Atlanta Braves great Bob Horner, who once hit four home runs in a single game, has died, the team announced on Tuesday. He was 68.

Horner was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1978 and made his first and only All-Star team in 1982. The Braves released a statement on Horner’s death on social media. The team did not announce a cause of death.

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"Bob Horner built a career out of being first. He was the first overall pick in the 1978 draft after an illustrious collegiate career. He was the first Braves draftee to skip the minor leagues entirely and debut directly in the majors. And he was the first Atlanta player to ever hit four home runs in a single game when he did so against the Montreal Expos in 1986," the team said.

"The National League Rookie of the Year in 1978 and an NL All-Star in 1982, Horner teamed with Dale Murphy to form one of the most feared power duos in the game for nearly a decade.

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"The Atlanta Braves extend sincere sympathies to his wife, Chris, two sons, Tyler and Trent, and his numerous friends and fans across the game."

Horner played nine of his 10 years in the big leagues with the Braves, spending his final year in the majors with the St. Louis Cardinals.

He played in 1,020 games, hit 218 home runs and never struck out more than 75 times in a single season.

Atlanta selected him with the No. 1 overall pick of the 1978 MLB Draft out of Arizona State after a stellar career with the Sun Devils. He was later inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame as part of the first class.

He was the 1977 College World Series MVP and won the first Golden Spikes Award as the top player in college baseball in 1978.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. John Cornyn after Paxton handily won the runoff against Cornyn on Tuesday. When President Donald Trump endorsed Paxton late in the race, the campaign was effectively over. It is President Trump’s GOP, and his endorsement in a primary is the decider. Period.

Had Cornyn been the nominee, his re-election would have been a layup. Paxton’s race against Texas state Rep. James Talarico will be much more like a contested 3-pointer in the NBA than a layup. Talarico is indeed, as President Trump nicely summed it up, "weird." But even given that, Paxton will need to raise a ton of money because the engines of the Democratic fundraising machine are already at top speed for the hard-left Talarico. Paxton should win, but even Golden State Warriors star and future NBA Hall of Famer Steph Curry hits only slightly more than 42% of his shots from beyond the arc. Curry may be the best ever, but it’s a tough task to drill that shot.

So too is Paxton’s task. The entire Texas GOP will need to get behind him quickly, and Paxton will need Cornyn’s half-million runoff voters and his financial supporters. The whole GOP will need to swing behind Paxton, even though Cornyn is respected and admired by longtime conservatives like me who value his knowledge of the Constitution, his work on the Judiciary Committee in every tough fight there over decades, and his tenure as GOP whip. But party loyalists have to know that ours is a two-party system and Winston Churchill’s admonition, "Trust the people!" applies in every fair contest.

So too does the wisdom of another brilliant prime minister of Great Britain — Benjamin Disraeli, whose years as leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservatives came in the 19th century.

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"It is not becoming in any Minister to decry party who has risen by party," Disraeli declared long ago. "We should always remember that if we were not partisans, we should not be Ministers." The same applies to every elected member of the GOP Senate stung by the defeat dealt their friend by the Lone Star State’s Republican voters.

The Senate majority is very much up for grabs in the fall. Republicans must defend four seats in which Democrats will mount well-financed campaigns, even if their nominees are weak. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jon Husted of Ohio face hard-left Democrats in Graham Platner and former Sen. Sherrod Brown. Platner is quickly becoming an albatross for Democrats across the country, as well as in Maine, but Maine is a purple-to-blue state. Brown is as formidable a candidate as Democrats can field in ruby-red Ohio.

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Republicans also have to defend an open seat in North Carolina. Former national GOP chairman Michael Whatley has considerable skills and financial backing, but he drew the best candidate of all the Democrats in 2026’s close races: former Tar Heel State Gov. Roy Cooper. Democrats have a vulnerable incumbent in Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff is still very much the "accidental senator," but he is as hard-left as Democratic activists and donors want. Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire are all seats held by retiring Democrats, and Republicans should nominate excellent candidates not just against Ossoff but also in these three states.

So while the GOP’s current margin in the Senate is three, and control would flip to Democrats only if their nominees win four of the seven seats "in play," that’s not an impossible result, especially in the sixth year of any presidency.

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The actual accomplishments of all presidents eventually get reduced to two or three lines in American textbooks. TR, for example, is best known for the Great White Fleet, the national park system — and the election of Woodrow Wilson and all the ill that was brought down upon the country because of Roosevelt’s decision to split the GOP in 1912. Richard Nixon’s three are summed up as opening China, détente with the Soviets and Watergate. It pretty much works that way for everyone not named Lincoln or Washington.

