Anti-ICE cafe learns the hard way that it doesn't pay to feed the revolution for free



An anti-capitalist cafe in South Minneapolis decided in January that it would not only deny service to federal agents but would "function as a free and donation based restaurant" until the end of the city's so-called "occupation" by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It turns out that feeding leftists for free and antagonizing potential customers is an unworkable business model.

'We are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city.'

Dylan Alverson, the owner of Modern Times on 3200 Chicago Avenue, announced on Saturday that the cafe — which in desperation resumed charging for food in what Alverson dubbed "a fascist economy" — will soon be closing its doors for good.

"For the last 6 years, I’ve been trying to prove that Modern Times can continue to exist. I’ve exhausted every option without compromising the core fundamentals that make Modern Times what it is," Alverson noted in a post on Facebook. "Because of this, we have made the choice to close at the end of the year. This has been an incredibly difficult decision and one that did not come lightly."

In a lengthy eulogy for his dream, Alverson characterized the cafe — which underwent a rebrand as Post Modern Times — as a "glorious and radical experiment" that "put people over profit, quality over margins, and creativity at all costs."

After complaining about the cafe's struggles and blaming a world "that doesn't make sense," he acknowledged that the failing establishment "ran for over 6 months as a completely free restaurant" and "gave away 30,000 meals and spent through our original donations."

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According to Alverson, the cafe has been losing $10,000 a week.

Though he admitted elsewhere that he had implemented "the worst and most psychotic business structure," he also characterized giving meals away for free as an act of protest after the fatal shootings of anti-ICE radicals Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

"I am sick of generating money for the soldiers in our streets and for a government that won't protect us — a government who is actively inflicting daily harm on its citizens," he wrote on Jan. 26. "Effective tomorrow we are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city. We refuse to generate taxes under the guise of a functioning for-profit capitalist business aligned with government strategy."

Alverson's decision to stick it to ICE by forgoing profits captured the attention of liberals farther afield.

In addition to receiving donations from around the country, the cafe garnered positive media attention including from the New York Times, which presented this "social experiment" largely as a success story and optimistically reported in June that "profits are up."

Two months after the Times' glow-up, Modern Times showed signs of strain, announcing "PRICES ARE RETURNING TO THE CAFE."

The New York Times' podcast "The Daily" revisited Alverson's doomed experiment this month, noting that while the cafe wasn't making money, its owner appeared keen that "this new model is something that other restaurants could adopt."

Alverson stated in his closure announcement, "The only way for places like Modern Times to exist in the future is to actively challenge the reasons why it can no longer exist."

This is not the first anti-capitalist establishment to go belly-up in recent years.

The Anarchist, a leftist establishment in Toronto, Canada, that touted itself as an "anti-capitalist, anti-colonial cafe, shop, and radical community space on stolen land," permanently closed in 2023.

Although the Anarchist charged money for its food, its anti-Catholic, anti-police owner stated that "the lack of generational wealth/seed capital from ethically bankrupt sources left [him] unable to weather the quiet winter season, or to grow in the ways needed to be sustainable longer-term."

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Nick Freitas: France’s ‘decolonization’ movement is coming for Western civilization



France has spent centuries defending its independence, but BlazeTV host Nick Freitas warns that the country now faces a different kind of battle: one over the future of Western civilization itself.

This battle is being waged by a very unlikely team: the left and Islam.

While the pair has very “different ultimate objectives” and very “different worldviews,” that isn’t stopping them from “using each other to achieve their objectives.”

“The left is arrogant enough to believe that Islamists just really want to be woke leftists, they just need to experience a more elaborate welfare system. And then Islam recognizes that look, they do not have the military or economic power to achieve the sort of conquest that they used to,” Freitas explains.


Rather than give up on their conquests, Islam changes “to more asymmetric strategies,” of which Freitas says there are many.

“They talk about ‘taqiyya,’ it’s the idea that you can lie to your enemies. Now again, they will say, ‘Well, no, no, no. This is only like if you’re in a position of extreme, you know, potential harm and you have to lie to be able to save yourself. It’s not just that we can lie in general,’” he says.

“Except that when you see it interpreted by different imams, you get different interpretations, you get different applications for it,” he adds.

And in this case, Islam is using the left as a way to get in on “decolonizing” the West and creating a moral legitimacy for its strategy.

“Now, I’m trying to come up with a moral framework, which provides the left the ability to commit aggressive acts of violence or looting or destruction. And it’s not aggression. It’s just defense,” Freitas says.

