3/15/2026: Choke Point; Laser Focus; Growing Up Behind Walls
Source: Politics - CBSNews.com · Bias: Center
Summary
First, a report on ships stranded by the Strait of Hormuz closure. Then, could lasers help fend off Iran's drones? And, a look inside author Mitch Albom's Haiti orphanage.
3/15/2026: Choke Point; Laser Focus; Growing Up Behind Walls
Center
First, a report on ships stranded by the Strait of Hormuz closure. Then, could lasers help fend off Iran's drones? And, a look inside author Mitch Albom's Haiti orphanage.
Resistance is mounting across the United States against the increasing use of surveillance tech company Flock Safety’s cameras, with a growing number of cities canceling contracts as the artificial intelligence-powered license plate readers are quietly being installed in thousands of locations nationwide.State and local police departments first used the Atlanta-based company’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems for standard law enforcement purposes, but they are now being employed for a much broader range of uses, including immigration-related searches and other actions supporting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the Trump administration’s deadly anti-immigrant crackdown.“We have cameras that are used for everything from illegal dumping to drug houses to hotels that are just big problems,” Flock Safety engineer Kevin Cox told prospective customers during a demonstration of the company’s Condor Camera, according to a Thursday report in The Washington Times.“There are endless, endless uses for what we can do with these things,” Cox added.Those uses include spying on constitutionally protected protest activity and enforcing abortion bans by tracking pregnant people’s travel across states—even ones in which the medical procedure is legal.The ACLU—which recently launched a “Get the Flock Out” campaign to “fight creepy ALPR cameras”—says there are currently between 80,000 and 100,000 Flock devices installed nationwide that conduct more than 20 billion scans per month. More than 5,000 law enforcement agencies use the cameras, and some of them keep their locations a secret.“Flock’s ALPR cameras aren’t like your normal traffic cameras,” the ACLU explained. “This surveillance technology records and tracks every car that comes into view, and then an AI algorithm catalogs the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers, and even scratches. This personal information is then uploaded into a nationwide database that any law enforcement agency with a Flock contract can search—with few regulations or oversight on how they use what they find.”The backlash against creeping state surveillance has even transcended the partisan divide.“I think our country is in a kind of uniquely anti-surveillance environment right now, which is to say that, in a time where it seems there is nothing that is not partisan, opposition to government surveillance is nonpartisan,” ACLU privacy and surveillance attorney Chad Marlow told The Washington Times on Thursday.There is growing action—both legal and otherwise—to end the use of ALPRs across the country.According to the public information project Ban Flock Cameras, 82 Flock contracts were terminated across 28 states between August 2021 and May 2026, with 39 of those cancellations occurring in the first five months of 2026 alone.Even Amazon-owned Ring announced earlier this year that it would stop doing business with Flock Safety.Susie O’Hara, a member of Santa Cruz, California’s nominally nonpartisan City Council, told WBUR earlier this year that she grew increasingly concerned about local use of eight Flock cameras last year after learning that police were sharing data gleaned from the cameras with the company’s national network without city officials’ knowledge, a violation of state laws banning the practice.O’Hara became increasingly convinced that Santa Cruz should cancel its Flock contract after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good, a US citizen, in Minneapolis in January.“I have goose bumps on my arms thinking about the absolute chaos that was happening in Minneapolis,” she said. “And just the absolute insanity of what we were seeing... It was totally clear to me that we should in no way consciously be in this system at all—just no way.”Less than a week after Good’s killing, the Santa Cruz City Council voted to terminate the city’s Flock contract, becoming the first municipality in California to do so.“For us, the threat to our civil liberties was greater than any benefit we could get from the flawed product,” Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley told KQED at the time.Chad Kemp, who represents District 32 on the nonpartisan Dane County Board of Supervisors in Wisconsin—which in April voted to stop funding two dozen cameras leased from Flock—told The Washington Times that “there’s a public safety issue here, but there is also a privacy issue.”“There are serious concerns about individuals who can be monitored without their knowledge, or if it is even constitutional or ethical to track people without a warrant,” he added.At the national level, US Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) last year launched an investigation into the use of Flock cameras to track pregnant people across state lines for abortion care and to conduct unauthorized immigration enforcement operations.Krishnamoorthi and Sen.