Right now, President Trump’s tentative trio is saving the Constitution with his three Supreme Court nominees, the war with Iran and his remarkable 2016 upset and 2024 comeback.

If the Senate flips, that record is going to change dramatically, as the lawfare Trump faced while out of office will pale next to the procession of articles of impeachment from the House and never-ending trials in the Senate — none of which would succeed in removing Trump from office but all of which will drain the last two years of his tenure of joy and of other possible legislative accomplishments.

Holding on to the Senate majority is vital to the president, the party and especially the country. The Democrats have collectively embraced an agenda of extreme policy and rhetoric. So, whatever your feelings about any of the GOP’s Senate nominees, put them aside and realize — once again — it is the party with the majority in the two chambers of Congress that sets much of the agenda. There simply isn’t any room to brood over tough losses.

Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

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It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s time for the first official unofficial summer edition of The Gripe Report.

We talked about it recently, but I don’t care what science says; summer starts when we hit Memorial Day.

Once the Indy 500 is in the books and the grill is fired up, I’m in summer mode.

Have a gripe? Send it in!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com

When I was a kid, summer was my favorite season. It meant no school, warm weather, and my birthday was close.

Now, it might be my least favorite season for those same reasons and more.

So, let’s dig in to some of the worst things about summer.

Electric Bills Skyrocketing

I live in Florida, and that means that summer is the time of year when it gets surface-of-the-sun hot outside.

Just like when it gets cold in other parts of the country, the best way to play defense against this is to simply keep your a-- inside.

However, cranking the AC and throwing on so many fans to keep the interior of Reigle Manor (our rented townhouse) at a liveable climate comes at a price.

A literal price.

I’m more invested in the energy bill than I ever thought I’d be. I hate when it’s high and I'm entranced by keeping it low.

In fact, I think the moment I said to my wife during the cooler months, "Hey, let’s pop the windows open and turn off the AC," only to be rewarded with a significantly cheaper energy bill, was the moment I officially crossed the threshold into adulthood.

But, in the summer, ponying up some extra bread is a necessity, lest you want to die of heatstroke in your home.

I’d prefer to avoid this.

Kids Being Out Of School

I’ve got no issues with kids, but my wife and I are DINKs: Double-Income, no kids.

This isn't to say that I’m against having the kids I don’t actually have at home all summer.

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What I am saying is, I’m against other peoples’ kids home all summer and ruining stuff I like to do.

The biggest problem happens down at the neighborhood pool. When school is in session, it’s like an oasis where you can relax, unwind, and not have to worry about an 8-year-old cannonballing into you.

Over the summer? It’s none of those things.

I blame the parents. Kids, let’s face it, are idiots by nature, and that’s not their fault.

I was once a kid and an idiot. Some would even say I’m still the latter.

But it’s a parent’s job to right their dopey little kids’ wrongs. So, when they crash into a handsome writer and his wife who are just trying to enjoy some beverages on the pool deck because they’re chasing pool toys, maybe say something.

The other place we get burned by school being out is at theme parks. 

Of course, the summer months are one of the biggest tourist seasons, and that means you’ll be dealing with insane crowds on top of the hellish heat and blazing sun.

So, pro tip: don’t come to Florida in the summer and we’ll all be a little happier.

Getting In Your Car After It Has Been Sitting In The Sun

When you’re out running errands in the heat, there is nothing better than plopping back in your car with the AC blasting.

But before you get to that, you have to suffer through a hot car.

Is there anything worse than when you get in your car and grab the steering wheel, only to realize that it’s so hot you practically singe your palms?

Yeah, actually, there is: accidentally leaning on the metal part of a seat belt that has been sitting directly in the sun and branding yourself with it.

I know that sunshades can remedy this, but those are such a pain in the butt. The ones that fold like an accordion are easy to fold and unfold, but then you end up with this big piece of folded, reflective foam that you have to store somewhere.

But if you go with the more compact version of a sunshade that is two pieces, you may never be able to get it folded up and placed back in its little packet ever again.

That’s the kind I have, and it still feels like, on some days, despite nailing that little twist move you have to do to fold the pieces in on themselves, they sometimes just go, "Meh, we don’t feel like folding today, brother," and then just go BOING and spring open.

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I can’t believe there aren’t a few people going into hospitals every day with scratched corneas because of those things.

The real solution to this, unfortunately, requires a little bit of money. I bought a new car in January. It’s a Ford Bronco Sport, and because it's 2026, I had to download the Ford app before I even left the dealership. 