“This is decolonization. This is taking back what’s rightfully ours. Because after all, you’re on stolen land, right? This is just taking back what belongs to us because after all, the only reason you have it is not a result of your own efforts,” he continues.

“No, it’s because of oppressive systems that you put in place, which exploited one people in order to enrich yourselves,” he adds.

And the decolonization message echoing through France was founded by a man who claimed that violence was necessary.

“Their argument was colonization was violence. Decolonization has to be violent,” Freitas says, pointing out that their attention has shifted to “decolonizing France.”

“Decolonize it of what?” Freitas asks. “You have to decolonize it of this Western ideology, of Christianity, of capitalism, of property rights, of markets. That’s what has to be decolonized now.”

“If that’s what decolonization is, then what you really mean is you need to uproot, supplant, and destroy the culture that you believe is guilty of the original colonization. That is what has to be destroyed, and that’s what the left wants,” he adds.

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Andy Ngo exposes the Zizians: The alleged trans death cult linked to 8 violent deaths



A radical cult, a string of brutal killings, bizarre ideological beliefs, and alleged plots to murder witnesses — the Zizians sound like something out of a horror film.

But according to the author of "The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult," the group is very real.

“On the surface, you’d think that the media would go absolutely crazy over this. You have a cult group that’s been linked to eight violent deaths across the United States and abroad. As part of the story, there are also suicides, violent attacks, cover-ups, fake deaths, money, vengeance, and yet this story was kryptonite to the legacy mainstream media for one very important reason,” author Andy Ngo explains.

“Trans ideology was very central to how this group was radicalized, and the people who joined were trans-identifying,” he says.

Ngo tells Gonzales that he began investigating the cult after hearing that a U.S. Border Patrol agent had died in a shooting incident in Vermont near the Canadian border.


When he learned the shooters were transgender, he dug deeper — especially being aware that the media would not.

“We saw how Canadian officials earlier this year really downplayed the trans aspect to the mass shooting that happened in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. So two people were alleged to be involved in that deadly ambush shooting, and both of them happened to identify as trans,” Ngo tells Gonzales.

“I kept digging and finding there’s more to this story than isolated incidents of homicides here and there across the U.S. And then once I actually found the writings of the cult leader, Jack "Ziz" LaSota, I was like this story has to be told,” he says.

Ngo describes the “Zizians” as “big AI doomer-type people” with “origins in Silicon Valley.”

“And a lot of their answers for how to improve society, maximize good, wasn’t actually about improving the welfare of humans at all,” he explains, but rather, they would study “how to improve the welfare of shrimps and insects.”

“So the Zizian ideology actually at its core, they’re militant extremist vegans, and they developed a belief system that was misanthropic, antihuman,” he says.

The Zizians also believed “it was completely fair game to kill people who eat meat.”

“And then on top of that, they pulled in radical trans ideology about being born in the wrong body and that if you go against them, you’re a transphobe,” Ngo explains.

Those in the group were “charged over the years in different jurisdictions,” and as the cases were ongoing, they “allegedly planned to assassinate one of the key witnesses” in an attempted murder trial.

“And one of them allegedly did it. There’s been a suspect arrested in the assassination of an 82-year-old man in Vallejo, California, last year. So the acts of violence that they enacted on their victims allegedly is very brutal,” Ngo tells Gonzales.

“I mean, using samurai swords, knives, hollow-point round execution type stuff to the head,” he continues.

The group also left behind secretive writings, where Ngo discovered that ”very central” to their worldview was a “sense of persecution.”

“Everybody’s a transphobe, society’s transphobic. We’re victims of a trans genocide,” he explains.

“And so, while Zizians indeed are an extreme radical example, you do see these parallels also in mainstream trans and left-wing movements in groups,” he says, noting that these transgenders are all on cross-sex hormones, which “people don’t like talking about.”

“In this book, I seek to answer what’s been the academic scientific research on how cross-sex hormone use affects mood and temperament and aggression. And actually, there is some research,” he adds.

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'We have guns too': Democrat plumbs new depths in INSANE interview



The Democratic Party is increasingly becoming a refuge for radicals, even in Fayette County, one of the most pro-Trump regions of Indiana.

Jaime West, a Democrat running for election to Fayette County Council, is one such radical, and she put her radicalism on full display in a forum that aired on LocalTV3 last week.

'I don't like being around them.'

Her emotionally fraught interview with moderator Amy McCarty, the managing editor of the Connersville News-Examiner, quickly went off the rails and concluded with an apparent threat to Republicans.