Major American corporations that benefited from tax cuts enacted last year by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are donating to the campaigns of GOP lawmakers who made the windfall possible.A report published Friday by Unrig Our Economy spotlights seven House Republicans who voted for the sprawling and unpopular GOP budget package, which extended tax breaks for corporations and wealthy Americans while inflicting unprecedented cuts on Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance—with disastrous consequences for millions of low-income families across the country.Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), one of the lawmakers featured in the new report, has received campaign donations from corporate PACs representing 3M, Amazon, Walmart, AT&T, and other companies that collectively received billions of dollars in tax breaks from the Republican law, which restored a provision allowing businesses to immediately write off new investments.Amazon saw its US income taxes fall by more than half last year due to the GOP law, even as the company’s profits grew. Unrig Our Economy noted that Amazon, whose PAC donated thousands to the Republicans spotlighted in the new report, has an effective federal tax rate of 1.37% following enactment of the budget law.Miller-Meeks, who has received at least $57,000 in donations from the PACs of companies that benefited from the 2025 law, issued a statement Thursday bragging about supporting “the largest tax cuts in American history,” not mentioning that the benefits will disproportionately flow to profitable corporations and the richest people in the country.“Thanks to the Republican tax law, corporations are receiving tax breaks, House Republicans are getting campaign cash, and working families are getting stuck with the bill,” the report states.Another Republican lawmaker featured in the report, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, received $2,500 in campaign donations from the PAC of FirstEnergy, which reaped $500 million in depreciation deductions thanks to the GOP tax law.“Bresnahan voted to give FirstEnergy hundreds of millions in tax breaks even after the company raised utility prices for his constituents,” Unrig Our Economy’s report observes.The report also points out that Bresnahan “owned stock in every single one” of the companies who contributed PAC money to his campaign following passage of the Republican budget package last summer.“This comes after Bresnahan has already faced scrutiny for dumping stock in Medicaid providers and selling off bonds in Pennsylvania hospitals before voting to slash Medicaid and put rural hospitals at risk,” the report notes.Leor Tal, Unrig Our Economy’s campaign director, said in a statement that “one year ago, House Republicans ripped away healthcare and food assistance from millions of Americans, so that corporations could get massive tax breaks.”“Now, many of those companies are dishing out PAC money to the Republicans listed in this report,” said Tal. “Republicans in Congress sold out many of their own constituents to help corporations get even richer. It’s time that House Republicans step up, do the right thing, and start fighting for working Americans—not giant corporations.”
Mamdani mentions he’s an immigrant himself, but completely ignores the fact that this country, which he says is so unwelcoming, made him the youngest mayor in the history of its largest city.
Everyone knows the song.It’s a warm summer night, the top of the seventh inning has just concluded, and the organ begins to ring throughout the stadium. It’s time to whip out the singing voice for one of America’s most iconic tunes — "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." At a time when baseball fandom was overwhelmingly male-dominated, the character of Katie stands out as an unusual creation for the era.Yet few baseball fans, let alone Americans at large, know the true history behind the 118-year-old symbol of our country’s pastime.To get to the beginning, we must travel back to the time of President Theodore Roosevelt. The year is 1908: The Ford Model T makes its debut in the automobile market; New York City drops the very first New Year’s Eve ball in Times Square; and the Grand Canyon is declared a national monument.The story goes that Jack Norworth was riding a New York subway train when he was inspired by a sign he saw that read, “Baseball Today — Polo Grounds.” Norworth quickly developed the lyrics to the song, with Albert Von Tilzer composing the music.The irony? According to reports, neither of these men had ever been to a baseball game. Norworth did not attend a game until 32 years later in 1940.Norworth and his then-wife Nora Bayes would go on to debut the tune during a vaudeville act at the Amphion Theater in Brooklyn. The song was quickly recorded by multiple different groups, with both the Edward Meeker and the Haydn Quartet versions finding mass success. Although only the chorus is sung at baseball games today, the original song contains multiple verses that tell the story of Katie Casey (later changed to Nelly Kelly by Norworth) — a “baseball mad” fanatic who would rather have her boyfriend take her to the ballgame than to the theater. At a time when women did not even have the right to vote, let alone the fact that baseball fandom was overwhelmingly male-dominated, the character of Katie stands out as an unusual creation for the era.The earliest documented instance of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" being played at a baseball game was during a Los Angeles high school game in 1934. The song made its Major League debut later that year during Game 4 of the 1934 World Series.Stadium bands began regularly performing the tune during games in the mid-20th century. However, the way baseball fans engage with the song today — singing it during the seventh-inning stretch — was popularized by Chicago White Sox announcer Harry Caray in the 1970s. Caray later brought the tradition to the Chicago Cubs when he became their announcer in 1982. In 2001, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was ranked #8 on the "Songs of the Century" list, and later in 2010, Edward Meeker's recording was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.So next time you find yourself indulging in America's pastime, remember to buy some "peanuts and Cracker Jack" so that you can "root, root, root for the home team" — but never forget: "For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out, at the old ball game."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered his July 4 address from behind George Washington's desk at City Hall. The mayor was joined by recently naturalized U.S. citizens as he highlighted the ideals the founders of the nation put forward 250 years ago.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered an address, railing against ICE and Capitalism, to mark America's 250th birthday on Friday morning, hours before President Trump is set to address the nation from Mount Rushmore. Sitting behind a desk used by George Washington in the Nation's first Capitol building, Federal Hall, now housed in New York City Hall, the Ugandan immigrant lectured Americans on our history.
The post WATCH: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Gives Divisive July 4 Address Behind George Washington’s Desk Surrounded by Foreigners – Says America Is an “Arena of Supremacy” and Its Citizens are “Small, Weak and Unoriginal” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The year 1776 was a momentous one, and not just because of what Americans commemorate every July 4. On March 9 of that year, a book was published that changed the world forever: Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