I thought this was kind of stupid, but I’m not going to lie: I like being able to see where I parked or how much gas I have while sitting on the couch.

But the biggest feature is the remote start. I always knew that as a cold-weather thing to heat your car before you go to work. What I didn’t realize is that you can turn on your car and then set the temperature.

So, if I’m walking to my car, I can get it nice and cold, so when I open the door on a sweltering Florida day, I get hit in the face with crisp 60-degree air.

It is a game changer… even though I think most people knew you could do this well before I did.

I’m a dope. Let me have this.

Sunburn

I’m usually pretty good about applying sunscreen, but more and more I’m beginning to think it's a bit of a fools’ errand.

I don’t know if I’m really screwing up when it comes to sunscreen application or if all the UV-blocking goodness isn’t as good as it used to be, but I feel like sunscreen only really works some of the time for me.

There have been many times when I swear I got the back of the neck or the tops of my ears or my shoulders coated with a nice shellacking of Banana Boat, only to get burned anyway.

And is there anything worse than a bad sunburn?

Yeah, tons of stuff is, but it’s still pretty bad.

I just hate how you could be doing nothing and then suddenly be in pain.

You hop in the shower. Pain. You roll over in bed. Pain.

You scratch an itch. Pain.

You know where they don’t have to worry about sunburn? Places where it’s too cold for exposed skin.

…

That’s it for this edition of The Gripe Report.

Be sure to send in your gripes for a future edition!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com

Americans still debate Iran through an outdated lens. We speak of war as something that starts with bombs, troop deployments, or congressional declarations. Yet Iran has waged asymmetric war against the United States and the West since 1979 — through terrorism, proxy forces, illicit finance, ideological movements, cyber operations, criminal partnerships, and gray-zone tactics deliberately kept below the threshold of conventional conflict.

The real danger is not merely Iran’s capabilities. It is our refusal to recognize the nature of the fight.

Many Americans view conflict with Iran as something happening "over there" — in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, the Red Sea, or the Strait of Hormuz. In reality, Iran’s infrastructure has embedded itself much closer to home: across Latin America, inside cartel corridors, through illicit financial networks, migration pipelines, and the operational seams inside the United States itself.

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This did not happen by accident. It was built deliberately over decades via proxies, criminal convergence, ideological networks, covert finance, and tradecraft designed to obscure attribution. In fact, just two days after I testified before Congress warning about the convergence between cartel infrastructure, Iranian-backed proxies, and gray-zone warfare, the Department of Justice unsealed charges against an Iraqi national tied to exactly the kind of hybrid threat architecture I described

Prosecutors charged Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a senior commander in Kata’ib Hizballah (KH)—an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — with directing attacks on Jewish, Israeli, and American targets across Europe and North America, including a plot against a Manhattan synagogue.

The most revealing aspect of the case was not simply the attacks themselves. It was the operational model behind them.

Al-Saadi allegedly sought to coordinate through Mexican cartel-linked smuggling networks and criminal facilitators across the Western Hemisphere. The attacks were branded under a new front group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI), designed to appear independent while advancing KH, Hezbollah, and IRGC goals.

This layered structure provides operational security, plausible deniability, and strategic distance from the violence itself — hallmarks of Iranian tradecraft. Iran has refined this operational model for decades. In 1983, Iranian cleric and intelligence operative Mohsen Rabbani arrived in Argentina under commercial and religious cover tied to halal meat certification. He became imam of a Buenos Aires mosque while serving as Iran’s cultural attaché. Using mosques, cultural centers, charities, front companies, and diaspora networks, he helped build Iranian and Hezbollah infrastructure across Latin America. The Tri-Border Area (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay) became a hub for Hezbollah financiers, smugglers, traffickers, and money launderers operating alongside criminal networks. This ecosystem enabled the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires and the 1994 AMIA bombing that killed 85 people. Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s investigation found Iran directed the attacks while Hezbollah executed them through layered proxies — mirroring today’s tactics.

These are not isolated terrorism cases. They reflect a resilient asymmetric architecture built to operate below the threshold that would trigger conventional war. Iran does not see threats as separate silos — Houthis in the Red Sea, militias in Iraq and Syria, Hezbollah in Latin America, or cartels at the U.S. border. Tehran views them as interconnected fronts in a multi-domain campaign that exploits globalization’s infrastructure: smuggling routes, corruption networks, illicit finance, and governance gaps.

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Hezbollah networks have long intersected with Latin American narcotics trafficking, sanctions evasion, and money laundering. DEA investigations, such as Project Cassandra, documented these ties. Recent U.S. Treasury and State Department sanctions targeted Iranian shadow banking systems, front companies, shipping networks, and a "shadow fleet" used to move illicit oil and finance proxies. These financial and logistical tools sustain the broader apparatus of proxy warfare and criminal convergence.

