The New Democratic Party of Canada recently held a leadership convention in Winnipeg, which took a series of chaotic turns as delegates clashed over pronouns, privilege rules, accessibility issues, and speaking rights.“That’s the far left. They’ve never had someone attain the level of, say, prime minister. They’ve been around since the '60s. So they’ve been out there, and they’re just an entertaining lot when they gather to get official business done at the National Democrat Party,” Malinak explains.And clips from the convention do not disappoint.The clips reveal the use of “equity cards,” which were handed out to delegates based on identity categories like gender, race, sexuality, and indigenous status. Delegates who had said “equity cards” were allowed to jump the line to ensure equal representation in debates.As the clips reveal, however, the delegates did not debate on issues like cost of living or crime — but rather why they deserved to be holding one of the equity cards.“I’m sorry, just real quick point of personal privilege,” one transgender delegate said. “I understand there’s very little time for delegates to speak, but ... it’s hard as a racialized and transgender delegate to sometimes use this card and speak to somebody in front of me in line and ask, ‘Hey, this pertains to multiple intersecting parts of my lived experience. I’d like to speak.’”“I was rejected when I talked, and it’s frustrating when these are my rights being directly under attack right now in Alberta and that a cisgender woman had spoken over me, and I understand her rights are important too, this pertains to her too, but I don’t know,” the transgender “woman” continued.“I hope that in the future, the federal NDP will also have a broader interpretation of the equity cards for speakers,” he added.“These people,” Gray comments, “if they were left to their own devices, they’d be dead because they have so many rules and so many things that offend them and so much stuff that you can’t do around them or say to them.”“That is mental illness on display,” Malinak adds.Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

The Maven Smart System is briefly explained in the “one-pager,” a Palantir-produced document that frames the system as an “AI-enabled platform” for something called Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control. The prose is the sterile, aspirational language of the Pentagon, emphasizing a “live, synchronized view of the battlespace,” the language of “decision advantage,” a phrase that suggests we can outthink our adversaries by processing data more accurately.MSS is no longer an AI prototype. It has become a durable layer in the military’s information architecture, a Program of Record transitioned to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2023. In the first 24 hours alone, the system processed a thousand targets.The money is real and the timelines are long: a $480 million Army contract in 2024, followed by a $795 million modification in 2025, both reaching toward 2029. There is also a $99.8 million vehicle designed to expand access across the services. MSS is a story of how an automation effort for drone video became the epistemic infrastructure for modern American war. Birth of a twinThe precondition for MSS was a crisis of human attention. In 2017, Deputy Secretary Robert O. Work issued a memo establishing the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team, nicknamed Project Maven. The problem was simple and overwhelming: They had too much data and not enough eyes. Enormous volumes of full-motion video from unmanned systems were piling up, outstripping the capacity of human analysts to “process, exploit, and disseminate” them. The initial goal was simple: data labeling and algorithms to detect, classify, and alert. By the time the project evolved into the Maven Smart System, it had become an apparatus that observes, organizes, and normalizes the battlespace. At its heart is the “Maven Ontology,” described as an operational “digital twin.” In this world, the messy heterogeneity of war (the images, the reports, the movement) is translated into a queryable database of objects, properties, and links. The analyst no longer interprets raw feeds; he operates on already-structured objects. The battlespace becomes a manipulable database. The interface itself (Gaia for mapping, Maverick and Target Nexus for identification) is designed for scaling. It includes LLM-powered workflows and an Agent Studio in which users can build interactive assistants to query the ontology in natural language. One can ask for “detections of X” across thousands of objects and receive an answer in seconds. These interfaces are sometimes described as video game-like, which captures the ease of navigation while minimizing the gravity of the destruction it represents. RELATED: Trump acted first — and the ‘experts’ are furious because it worked Andrew Harnik/Getty Images By early 2026, the user base had doubled to 20,000 active participants, a scaling that found its ultimate expression in Operation Epic Fury. In the first 24 hours alone, the system processed a thousand targets, with many thousands more to follow. This is the kill chain compressed from hours to minutes, an acceleration that effectively removes the friction of deliberation. War is no longer an event to be survived, but a dataset to be optimized, a feedback loop in which the destruction of the target serves primarily to improve the next detection. How fast is too fast?The logic of the platform is “fight-tonight” readiness and “rapid sensor-to-shooter engagements.” The Marine Corps speaks of a “fully digital workflow” for target management, pressuring the military toward a tempo in which speed is the organizing value. Yet the demands of war require discrimination and proportionality, context-sensitive reasoning that cannot be scaled by a Model Catalog. The danger is the category error: treating the output of the machine as if it were a judgment. Humans have a tendency to “automation bias,” to over-trust the platform, especially under the crushing pressure of time. When the system pre-structures perception and prioritization, responsibility is dispersed through chains of mediation and eroded before human approval is even requested. The platform is spreading through sale and licensing agreements like enterprise software. NATO has adopted “MSS NATO” for Allied Command Operations, with training already integrating the system into exercises and simulations. In the U.S. Army, the fielding is rapid, with training described as an “accelerated learning effort.” Software now changes faster than doctrine, habits, or the slower virtues of judgment. The Pentagon has “Responsible AI Guidelines” and strategy documents that emphasize the ability to disengage or deactivate systems with unintended behavior. These frameworks exist in constant tension with the platform’s own gravity within the process, which pulls toward more data, more detections, and faster workflows. We are left with a question of agency. In the MSS architecture, control is lost or found in how the targets are modeled, how the alerts are tuned, and how the ontology is constructed. The system is built to make war more legible and therefore more actionable. Legibility, however, is not the same as understanding. One wonders if “decision advantage” can truly co-exist with the capacity to consider, to scrutinize, or to refuse a path that a platform has already made so efficient.

