The government shutdown is poised to take place and it means mass firings as well as temporary layoffs. There will be another vote today, but if nothing changes, the government shuts down at noon tomorrow. President Trump raised the stakes by adding mass firings to the equation. The House voted. It has nothing to negotiate. […] The post The Government Shutdown, Mass Firings Take Place Tomorrow at Noon appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Multi-Agency Feds Seize Enough Cocaine To Wipe Out Every American!

Multi-Agency Feds Seize Enough Cocaine To Wipe Out Every American!

QUANTICO — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth looked into the eyes of hundreds of his top military leaders on Tuesday as he shared his new directives for the War Department — including the news that every military branch will ensure that requirements for combat positions return to “the highest male standard.” “This job is life or death,” he emphasized. “Standards must be met … it’s common sense and core to who we are and what we do.” The Secretary of War addressed a room filled with United States military leaders from around the world, while legacy media outlets fretted over the “unprecedented” gathering. Hegseth’s remarks came shortly before the President of the United States arrived at the heavily guarded Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. Trump’s arrival and remarks stood out as a strong show of support for the War Department’s changes, and both men conveyed a similar message to the assembled military brass: the Department of War’s mission is combat — “preparing for war and preparing to win.” “We must be so strong that no nation will dare challenge us, so powerful that no enemy will dare threaten us, and so capable that no adversary can even think about beating us,” the president said Tuesday. The Secretary of War was very clear as he spoke to the assembled military brass, striding up and down the stage in front of a massive American flag rather than standing behind the podium. The Daily Wire observed many of these U.S. military leaders taking notes during both Trump’s and Hegseth’s remarks. No longer will the War Department tolerate ideological standards or quotas or punish leaders for supposed “toxic” attitudes, Hegseth said. No more “identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses,” nor will it tolerate leadership that is not aligned with the War Department’s mission, he noted, pointing out to those present that he had fired some military leaders. The ideology and lowered standards implemented during President Joe Biden’s administration are over, both Trump and Hegseth said. “We’re done with that shit,” Hegseth said. “Now we’re back,” promised Trump. “That’s it. We’re not gonna have any of that crap happen, I can tell you.” U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico on September 30, 2025, in Quantico, Virginia. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) Hegseth repeatedly mentioned his concerns about lowered standards in the United States military, particularly when it comes to fitness and grooming, sharing that at his direction on Tuesday, every member of the Joint Force at every rank will be required to take a biannual PT test and to meet height and weight requirements for “every year of service.” He even went so far as to call out leadership themselves on this issue: “It’s unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon, and leading all around the world. It’s a bad look, and it’s not who we are!” “The best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders committed to the war-fighting culture of the department,” he argued. “Not perfect leaders, but good leaders. Competent, qualified, professional, agile, aggressive, innovative, risk-taking, apolitical, faithful to their oath and the Constitution.” He specifically noted that the fitness changes are not being made in order to weed women out of the armed forces. “If women can make it, excellent,” he said. “If not, it is what it is…It will also mean that weak men won’t qualify, because we’re not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death.” U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico on September 30, 2025, in Quantico, Virginia.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) The War Secretary told the military brass: “If the words I’m saying today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign.” But he suggested that many of them might be very enthused, very excited about the changes, eager to steer the Department of War back towards its original mission. Both Trump and Hegseth were emphatic in their praise of the United States military and their hopes for the future. Trump told the gathered U.S. military leaders that the United States has “the greatest and most elite fighting force in the history of the world,” and he repeatedly touted the prowess and prestige of the military brass before him. “In this effort, we’re a team and so my message to you today is simple: I am with you, I support you and, as president, I have your backs 100%,” the president said. “You’ll never see me waver a little bit… We are going to make our military stronger, tougher, faster, fiercer, and more powerful than it has ever been before.” “There could be no higher honor than to serve as your Commander-in-Chief,” Trump promised. “To each and every one of you, I thank you for your unwavering devotion to the Armed Forces and the country we’ve all sworn a sacred oath to defend.”