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The same operational logic applies elsewhere. Houthis disrupt Red Sea shipping with Iranian backing and deniability. Iran pressures energy markets via the Strait of Hormuz through harassment and proxies. In the Western Hemisphere, Iranian influence overlaps with Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles, transnational drug pipelines, and anti-Western networks involving Russia and China.

Not every cartel operative works for Tehran, but hostile actors routinely exploit the same permissive corridors.

This creates a growing mismatch: adversaries wage persistent, sub-threshold irregular warfare through networks, erosion, and exploitation of open societies, while America still thinks in binaries of "war" versus "peace," "foreign" versus "domestic," or "terrorism" versus "crime."

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The southern border is no longer just an immigration or law-enforcement issue. It has become a strategic access point into the U.S. homeland, where transnational networks exploit gaps in ways resembling irregular warfare environments. Inside the country, this expands beyond crime into homeland defense and critical infrastructure concerns.

The Al-Saadi case is not simply another terrorism investigation. It is a warning. Iran’s war against the West did not begin with any single operation, and it will not remain overseas simply because Americans refuse to recognize it. Proxy networks, criminal pipelines, migration corridors, maritime logistics, covert finance, and propaganda ecosystems continue adapting to extend reach while maintaining deniability.

Americans must reframe the debate. The threat is hybrid, networked, and already operating inside the strategic seams of the West.

Recognizing the conflict for what it is — a long-running asymmetric campaign already converging on the homeland — is the first step toward effective defense.

EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Mehaffey, a Marine veteran and Virginia prosecutor, is taking a hard-line stance against what he believes is an "unconstitutional" new gun ban signed by Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger.

Spanberger, who has been slipping in the polls amid criticisms of her progressive policy agenda, signed a new bill last week banning the future sale and manufacture of "assault weapons," including many semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns. The law also bans the future sale of magazines with a capacity of more than 15 rounds.

The move caused immediate backlash from many Virginians and raised new Second Amendment violation concerns. Rather than protest, however, Mehaffey, who serves as the commonwealth attorney for Spotsylvania County, is drawing a line in the sand and flatly refusing to enforce the ban.

With the bill set to take effect this July ahead of America’s 250th anniversary of independence, Mehaffey sent a letter to Spotsylvania Sheriff Roger Harris, instructing him that the ban is "unconstitutional and cannot be lawfully enforced."

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A statement released by Spanberger’s office called the assault weapons ban a "critical step toward protecting families, communities, and the law enforcement officers who serve them."

Spanberger remarked she signed the bill into law "because firearms designed to inflict maximum casualties do not belong on our streets."

She added that "while the General Assembly chose not to adopt my amendment that specifically carves out certain firearms frequently used for hunting, I will work with the patrons to clarify this language."

In response, Mehaffey said in an interview with Fox News Digital that the law "is striking at the core of the militia system that existed in Virginia."

According to Mehaffey, the Second Amendment is not just an assurance of personal freedoms, but also a safeguard for a community’s ability to defend itself through a "well-regulated militia."

"Our founders were careful to make sure when they drafted our founding document, that the ultimate right of the people was preserved to defend themselves and to defend their community," he explained. "So, the linchpin of the constitutional analysis is going to be does this instrument have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a regulated militia."

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Mehaffey argues that in Virginia, historical tradition and case law precedent not only allow citizens to own firearms but even require them to arm themselves with the weapons of a basic infantryman for common defense. In the Founding Fathers’ time, Mehaffey said the standard issue was a musket and 20 rounds. Today, the basic infantry weapon in the U.S. military is the M4A1 carbine equipped with a 30-round magazine.  

"The second amendment may not mean that you are allowed to have a nuclear weapon," he laughed. "But what it does allow you to have is a basic infantry weapon."

"That sort of weapon is the core of what's protected by the Second Amendment. Not necessarily a nuclear warhead, but a rifle that you can take out and form either a fire team or a company to defend yourself and to defend your community."

Mehaffey is not alone in his stance. In addition to what he characterized as the "overwhelmingly positive" response from his community, Smyth County Commonwealth’s Attorney Phillip Blevins, an Air Force veteran, has also refused to enforce the bill, arguing it is unconstitutional. The ban is also facing lawsuits from gun-rights groups, including the NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation.

Blevins told Fox News Digital that "ultimately, courts will continue to address these issues, and I respect the role of the judiciary. But as the elected Commonwealth’s Attorney for Smyth County, I will continue to stand for what I believe the Constitution requires, without apology or hesitation."