A male suspected of fatally shooting two men just hours and miles apart Sunday in Attala County, Mississippi, allegedly attempted to break into a home — but the armed homeowner was ready for him.Authorities told WLBT-TV the first shooting occurred around 1 p.m. when deputies and EMS were dispatched to County Road 1107 after a man had been shot in the road.'There is no way to explain that.'Tim Lawrence, 67, was pronounced dead at the scene, the station said.Chris Hughes, 41, was identified as a suspect, and authorities were told that Hughes had been picked up and was a passenger in a gray GM truck, WLBT reported.Deputies at 3:20 p.m. were dispatched to yet another shooting on Country Road 1141, the station said.A gray GM truck matching the description of the vehicle Hughes was believed to be in was found wrecked, and the driver — 46-year-old Jeffery Mallet Jr. — had been shot, WLBT reported. Mallet later was pronounced dead, the station said.Authorities said Mallet and Hughes were cousins, WAPT-TV reported.The two shooting scenes were approximately four miles apart, WLBT noted, adding that as a manhunt was underway, a perimeter was secured, checkpoints were set up throughout the area, and multiple drones and a state highway patrol helicopter were deployed.RELATED: Armed male enters Florida home, won't leave — then threatens homeowner while advancing toward him. But victim also is armed. A search warrant was executed on Hughes’ home, but the residence was found empty, WLBT said.Soon after, gunshots were heard, and law enforcement went toward them to find Hughes tried to break into a homeowner’s back door, WLBT reported.But WLBT said the homeowner fired a weapon, striking Hughes.EMS was dispatched, and Hughes was taken to a hospital where he later was pronounced dead, WLBT noted."There is no way to explain that," Attala County Sheriff Curtis Pope told WAPT. "No matter how long you're in this business, every situation is different."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Democrats have spoken out of both sides of their mouths on the matter of redistricting.Proposed changes to congressional maps that would boost Democrats' chances in elections are, on the one hand, purportedly a means to "help level the playing field," a way to "restore fairness," and — in the words of Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger — a "response to what we're seeing in other states that have taken extreme measures to undermine democratic norms." 'Gerrymandering is when politicians manipulate the maps in order to predetermine the outcome.'When faced with proposed changes to congressional maps that threaten their power, Democrats have alternatively likened redistricting efforts to the Holocaust, called them "a threat to democracy," and characterized them as "authoritarian."This hypocrisy has proven to be an issue for proponents of Virginia's proposed constitutional amendment, which is on the ballot in the April 21 special election.The National Democratic Redistricting Committee — a supporter of voting "yes" in the gerrymandering referendum that would all but ensure that 10 out of the state's 11 congressional seats go to Democrats — complained on Thursday about opponents of the proposed amendment turning to former President Barack Obama for support."A MAGA-aligned dark money group is trying to fool Virginia voters with a dishonest mailer that features an unauthorized photo of President Barack Obama and lies about his position on the Virginia referendum," the NDRC said."The 'No' campaign and its allied MAGA-funded dark money groups are so terrified of the voters that they are resorting to desperate, deceptive tactics like this one to spread misinformation and lies," said John Bisognano, president of the NDRC. "There is no confusion. President Obama endorses voting YES to stop Trump and his MAGA allies from rigging our elections and to protect the rights and voting power of the American people ahead of the midterms."One of the mailers features an image of Obama along with the quote, "For too long, gerrymandering has contributed to stalled progress and warped our representative government," reported the Virginia Mercury.While characterized by the NDRC and the NAACP Virginia State Conference as so-called misinformation, the Obama quote is indeed genuine — and its context is damning.RELATED: Red-state inaction is the soft underbelly of border politics Scott Olson/Getty ImagesObama wrote in a July 8, 2020, post on X, "For too long, gerrymandering has contributed to stalled progress and warped our representative government. Redistricting begins next year — let’s all do our part to protect and restore our democracy."Obama then urged Americans to join him "in the fight for fair maps" — specifically to support a possible constitutional amendment that would curb gerrymandering.In the video accompanying the former president's 2020 post, Obama states, "Gerrymandering is a sneaky way for politicians to consolidate as much power as they can."Another activist featured in the video adds, "Gerrymandering is when politicians manipulate the maps in order to predetermine the outcome so that it benefits one side over the other."'Barack Obama, Abigail Spanberger, and others have already spoken against this kind of gerrymandering.'Eric Holder, former President Obama's scandal-plagued attorney general, notes in the video that "you see the greatest amount of voter suppression when you see the greatest amount of gerrymandering."Desperate to secure a majority in the U.S. House in the midterm elections, Obama and Democrats have jettisoned their supposedly principled stance from yesteryear and are now speaking out of the other side of their mouths.Obama, specifically, is supporting the "yes" campaign.In addition to featuring in a video championing Democrat gerrymandering, he stated last month, "Several Republican-controlled states have redrawn their congressional maps to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterm elections. Now Virginia has a chance to help level the playing field."The mailer that highlighted Obama's hypocrisy and urged voters to "Protect Minority