stagnate and go nowhere (despite President Trump’s EO to expedite their reinstatement)? 

Meet Stephanie Miller, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Military Personnel Policy for the Department of War and architect of the military’s previous Diversity and Inclusion program. 

Stephanie is an SES who oversees the “full spectrum of human resource policies for over two million military personnel serving in the Department of War.”  

Stephanie is in charge of accession policy, personnel management, General and Flag Officer promotions and retention, and more. 

According to Stephanie’s bio, she served in “a variety of executive positions throughout the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel Policy,” to include leadership positions as the DoD Director of Diversity and Inclusion Management.  I

n addition to serving as a special assistant to SECDEF Ashton Carter, under whose tenure, in January of 2016, announced that “the Department of Defense opened all military roles to women, overriding a request by the Marine Corps to continue to exempt women from certain positions. In June 2016, Carter announced that transgender individuals would be allowed to join and openly serve in the military,” also served as Deputy Director for Navy Diversity and in a leadership position as the DOD Director of Diversity and Inclusion Management. 

Stephanie served as a special assistant to SECDEF Chuck Hagel, who oversaw sequestration and in 2013 during a visit to Asian countries, stated his “main doubt was American staying power in the region. Hagel called the decline of American military power a “good thing”, because it forced American allies to share responsibilities. On July 31, 2013, Hagel announced the results of his Strategic Choices and Management Review, undertaken in response to the budget sequestration in 2013. One of the options he highlighted was to reduce the navy’s aircraft carrier groups down from 11 to as little as eight. 

Under Stephanie’s leadership, military recruiting dropped to an all time low in the entire history of the all volunteer force from 2022-2024. Multiple branches failed to achieve recruiting numbers for the first time since the draft ended in 1973.  

Stephanie has been an advisor to, and architect of, every decision in the military over the last decade and a half that has harmed military readiness and overall military strength.  

As the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, all accession and General Officer promotions run directly through her. You need not ask yourself why woke Flag Officers continue to accelarate through promotions, and personnel seeking reinstatement for unlawful discharges continue to run into red tape and road blocks. The answer is clear. (Of note: I’ve include her previous bio and current bio. Her current bio is scrubbed of any mention of DEI.)

Personnel is policy. Although Secretary Hegseth has made a valiant effort to eradicate DEI, the people who brought that contagion into the War Department and deliberately ruined the Armed Forces painfully rebuilt after the Vietnam War so it could serve as a laboratory for really bad ideas are still in the Pentagon and are now in senior positions. They used the time between the 2004 election and the inauguration of President Trump to sanitize their history and go dark on their activism. I don’t know if Miller was behind what seem to be two questionable nominations, but it has all the signs of the old DEI crowd quietly advancing their acolytes into positions of power that will outlast President Trump’s presidency.

Few things are harder than turning around a failing, but complacent and self-satisfied organization. That is the challenge facing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The military services have been hollowed out through DEI and dysfunctional leadership. The industrial base is dead in the water. Follow RedState for some of the most informed coverage on his efforts to recreate a force in crisis. Join RedState VIP and help continue that coverage. Use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.

It’s not often I have a reason to give Abby Phillip credit, but you know what they say about blind squirrels and finding nuts. The left-wing host, who typically spends her time trying to lecture Scott Jennings for being right about everything, interviewed communist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is currently the favorite to win the position. Needless to say, it was like watching a child try to explain quantum physics. 

During their sit-down, Phillip pressed Mamdani on his government-owned grocery store proposal. It didn’t go well for him. 

PHILLIP: Why is the government a better solution for a lack of grocery stores, food deserts, than just working with the private sector to have them do what they know how to do, which is run grocery stores? What’s your answer to that?

MAMDANI: There are more than 1,000 grocery stores in New York City. I’m proposing creating five additional ones, one in each borough of New York City, that the city would run that would guarantee cheaper groceries. Not free food, but cheaper groceries, and part of that is because food is a necessity for New Yorkers. It’s a necessity for everyone, and yet it’s something that people are being priced out of, and we can see the promise and the possibility of a public option, and we’ve seen in studies that have been done about the applicability of this in an urban setting like Chicago, that this is something that we can actually deliver here right in New York City.

PHILLIP: But there’s another example in Kansas City, where they had a government-run grocery store, and it’s been there for years, but it’s on the verge of closing because it doesn’t work. They’ve been riddled with crime. They’ve dealt with just a lack of inventory. There are other examples where it just hasn’t worked because, frankly, the government is not that good at being in the business of being in grocery stores.”

