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Microsoft knows your entire browser history — and it can send it to the FBI

Virtual Private Networks are meant to shield your browsing history from all manner of prying eyes, including your internet service provider, your workplace or school, and even potential hackers. If you use a VPN with your Windows PC, though, I have some bad news: Microsoft has a full record of your browsing habits, and it can even report your activity to the FBI.

According to court documents released on July 1, a 19-year-old young man working with the cyber criminal group known as Scattered Spider was caught hacking into a computer system belonging to a luxury jewelry store. While inside, the hacker stole company data and demanded $8 million in cryptocurrency for ransom. Ultimately, the jewelry store kicked the hacker out of its system without paying the ransom, and the perpetrator was later arrested and charged.

It’s a simple case of conspiracy, digital intrusion, and fraud … but there’s a catch.

The hacker’s identity should have been hidden from the feds.

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Let’s End Military Integration, Support for US Foreign Policy

The world is better off for Carney walking away from the Trump trade negotiations. But we must demand far more from Ottawa in terms of distancing the country from Washington’s economic and military bullying.

Mark Carney was right to walk away from economic negotiations with the Trump administration. The US’ ever-growing list of demands, including controlling Canada’s ability to sign accords with other countries, reflects Washington’s bid to dominate in service of massive corporate interests. In other words, Trump is employing a sort of ‘Donroe Doctrine’ light towards Canada.

If Carney would have given Trump an easy win it would have further emboldened the bully. The successful kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, for instance, clearly boosted Trump’s confidence to launch war on Iran.

So, the world — and Canada — benefits from Ottawa refusing to completely cower to Trump. To the extent a country can resist US pressure, it should.

Even if his words exaggerate Ottawa’s resistance, Canadians should celebrate US trade representative Jamieson Greer comparing Canada to China. A year ago, Beijing responded in kind to US economic pressure, effectively winning a trade war with Washington.

Now China is refusing to buckle to Trump’s recently declared “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY” policy towards Iran. On Monday US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced, “an economic onslaught against Iran.” At the press conference announcing, “Operation Economic Outcast” Bessent also slammed Canada and the prime minister for walking away from the economic negotiations.

While the treasury secretary targets Iran and Canada at the same press conference, Ottawa continues to support US economic attacks against that country. A week ago, Canada introduced a new round of sanctions on Iran. As part of its pushback against Trump, Ottawa should declare its opposition to the US’ illegal economic war on Iran. Ottawa should begin rescinding its many sanctions on that country.

Canada should also follow China in defying Washington’s devastating oil and economic blockade on Cuba. The Chinese have given large numbers of solar panels, as well as foodstuff, to the Caribbean nation in response to Trump ratcheting up its economic strangulation of that country.

Ottawa has done the opposite. Dovetailing with Trump’s bid to squeeze the island, Ottawa introduced a travel advisory that led to flights being cancelled and dissuaded travel to the tourist-dependent economy. The loss of Canadian tourists has cost Cuba tens of millions, probably a hundred million dollars. Ottawa has even refused to defend Canadian corporate interests ensnared by the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ in Cuba and has sanctioned vessels associated with Russia considered defying Trump’s patently illegal oil embargo.

The most obvious break from Washington Ottawa must pursue is to lessen its integration with the US war machine. In a sign of the military’s ongoing deference towards a military led by an annexationist president, Canadian Captain Daniel Hrichishen just began the International Junior Officer Leadership Development Course (IJOLD) at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. According to its site, IJOLD gives foreign soldiers “exposure to the host nation’s military culture, history, decision-making, and learning methods, fostering a multicultural exchange that enhances professional military education and better prepares them for future joint operations.”

Hrichishen is among dozens of Canadian soldiers participating in similar exchanges, which should be immediately paused. Ottawa also needs to pause military overflights, training missions and some of its hundreds of military accords with the US military.

There’s no better time for leftists and internationalists to press to lessen Canadian support for the US empire. If we can’t weaken the bonds of empire while an annexationist president wages economic and political attacks against Canada when will be able to?

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Former Crips Leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis Found Guilty in 1996 Murder of Rapper Tupac Shakur

A Las Vegas jury on Monday found former Crips gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.

25-year-old Tupac Shakur was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, in September 1996.

Rap record executive Suge Knight was driving a BMW while Tupac was riding as a passenger when passengers in a white Cadillac pulled up and opened fire on the rapper.

Prosecutors did not allege that Duane Davis pulled the trigger, but under Nevada law, anyone who helps aid, abet, or orchestrate a murder can be criminally charged.

Duane Davis is the only person to be charged in the murder of Tupac Shakur.

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TDF alarmed at Hamilton Police overbearing response to peaceful assembly of controversial political group

Hamilton Police state on their website that “the messaging associated with DomCon is divisive and exclusionary and can negatively impact the sense of safety and belonging within our community.” Police “encourage venues to consider the impact this event and its messaging may have on the broader community when making decisions about hosting it” and ask people with information regarding a recent venue booking to contact Hamilton Police.