Representation" was sent to Virginia voters last week by the Justice for Democracy PAC, reported the Virginia Independent News.A similar graphic was reportedly texted to Virginia voters by the Democracy and Justice PAC — which, like Justice for Democracy, is chaired by former Virginia Del. A.C. Cordoza (R) — along with the following message, "President Barack Obama says 'For too long gerrymandering has contributed to our stalled progress and warped our representative government.' That's why it’s important next month to vote NO against Virginia’s redistricting effort."As proponents of the gerrymandering initiative melted down over the sight of Obama in the opposition mailers, Cordoza said in a statement to CNN, "No one can refute the accuracy of the quotes we’re presenting. Barack Obama, Abigail Spanberger, and others have already spoken against this kind of gerrymandering — I’m simply reminding voters where they stood."A Tazewell County judge ruled on Jan. 27 that the proposed constitutional amendment was unlawful. The Virginia Supreme Court then ruled last month that Virginians can still vote for it in the statewide April referendum, though the commonwealth high court may yet uphold the lower court's injunction.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez (D) recently said the quiet part out loud: If Democrats regain power, they intend to “melt ICE” and “dismantle the Department of Homeland Security.”Not reform. Not recalibrate. Dismantle. At this point, no one should be surprised, but everyone should be paying attention. The window for aligned federal action is limited, and states must be prepared to carry that work forward regardless of what happens in Washington.Over the past several years, we have seen what a serious approach to border security can look like. Under President Donald Trump, the federal government has taken long overdue steps to restore enforcement at the border, disrupt cartel operations that extend into American communities, and reassert the basic principle that immigration law should be enforced. But the job is nowhere near finished. Cartel networks are still heavily embedded in trafficking routes, financial systems, and communities across the country. Interior enforcement remains inconsistent. Local and state cooperation is uneven at best. And despite real progress, the broader homeland defense framework is still fragile — dependent on political will, which can shift overnight. That fragility is exactly what Ramirez’s comments expose. We are not debating hypotheticals; we are being explicitly told what will happen when the balance of power shifts. The same agencies tasked with protecting the homeland would be targeted for dismantlement, the enforcement tools that have begun to regain ground would be stripped away, and the limited progress made in confronting transnational criminal networks would be reversed.This threat is not just rhetoric from some far-left politician. Polling trends are already pointing toward a potential shift in power in the 2026 midterms. That means the window for aligned federal action is limited, and states must be prepared to carry that work forward regardless of what happens in Washington. RELATED: My message to President Trump: Don’t mess with Texas politics Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesKey legislation like the SAVE America Act remains stalled, and DHS is still not fully funded to meet the scale of the challenge, caught in the middle of ongoing congressional budget standoffs. Structural reforms that would lock in enforcement gains for the long-term have yet to materialize. In other words, even with unified control, the system is struggling to deliver the level of security the country requires. So what happens when that control goes away? We don’t have to guess — we’ve been told. Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D) has said that under Democratic control, officials carrying out deportations could face mass prosecutions, while taxpayers would be expected to fund reparations for the “trauma” inflicted on foreign nationals. The largest deportation effort in American history would be halted. Federal enforcement would be curtailed. The focus of immigration policy would shift away from American communities and toward accommodating foreign nationals. And once that signal is sent from Washington, it will cascade downward — into statehouses, city councils, and law enforcement agencies across America. This fight cannot be viewed as strictly federal. As I’ve written before, it starts at home. It depends on governors willing to lead, legislatures willing to fund enforcement, and local law enforcement willing to uphold the law consistently and without apology. Sheriffs, police chiefs, and county officials are not peripheral actors in this system; they are fundamental to whether it succeeds or fails. That responsibility is especially urgent in red states. And right now, Texas has an opportunity to lead. RELATED: Senate Republicans tried to cave on Trump's agenda Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesThe Texas Legislature has already laid the groundwork with its 2026 Interim Charges, taking on everything from hostile foreign networks operating inside our state to strengthening and equipping the new Texas Division of Homeland Security. But our interim work only matters if it turns into action. As we head into the 90th Legislature, and while there is still alignment in the White House, Texas has an opportunity to go further — building a real, state-led homeland defense framework that doesn’t depend on shifting priorities in Washington. That means passing laws with teeth, funding enforcement, closing loopholes, and making it clear that in Texas, the rule of law is not optional. Because when the political winds shift, and they always do, the difference between a secure nation and a vulnerable one will come down to what was built beforehand. The left’s intentions are no longer implied, they are explicit. The time for debate about what might happen is over. The only question now is whether we have the will to act before those promises become policy.