It’s incredible to me that our country has gotten to a place where slick-talking communists are not only being taken seriously but can win major elections, even in blue areas like New York City. Has this trust fund even bothered to consider anything he’s actually saying? Let’s game this out.
 
If you put five government-owned and run grocery stores spread out across the city, several things are going to happen. If the groceries truly are “cheaper,” the stores will be overwhelmed, and it will be essentially impossible to keep things in stock. I know what the communists are going to say. “But, if that happens, then it’s a success, and that just means you open even more government-owned stores!” 

The problem is that money is not infinite. New York City will not be able to sell groceries at a loss forever. In fact, it’s already been revealed that the “funding” Mamdani believes he’s going to use for this derives from his inability to read a government website properly. The millions he claims are sitting in the bank don’t actually exist. 

See: Zohran Mamdani’s Big Government-Owned Grocery Store Idea Takes a Predictable, Hilarious Turn

That’s the reason Kansas City, which is run by Democrats, had to close its city-owned grocery store. It had basically turned into a copy of late-Soviet era enterprises, with empty shelves and steep funding shortfalls. Mamdani, who has never held a real job and has lived off his family’s excesses, either hasn’t considered any of this, or he’s so dishonest and arrogant that he doesn’t care. Have we not had enough empty suits in government over the years? 

But hey, if this is what New York City residents want, then it’s what they’ll get. Like with Europe, you can’t save people who don’t want to be saved. When Mamdani blows out the budget to the point of ruin, crime explodes, businesses flee, and his communist utopia fails, the rest of us will be here to shrug. We tried to warn them. 

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The latest Biden administration member to be grilled by the House Oversight Committee on Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and autopen scandal was the former White House spokesperson. Andrew Bates. 

On Friday, Bates appeared for his interview, but the spokesperson wasn’t speaking when he was peppered with questions by reporters. Indeed, he looked decidedly uncomfortable. The look on his face was something else, and he also appeared to have sweat glistening on his face. He wouldn’t even answer what should be a simple question: Did Biden run the White House? 

He refused to answer any of their questions and acted like he was above it all, as though the reporters weren’t there, with his nose pointed in the air. But the sweating gave him away. We’ll find out later if he invokes the Fifth Amendment, as some did, or if he offers up anything interesting. 

He did issue an opening statement that was more about attacking President Donald Trump than about Joe Biden. But this was the part about Biden:

“I was proud to support Joe Biden as president because we believe in the same values. In the White House, it was universally understood that Joe Biden was in charge. That is completely consistent with my personal experience with the president.”

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer appeared with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo to discuss the status of the case. Bartiromo explained that former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was next on Sept. 12, and former White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients on Sept. 18. Comer said what they’re trying to determine is if “Joe Biden had any idea of who was using the autopen.” 

He said they asked Biden’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, if he was told to lie about Biden’s health, and “he pled the Fifth Amendment.” “He couldn’t even answer that question,” Comer said. 

Comer said they were trying to track the process regarding the usage of the autopen. I reported earlier on serious new questions being raised about whether there was Biden approval and how Kamala Harris factored into it. Even the National Archives was having trouble finding supportive documents and information on the decisions, and there were concerning Biden administration emails and memos, according to the reports. 

READ MORE: Serious Additional Questions Raised About Those Biden Pardons, How Kamala Harris May Have Been Involved

Comer said Biden staffers were even warned by their own DOJ about overusage of the autopen. 

Comer described the pardons and the executive orders that Biden “signed,” especially the ones in the last four or five months of his time, as “in peril.” He said these last three witnesses “better produce some hard evidence” [that Biden was behind the decisions]. Bartiromo asked about Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Comer said yes, that’s one of the ones that could come under question. 

They need to put Jill Biden, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris (since she’s now been mentioned in this) on the hot seat. 

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Wisconsin Democrats, led by state Sen. Kelda Roys (D), are pushing a ban that would end licensed concealed carriers’ ability to be armed for self-defense on college campuses.

On September 4, 2025, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Daily Cardinal reported on Roys’ proposed ban, noting that it would “make it illegal for anyone — including those who have concealed carry licenses — to possess a firearm anywhere on university or college property.”

Roys commented on the ban, saying, “When people have unfettered access to firearms, we can’t live free from the fear of gun violence.”

She did not point to any gun crime committed on campus by a licensed concealed carrier.

It is worth noting that the ban would exempt police officers, although police have historically been convicted of gun crimes at a higher rate than concealed carry permit holders.

On May 27, 2017, Breitbart News pointed to data John Lott drew from concealed carry permit revocations and quoted him: “Permits have been revoked for firearms-related violations at rates of thousandths of one percentage point. Civilian permit holders are less likely than police officers to be convicted of a firearms violation.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.