Police are reportedly visiting venues to “inform” people about the group.

Deploying police resources against a political organization based on that police force’s own political evaluation constitutes an improper use of law enforcement powers. The police should evaluate a group based on objectively reasonable concerns about public safety and criminal conduct. As reported by media sources, a police spokesperson confirmed that “At this time, the messaging associated with the event does not meet the threshold for criminal or unlawful activity.”

Police are required under the law to remain neutral as between competing political organizations provided these organizations do not engage in criminal activity or are not reasonably suspected of doing so. It is inappropriate for police to visit a business owner to discuss potential clients; this can reasonably be perceived as intimidation. Allowing police to apply their own political test before Canadians can engage in peaceful assembly and expression violates s. 2(b) and s.2(c) of the Charter. Groups with offensive, politically divisive, or dissenting beliefs are protected by the Charter.

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Pete Hegseth: Militarism’s Ideologue

Reality doesn’t always line up with our wishes. For Pete Hegseth, this lesson has been learned the hard way. Six months into his war with Iran, top military officials are warning the Secretary of Defense that prolonged fighting would be “unsustainable,” according to new reporting from The Washington Post.

These officials are echoing sentiments that have been repeated for months within the administration. Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had advised the White House before the conflict that a large-scale military confrontation with Iran posed serious risks, particularly because of the U.S.’ depleted munitions stockpiles and a lack of support from regional partners.

Rather than heed these warnings, Washington foreign policy elites chose to proceed with a reckless disregard for the facts, guided by an ideological drive to reshape the world in our image – or, perhaps more accurately, Israel’s. Pete Hegseth is one such ideologue, as demonstrated by his rhetorical record throughout the conflict.

The administration’s entire approach to this war has been stylistically Hegsethian. The tirades against the press, the administration’s unceasing – and undue – confidence, and the rigorous enforcement of a strict narrative are all hallmarks of Pete Hegseth’s brutish approach, rather than the calculated strategy one may expect to see from Marco Rubio or JD Vance.

Hegseth’s style plays to the instincts of an older generation of Republican voters, one which believes that to even question the military is to commit a grave offense. Older cohorts of conservatives – which tend to be the Republican Party’s most consistent base –  are fervently supportive of the war.

As soon as the first bombs were dropped, the narrative was enforced. The case for war was not an intellectually rigorous one, but this is a common feature of government propaganda. It primarily exists not to convince the American public to support a policy, but to emotionally manipulate them. To this end, the war’s initiators must act with a level of bravado and confidence capable of convincing the average person that “this person knows what he’s doing.” It doesn’t mean he does, however. This distortion has been perfectly embodied by the rocky past six months at Hegseth’s Pentagon.

Hegseth has built a reputation for his aggressive style. During press conferences in the Iran war’s early stage, he made a habit out of using emotionally charged language to evoke an “us vs. them” mentality within Americans. On March 2, Hegseth called this war “our retribution,” saying “the regime who chanted ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’ was gifted death from America, and death from Israel.” In a press conference a few days later, Hegseth seemed to fetishize violence, describing the U.S. operation as “death and destruction from the sky, all day long.”

In a display of his grotesque lust for power, Hegseth also said “we are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

There has been a severe shortage of seriousness from this administration in its messaging on this conflict. In a 60 Minutes appearance just days after the war was launched, Hegseth shrugged off concerns about the risks of this engagement, saying “nobody’s putting us in danger.” He followed this dismissive statement with an even more unsettling one, threatening that “the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re going to live.”

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New York’s Biggest Teachers Union Fighting the Socialist Mayor It Helped Elect After Mamdani Files Lawsuit to Stop Pay Raise

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani received overwhelming support for his election from the city’s largest teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).

Mamdani thanked them by filing a lawsuit to stop a pay raise for education paraprofessionals.

In July, the New York City Council passed the “RESPECT Check Act,” giving public-school paraprofessionals, like teacher aides, a one-time $10,000 “workforce stabilization” payment.

The Act was passed by the Council unanimously and became law without the mayor’s signature.

Although Mamdani supported a version of the bill in the past, now that he is comfortable in the Mayor’s seat, he has changed his mind.

He argued that the Act violates New York State’s Taylor Law and ultimately filed a lawsuit against the city.

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Texas Democrat Senate Candidate James Talarico Campaigns on Raising Taxes

Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico is now openly campaigning on raising Americans’ taxes.

Facing polls indicating his support has topped out and doubts from fellow Democrats who do not believe he has what it takes to excite minority communities, Talarico is now openly campaigning on raising taxes on Americans.

“I’ve told every wealthy person I’ve come across in this race: If you are ok with getting taxed more, if you’re ok with me limiting your influence in politics, you are welcome to join this movement that we are building,” he said, thanking billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban for being part of it.