In the wake of the horrific and historic assassination of the brilliant young conservative Charlie Kirk, there has understandably been increased focus on the rhetoric that preceded and followed the event. The overwhelming majority of Americans (86%) express concern over political violence, with 78% believing it has escalated in recent years, and 57% saying it is a major problem — the highest response to that question in the last two years.  When it comes to assessing blame, Americans are unsurprisingly split along partisan lines on culpability, with the plurality of respondents believing the Left and Right bear equal responsibility. However, they find agreement in blaming politicians on both sides as being the key instigators. Republicans point to examples of Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters “deplorables;” Biden telling us that it’s time to “put a bulls-eye on Trump;” Maxine Waters telling supporters to “create a crowd and … push back” and during the 2021 unrest in Minneapolis “to get more confrontational;” Schumer telling Supreme Court Justices “… you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you;” Dan Goldman telling an MSNBC interviewer that Trump “has to be eliminated;” Vice President Harris telling everyone that Trump and MAGA supporters were “a threat to democracy;” and of course, the countless references to Trump and MAGA supporters being Hitler, Nazis, fascists, and Gestapo. Democrats counter with references to Steve Bannon referring to the political opposition as “criminals, vermin,” and “enemies of the republic;” Trump telling supporters to “fight like hell” and claiming he called white supremacists “very fine people;” Marjorie Taylor Greene suggesting a “peaceful national divorce” between red and blue states; Trump calling Democrats “scum, garbage” and “enemies of the people;” and Musk posting that “The Left is the party of murder.” It is much more emotionally engaging to discuss the implications and injustices of rhetorical content, but regardless of which side has been more vitriolic, there is a far larger, more influential factor that supersedes all of it: Who controls the dominant media platforms — and specifically, the digital platforms. And that dominance overwhelmingly belongs to the Left. The result is that the Left’s messages and hyperbole are broadcast to dramatically more people, dramatically more frequently, and on dramatically more channels. Further, competing or contradictory messaging is far more likely to be absent or censored on the Left’s channels, so their audience is fed a much more homogenous diet of narratives. Consider three important media domains:  The Legacy Media, with centralized and professionally produced content, including television, radio, and newspapers (CNN, Reuters, Fox News, The New York Times, NPR, BBC, etc.) Social media — with user-generated content, no editorial oversight, and algorithm-generated visibility (Facebook, X—formerly Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, etc.) Search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.) The waning, but still significant, mainstream media are dominantly Left-leaning and becoming more so. Research has shown that members of the media are overwhelmingly liberal, with the vast majority of them supporting Democratic candidates. In 2016, 96% of journalists’ donations went to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Media Research Center found that 92% of Trump coverage during the 2020 presidential campaign was negative – even more so than the relentless, hostile coverage he received in 2017. When examining bias in mainstream/traditional media, studies have concluded that upwards of 60% of these outlets are left-leaning. But that doesn’t tell the whole story because that percentage is based on the number of outlets, regardless of the audience size for that outlet. When considering the total audience size and the percentage of it that receives information with a left-leaning bias, the bias number climbs closer to 75%. The percentage of Americans viewing a liberal bias in the mainstream media has doubled since 1985. However, traditional media are quickly being pushed aside by social media, where the leftist bias is even more pronounced. The top social media companies are all Left-leaning (See here, here, here, and here). Meta, the undisputed king of social media, owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, reaching approximately 4 billion users and controlling 75-80% of the social media market worldwide. Alphabet Inc., a smaller behemoth that owns Google and YouTube, has just surpassed $3 trillion in market cap and reaches some 2.2 billion users. A collection of companies, including those owning TikTok, Douyin, WeChat, QQ, and Snapchat, reaches an additional 3.5 billion users combined. Musk’s little X is much further down the list with a mere 500 million users. I previously described social media as the 800-pound gorilla in a rapidly shrinking cage, noting that usage has skyrocketed from 5% in 2005 to over 70% today. Some estimates indicate that as much as 38% of all internet time today is spent on social media. Considering Facebook alone, the vast majority (nearly 70%) of Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users visit the site daily, and more than half of them visit it several times per day. The younger generations are particularly fond of social media, with a strong plurality — some 44% of Americans aged 18 to 24 and 34% of those aged 25 to 34 — reporting that they now obtain their news and information from social media and video formats, rather than traditional media. This trend is accelerating worldwide, raising concerns about misinformation, algorithmic bias, and the blurring of entertainment and news. What about when audiences go searching for information on their own? Most commonly today, this means using a computer, and in this world, Google controls a whopping 90% of the search market, processing some 8.9 billion search requests per day, amounting to over 5 trillion annually. Over 70% of all clicks go to the top 5 search results (hence the industry joke that the best place to bury a dead body is on the second page of results for a Google search — because nobody ever looks there). They control a significantly larger share (95%) of the global mobile search market. Just prior to the 2022 midterm elections, researchers found that the plurality of articles returned for a Google search under the term “election” were from the New York Times and CNN (44%), with 0% from center or Right-leaning outlets. In 2023, the same research firm found that 61% of the articles posted on the Google News homepage came from Left-rated sources, with only 3% coming from Right-rated sources. Repeated samplings produced very similar results. Another research firm used 50 politically charged search terms with Google and found that the results were demonstrably left-leaning. Consider their results for the following: “Black Lives Matter” — 9 out of 10 results from Left-leaning outlets. “Border wall” – 7 of 10 results Left-leaning. “Dreamers” – 6 of 10 results Left-leaning. Conversely, searches for “immigration policy” or “gun control facts” would surface snippets from CNN, NYT, or Vox, while conservative sources were buried or absent. Notably, the researchers attribute some of the results to the dominance of left-leaning outlets in Search Engine Optimization, rather than to algorithmic intent. Regardless, the result in the output is the same. Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout! In his 2019 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, Dr. Robert Epstein, a self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat, argued that Google posed a threat not only to democracy but also to human autonomy. He has focused particularly on ephemeral search results — the auto-complete function that Google and others provide, which offers suggestions for alternative or additional phrasing. As but one example, he found that typing “Hillary Clinton is…” yielded suggestions like “winning,” “awesome,” and “qualified,” while “Donald Trump is…” produced “dangerous,” “racist,” and “a liar.” He concludes:  We are all aware that Google deletes or blocks access to videos on YouTube, which it owns, but few people are aware that Google blocks access to millions of websites. By the way, it is not just conservative content that gets censored . . . The problem with Google is not that it censors conservatives; the problem is that it has the power to determine what content billions of people worldwide will or will not see. No single entity – especially a private company that is not accountable to the public – should have such power. It is clear that all three domains — the legacy media, social media, and search — are all heavily Left-leaning. Consider what this dominance means for the sheer volume of leftist information and rhetoric being broadcast and received. Put aside for the moment the questions of whether Democrats are using more pernicious or violent language than republicans. That issue pales in comparison to the question of how frequently their message is being broadcast — how many videos, shorts, stories, op-eds, posts — the sheer volume of minutes that will be devoted to the Left’s position versus the Right’s and whether any counter to it will be available. The Left has a massive, pervasive, powerful, and sophisticated digital network, which I previously analogized to a stealth fighter. Comparatively, conservatives have a Sopwith Camel. It is why on any number of issues, from Russiagate to Charlottesville misquotes, to Trump’s comments about COVID and bleach, to Charlie Kirk’s killer being right-wing, a shockingly high percentage of Americans still believe the lies that were broadcast ad nauseam despite their thorough debunking. Until conservatives can deal with the massive differential in scale, reach, and volume, “turning down the rhetoric” will remain a far lower priority issue. * * * Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisors member for STARRS.US. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Afghanistan went under a “total internet blackout” beginning on Monday as the Taliban seeks to stop “immoral activities” by cutting off the country’s access to the rest of the world. Internet and phone services have been disrupted for the 43 million people living in the Middle Eastern country, as people living outside Afghanistan are concerned about contacting family members and coworkers still in the country, CNN reported. Multiple flights scheduled to land in Kabul on Tuesday morning were also canceled, and the Taliban’s leadership has yet to address the issue. NetBlocks, a watchdog group that monitors internet outages around the world, said on Monday that Afghanistan “is now in the midst of a total internet blackout as Taliban authorities move to implement morality measures, with multiple networks disconnected through the morning in a stepwise manner; telephone services are currently also impacted.” In an update on Tuesday morning, NetBlocks added, “It has now been 24 hours since #Afghanistan imposed a national internet blackout, cutting off residents from the rest of the world; the ongoing measure marks the Taliban’s return to conservative values it espoused a quarter of a century ago, limiting basic freedoms.” ⚠️ Update: It has now been 24 hours since #Afghanistan imposed a national internet blackout, cutting off residents from the rest of the world; the ongoing measure marks the Taliban’s return to conservative values it espoused a quarter of a century ago limiting basic freedoms pic.twitter.com/8g04yEi4Ht — NetBlocks (@netblocks) September 30, 2025 A Taliban official reportedly spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, saying that the internet shutdown had been discussed by the terror group for a week. The official added that the country could not survive without the internet and that “everything is at standstill at the moment.” The Taliban’s move is the most severe action the regime has taken to cut off the country from the outside world since taking over in 2021. Taliban officials hinted at the tactic earlier this month, saying that it wanted “to prevent immoral activities,” according to CNN. Haji Zaid, the governor of northern Balkh province, said that an “alternative system will be established within the country for essential needs.” Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout!  Along with disrupting communication between family members and colleagues, the internet shutdown also threatens to further hide the Taliban’s continued human rights abuses. Multiple American citizens who were held hostage by the Taliban were recently released, but at least one Afghan-American — Mahmood Habibi — is believed to still be in Taliban custody. Since the Taliban took over the country following the United States’ withdrawal in 2021, the regime has also cracked down on women’s rights, banning girls from receiving secondary and higher education and forcing women out of jobs throughout the country. “The silence online without Afghan voices from inside Afghanistan is deafening,” said Mariam Solaimankhil, who was a member of the Afghan government that was overthrown by the Taliban. “My heart hurts — our people are being cut off, and the world is left in darkness without them.” Solaimankhil called on SpaceX owner Elon Musk to provide internet access to the country through his Starlink satellites. Starlink is currently exploring the expansion of its internet access to many countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan. However, there are no plans to provide service in Afghanistan, according to the company’s availability map. “Starlink is the only way to break the chains of Taliban censorship,” she said. “This is the time where you stand on the right side of history.”

'Limits on free speech'

'You’re putting my life in danger'

SHUTDOWN COUNTDOWN ... DEMS VOTE AGAINST GOVERNMENT FUNDING, THEN COMPLAIN THE GOVERNMENT MIGHT NOT HAVE FUNDING ... Democrats Who Voted Against Funding Government Are Suddenly Hysterical About ‘Harm’ Shutdown Would Unleash House Democrats are warning about the far-reaching consequences of a government shutdown despite recently opposing Republicans’ efforts to fund the government.