After sitting through West's rant about data centers, McCarty asked the Democrat, "If elected, what is one decision that you expect to make that may be unpopular with some voters but you believe ultimately would be in the best interest of Fayette County?"

West, a self-identified "gig worker" who coordinated a No Kings rally in April, took a moment to repeat the question and think it over, then responded, looking dead into the camera: "Firing all Republicans. I wouldn't let them — I mean, I don't even talk to them. I don't like them."

In the 2024 presidential election, President Donald Trump received 77.5% of the vote in Fayette County.

"What do you want me to say?" continued the Democrat. "I don't like being around them. I mean, y'all did this to us. You all voted for us. You made this happen — this ICE coming into our communities, stealing people's jobs."

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West interrupted her own train of thought with a growl, then claimed that she has faced threats from "MAGA, we'll call them."

The Democrat acknowledged that "there are good Republicans out there" but suggested that there are also "MAGAs who are just racist and aren't very intelligent at all." She even alleged that one individual threatened to "blow [her] head off."

McCarty gave the candidate another opportunity to put a neat bow on her lengthy diatribe, asking her to "say just a few last words to the voters."

Throwing her hands up in the air and staring once more into the camera, the Democrat said, "We have guns too."

West and the Indiana Democratic Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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800,000 show up for the pope in France — and the left is losing it



About 800,000 people turning out to see the pope in France should hardly be cause for alarm, unless you were hoping that Catholicism was already dead in Europe.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray believes the massive turnout has exposed a very different reality — and has been a harsh awakening for France’s leftists.

“They’re pissed off right now because the pope, he was in country this week, and like 800,000 people showed up. They were psyched for him to be there, and I think that because it’s Europe, everybody just figured that Catholicism was virtually done in France,” Gray explains.

“The Muslims are upset. The leftists are upset because this is showing that soft Catholic power is back in France,” he adds.


Gray jokes that unlike a different religion, Catholics don’t inflict harm on nonbelievers.

“Remember when the pope said that he was going to force everyone in France to become members of the Catholic Church?” he asks.

“He said, ‘No, you actually do have a choice. You don’t actually have to convert to Catholicism. You can be killed instead. We’ll just cut your head off.' Remember when he said — oh, wait, no, you don’t remember that, because that didn’t happen,” he laughs.

He poses another satirical question, “But what about when the Catholic nation was causing terror all around the world? Remember that Catholic nation?”

And another, “Financing proxies to commit murder in their name and in the name of Jesus and swearing to destroy Israel by driving them into the sea?”

“Oh, wait. No, you don’t remember that, either, because first of all, there’s not a Catholic nation, and secondly, that didn’t happen,” he says.

“I don’t think you need to fear the Catholics in France, because they’re not the ones doing anything,” he adds.

Hollywood's latest villain: A guy famous for catching predators



The left has made its favorite formula clear: Stop talking about the wrongdoing and start questioning the people who confront it.

And BlazeTV host John Doyle points out that this couldn’t be more accurate than in the leftist portrayal of Chris Hansen and his famous investigations into online child predators in the new Hollywood film “Primetime.”

Rather than focus on the heroism of his exposes and the lives he saved, the film “deconstruct[s] his motives and make[s] the story really about how he was just driven by ego or fame.”

One motive for making a film like this, Doyle believes, is that the “left wants to take men who are successful and deconstruct them and tear them down.”


“I mean, Chris Hansen is a hero. He catches the predators,” he says.

“They want to make the conversation really about your response or your reaction to the bad behavior rather than the conversation being about the bad behavior itself,” he continues, “You see this with literally everything.”

Doyle points out that when murder or crime statistics regarding different races are brought up, the left ignores the crime and focuses on “racism.” When terrorism is brought up, the left focuses on “Islamophobia.”

“Literally any issue, this is what these people do. The real problem is always how you are responding or reacting to the bad behavior,” he says.

In the film, the attention is diverted away from the man who was trying to meet a child to engage in a sex crime.

“We are now made to feel like Chris Hansen is the weird person here for having this kind of fixation,” Doyle explains.

“So, again, never about the bad behavior itself, always about the reaction to the bad behavior,” he says.

“We see these shots of Chris Hansen literally lurking in the shadows as if he is a predator hunting his prey. That is what it is doing,” he continues. “So it’s implying that, you know, he is preying on the predator the same way that the predators are preying on the kids.”

“It’s this kind of moral relativism where it’s like, ‘Oh dude, yo, who’s the real predator?’ This kind of thing,” he adds.