Talarico’s campaign platform includes plans to create what he described as a “fairer” tax system.

“Make giant corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes. (That way, we can cut taxes for working families and small businesses,),” he claims – a promise that leftists often make but never deliver on for hardworking Americans. His campaign website claims that he is interested in making “billionaires pay their fair share in taxes,” including “by imposing a higher tax on their income and capital gains and ending the dubious ‘buy, borrow, die’ loopholes that billionaires use to grow untaxed wealth.”

He also wants to raise the corporate tax rate while standing up against what he described as “attacks against SNAP and WIC,” but are actually the efforts of the Trump administration to root out fraud, waste, and abuse in these programs.

So while Talarico’s rhetoric points to only taxing the wealthy, he actively opposed the “big, beautiful” bill, which kept tax cuts in place for middle-class Americans and included added benefits like no tax on tips or overtime. If this had not passed, tax brackets would have returned to pre-2018 levels.

Talarico claimed of the legislation, “In that big ugly bill, they gutted our health care, they defunded schools, and they did all that to cut taxes for their donors. So, when you’re doing the people’s business instead of your donors’ business, you fight for things like I’ve fought for at the state capitol.”

Recently, Talarico said he chose to run for the U.S. Senate instead of completing his ordination as part of his “seminary journey,” describing his campaign as another form of ministry.

“And when we’re out here and we’re giving hope to people who have been starved of hope, when we bring people together who normally wouldn’t be together, it does feel like we’re doing some kind of ministry,” Talarico said.

Notably, Talarico has a controversial history spiritually, referring to God as nonbinary without offering context or acknowledging that God uses masculine pronouns to reveal Himself. And when he delivered the invocation on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives, he closed the prayer not in the name of Jesus but in “all your many names” – not referencing Biblical names for God like Yahweh Nissi (The Lord is My Banner) or Yahweh Shalom (The Lord is peace) but pagan entities or names observed in religions such as Hinduism and Islam. 

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How To Cover Up A Genocide — Israel Destroys 10 Million Tons of Evidence

Could you imagine living in a time when erasing 10 million tons of evidence of genocide is barely even newsworthy? Somehow we’re now in such a repulsive era.

There have been a select few articles detailing Israel’s efforts to clear literally millions of tons of evidence of its genocidal acts. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor recently reported on the carting away of 100 trucks per day of debris, pieces of destroyed lives, and human remains. Obviously, no small undertaking.

“This is occurring without any official record of the quantities removed or independent oversight, and before international and local investigative committees have had the chance to survey, examine, and document the sites.”

As Al Jazeera also reported this month,

“[The Euro-Med report] estimates that there are approximately 68 million tonnes of rubble across the Gaza Strip, much of it the result of Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on the enclave.”

This means that Israel has already removed/destroyed 15% of the evidence of its genocidal actions. Very exciting. Only 85% left to go.

Plus, they’ve already stolen 60 to 70% of Gaza. So there’s only 30 to 40% left to steal. Also very thrilling.

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Social Media ROASTS Far-Left Abdul El-Sayed Over Painfully Awkward Endorsement Video That Looks Like a “Hostage Tape” — Woman Struggles Through Talking Points as El-Sayed Nudges Her Along

Radical Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the socialist-backed Senate nominee who narrowly beat a more moderate opponent in August, is out with another campaign moment that is drawing widespread mockery online.

In a press conference clip circulating Monday, El-Sayed stands beside an unidentified woman at the podium as she reads from prepared remarks. She looks down at her papers, appears uncomfortable, and pauses as if she would rather be anywhere else.

Sen. Mallory McMorrow stands nearby, holding notes and has a grip on the woman’s arm. Local Detroit media microphones are clustered in front of them.

At multiple points, El-Sayed leaned toward the woman, nodded aggressively, and appeared to prod her to continue.

“Mike Rogers has a history of voting for bills that protect corporations and harm workers,” she read.

After another agonizing pause, the woman attempted to contrast Rogers with El-Sayed, saying the Democrat rejects corporate PAC money and stands with workers.

She then appeared to call El-Sayed a candidate for the Michigan state Senate, even though he is running for the United States Senate, before concluding that he is “the best person for this assignment.”

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LA County Steals $5M Fire Relief For ICE-Raid Checks

In bombshell findings, Los Angeles County sliced a wildfire housing fund in half and steered the cash toward households claiming income loss from ICE raids, detentions, and deportations – without requiring anyone to disclose immigration status.

Taxpayers who watched entire neighborhoods burn in January 2025 now watch the same government treat federal immigration enforcement as another “emergency” worthy of six-figure rent wipeouts.

After the Eaton and Palisades fires, supervisors approved $10 million to help tenants and landlords dealing with fire-related rent losses. They then kept $5 million for fire claims and moved the other $5 million into a priority category covering “economic hardship because of federal actions targeting immigrant communities.” Another $9.788 million from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund was pointed at the same category unless fire victims still had unmet need.

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