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Smoke and mirrors? These big corporations are still shelling out for LGBT indoctrination



Some of the major corporations that once wrapped themselves in the LGBT flag and embraced racist DEI initiatives have in recent years signaled a change in tack.

It appears that this may have been a pump fake — that normalcy advocates may have been premature in celebrating the apparent return to sanity at Ford Motor Company, Molson Coors, Target, and T-Mobile.

'Companies should consider whether their support aligns with issues that unite rather than divide their customers, employees, and shareholders.'

The 1792 Exchange, a corporate bias watchdog seeking to restore political neutrality in the boardroom and to educate lawmakers about the dangers of woke corporate policies, has been tracking various businesses' DEI commitments, participation in the LGBTQ activist organization Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, and their nonbusiness activities — particularly those with an ideological bent.

For example, Ford signaled in 2024 that it would be undergoing some reform on the woke front.

Ford CEO Jim Farley noted in an August 2024 memo obtained by normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck that the automotive company would: focus on taking care of its customers and employees as opposed to "publicly commenting on the polarizing issues of the day"; end its participation in the HRC's Corporate Equality Index; and ensure that its policies and practices "drive business results."

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The watchdog also highlighted how:

  • T-Mobile announced in a July 2025 letter to the Federal Communications Commission that it was dissolving its DEI roles and corresponding initiatives and instead partnering with "third party suppliers, community groups, and other organizations ... to advance our core business objectives";
  • Target announced that it would cease participation in the Corporate Equality Index, "further evaluate corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to [the company's] roadmap for growth," and end its DEI goals; and
  • Molson Coors signaled in September 2024 that it would cease participation in the CEI and end DEI-based training programs and donations to divisive events.

Allen Mendenhall, a senior adviser for the Heritage Foundation's American Investor Initiative, told the Daily Signal in June that these changes were part of a broader "market correction and a cultural correction."

"Businesses are increasingly rejecting pressure from activist investors and corporate bureaucracies in favor of listening to consumers and respecting longstanding moral and religious convictions," continued Mendenhall. "Top-down cultural engineering is losing its grip."

The 1792 Exchange pointed out a month ago that some of these supposedly reformed corporations haven't lost their woke reflexes.

Target, for instance, was listed this year as a platinum sponsor of New York City Pride, a supposed "carnival-style celebration for LGBTQIA+ youth, their families, and allies." The stated aim of this year's parade was to "empower and educate queer youth with a variety of queer- and gender-affirming resources and activities."

This included a political rally "to demand protections for trans and queer youth."

This year, Target was also listed as a sponsor on numerous other LGBT activist events, including Jersey Pride, LA! Pride in Los Angeles; Utah Pride in Salt Lake City; Pride Houston 365 in Texas; and San Francisco Pride.

Through its Vizzy Hard Seltzer brand, Molson Coors was named a "silver sponsor" of Jersey Pride, a "diamond partner" of Miami Beach Pride, and a presenting sponsor of Denver Pride, where anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement signage was visible in the parade.

T-Mobile is also still backing LGBT activist events. T-Mobile Fiber is listed both as a gold-level sponsor of Phoenix Pride's Rainbows Festival and as a bronze-level sponsor of Capital City Pride in Des Moines, Iowa. Metro by T-Mobile is listed as a sponsor for this year's Philly Pride 365.

Children appear to have been present at these events despite the heavy sexual themes and imagery.

Ford, Molson Coors, Target, and T-Mobile did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News by deadline.

The 1792 Exchange noted that "publicly traded companies have a fiduciary responsibility to create long-term value for shareholders while remaining consistent with their publicly stated commitments and corporate values. When engaging in charitable giving or corporate sponsorships, companies should consider whether their support aligns with issues that unite rather than divide their customers, employees, and shareholders."

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'Reign of terror': One-third of Democrats give thumbs-up to Trump assassination



The left has demonstrated time and again its willingness to use violence to suppress opposition and secure power, and a damning new poll of Democratic voters seems to indicate that leftist bloodlust continues.

According to the poll conducted by the Center for Strategic Politics in partnership with Liberal Currents, 56% of respondents said that they would feel positive about learning that President Donald Trump had died overnight in his sleep.

'They want Trump dead, and they want everyone who supported him or worked for him in prison.'

Only 16% said they'd feel somewhat or very bad about it.

When asked how they would feel if they woke up to a news headline that read, "President Donald Trump was assassinated while speaking at a rally," 31% of respondents said that they would feel positive, and 25% said they'd feel neither positive nor negative. Forty-three percent said they would feel negative.

Of the 683 Democratic voters surveyed earlier this month, 59% of whom identified as "woke,"

  • 86% said they would feel positive if informed that Trump had been impeached and convicted by Congress, and removed from office;
  • 84% said they would feel positive if informed that Trump had been declared unfit by a majority of his Cabinet and removed from office; and
  • 59% said that they would feel positive if they woke up to the news that a group of American military leaders had orchestrated a coup, ousting Trump from power and assuming control of the country.

In addition to revealing just how many Democrats have warmed to the idea of assassination and insurrection after years of elected officials in their party demonizing the opposition, the poll highlighted Democrats' appetite for lawfare against their political opponents.

When asked whether the next Democratic administration should pursue criminal prosecution of members of the Trump administration

  • for the efforts to enforce American immigration law, 77% said yes;
  • for lethal strikes on boats in South America, 72% said yes; and
  • for actions taken with regards to the conflict in Iran, 66% said yes.

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R) was among the many who recognized the survey results as evidence that such people need to be denied power.

RELATED: 'Our results shocked us': HHS report confirms your darkest suspicions about trans ideology

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"People have absolutely no idea the reign of terror we’re headed for if Democrats gain total power," wrote Paladino. "They want Trump dead, and they want everyone who supported him or worked for him in prison. They want our constitutional rights dissolved, and they want the courts packed to facilitate it all. This is an EXTREMELY dark place and I don’t know that there’s any good way out."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted that "Democrats claim to support 'our democracy,' yet by a massive margin they support a military coup."

Andrew Kolvet, the spokesman of Turning Point USA whose founder was assassinated last year, tweeted, "Gas prices are high so sure, let's give these psychos power."

"This is not about politics anymore," wrote Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R). "It's about SANITY vs INSANITY."

While the results are disturbing, they're par for the course. After all, numerous polls in recent years have captured the left's intolerance of differing views and affinity for violence.

Just months after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a Young America's Foundation survey found that 42% of liberal young people said that "he brought this violence upon himself to an extent" by his "viewpoints." A majority of liberal young people, 53%, said conservative viewpoints should be "shut down or kept out of the public square."

A Marist Poll conducted in September 2025 found that 28% of Democrats strongly agreed or agreed with the statement that "Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track."

An April 2025 survey conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University's Social Perception Lab found that 55% of left-leaning respondents said that assassinating Trump would be at least somewhat justified.

RMG Research asked American adults in the wake of the September 2024 assassination attempt on Trump whether the country would "be better off if Donald Trump had been killed last weekend." While 69% of respondents said no, 28% of Democrats answered "yes."

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Amendments Would Put Surrogacy, Transgenderism, And Abortion Up To Birth In Virginia Constitution

Virginia's extreme abortion and same-sex union proposals are a grim reminder that for the left, there is no 'moderation.'

'Me and Mom can say no': Conservatives cheer Sean Duffy for pushing back on daughter’s Harvard pitch



When Sean Duffy's daughter announced she wanted to attend Harvard University, the transportation secretary's reaction might have been torn apart by the left, but it couldn't have been more relatable to conservative parents across the country.

In a clip from their series “The Great American Road Trip,” Duffy’s daughter Paloma tells the secretary that he “can’t say no" to Harvard.

“Well, me and Mom can say no,” Duffy responded.

Duffy and his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, went on to explain their reasoning.


“Catholicism, to us, is everything. It’s the basis of our marriage; it’s the basis of our family. So I’m nervous about the idea of Paloma going to Harvard. We spend a lot of time nurturing and providing formation for our kids, giving them an environment where they are steeped in faith and values,” Campos-Duffy said.

“And so the idea of dropping her off at a place that would undermine that or try to undo all those things makes me worried,” she added.

“And again, I don’t want them to get one viewpoint. I want them to get a lot of different viewpoints, but I don’t want them fed only one viewpoint that’s contrary to the way my kids were raised,” Duffy chimed in.

Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is all too familiar with their struggle, telling Duffy “congratulations” for putting his foot down.

“I saw the look on your daughter’s face in that video … when you said, ‘Well, your mom and dad can say no,’ and that is so hard, and parents are dealing with this,” Glenn comments. “Why do you feel so strongly about this?”

“I think American conservative families are having this conversation every single day because they know, whether it’s a family member or a friend or a neighbor who has sent their kid off to school, and ... they come back and they’re unrecognizable. We don’t know who these kids are,” Duffy tells Glenn.

“They’ve been completely contorted and converted from these liberal institutions,” he adds.

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