"My position is not based on politics. It is based on constitutional fidelity," he continued, adding, "The Bill of Rights either means something, or it does not."

"As Commonwealth’s Attorney, I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Virginia. That oath is not situational, and it does not change based on politics, headlines, or pressure from either side of an issue."

Mehaffey believes he and those standing beside him on this issue will ultimately prevail.

"The Second Amendment is the supreme law of the land, both in the U.S. Constitution and the analog in the Virginia Constitution," he explained. "So, whatever law is passed by the General Assembly is not going to have the ability to supersede the Constitution."

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While he has gotten a lot of personal attention for his stance, Mehaffey emphasized that, "I want nothing more than to fulfill my office with honor and to be a good servant to the people that elected me to represent them and to stick up for their rights."

"That's what I'm trying to do," he continued, adding, "I would expect any government official to remain faithful to the Constitution and to discharge their duties as servants of the people in the same way that I have."

Fox News Digital reached out to Spanberger for additional comment.

In 2024, climate activists in New York City protested alongside anti-Israel protesters at a rally headlined "Climate Justice Means Free Palestine." Last year, climate change celebrity icon Greta Thunberg tried to storm Israel by sea on a flotilla protesting the country's war in Gaza, yelling "Free! Free! Palestine!" when she was refused entry.

And, last week, activists from CodePink, a far-left feminist activist group that has received funds from an American expatriate, Neville Roy Singham, living in Shanghai, took a break from their rallies supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Cuba Communist Party to circulate a video on Instagram, attacking a Utah data center project backed by investor Kevin O’Leary.

What connects these causes?

Climate activists, anti-Israel protesters and other activist movements with very different agendas have become strange bedfellows united by a shared disdain for America and funding from China, according to experts who warn the trend is weakening the United States amid a rapidly accelerating AI race.

Critics say the same activist ecosystem is now targeting America’s AI infrastructure and industrial power, in a development that experts warn could undermine the United States in its technological competition with China.

The growing convergence increasingly includes communist and Islamist activist movements, and it recently extended into campaigns targeting America’s artificial intelligence data centers, with activist and environmental groups helping delay or block dozens of such projects worth billions of dollars over concerns about energy use, water consumption and environmental impact amid rising power demand.

Fox News Digital has observed many of the movements protesting side-by-side at demonstrations across the country despite their otherwise stark ideological differences.

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"What all of these protests have in common — the protests against AI data centers or the environmental protests or the protest against Israel — is that anti-American trend within them," Hudson Institute fellow Zineb Riboua told Fox News Digital.

"Climate change was also one of those very trendy causes to protest for or against, and now there’s always this quest to find what is the next thing to revolutionize," Riboua added. "And this revolution against the United States is always welcome, no matter what type of forms and shapes it takes."

Fox News Digital has previously reported that Singham, a U.S.-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai, funneled roughly $285 million into six activist nonprofits accused by lawmakers and analysts of promoting pro-China narratives and anti-American protest movements.

O’Leary accused local groups opposing the Utah project of being tied to China-linked funding networks and argued the backlash reflected a broader nationwide trend of activist campaigns targeting AI infrastructure, though Fox News Digital has not independently verified the Utah-related allegations.

Riboua, who specializes in anti-West ideological movements and China’s influence in the Middle East, warned that the overlap between climate activists, anti-Israel protesters, communists and Islamists is being driven by a broader anti-American worldview she described as "Third Worldism," an ideology that divides the world into "oppressors" and "oppressed" and casts the United States and the West as the primary source of global problems.

The ideology unites otherwise unrelated activist causes under a shared anti-Western framework, she said.

"Third Worldism drives anti-Americanism because the goal of Third Worldism is basically dismantling a cohesive Western society or Western country," Riboua said.

WATCH: Expert warns ‘red-green-green alliance’ helping China gain AI edge

Energy expert Brenda Shaffer, a research faculty member at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, described the broader activist convergence as part of a "red-green-green alliance," an ideological overlap between three elements: communist movements, characterized by the color red; Islamist activism, described as green; and environmental protest groups, symbolized as green.

They increasingly unite around anti-West and anti-American causes, she said.

Riboua said the alliance has become increasingly visible as activist groups move rapidly from one issue to another — from climate protests to anti-Israel demonstrations and now toward campaigns targeting AI infrastructure and data centers.

The overlap has also become increasingly visible on the streets. At a 2024 "Climate Justice Means Free Palestine" rally in New York City, climate activists and pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested side-by-side.

"There’s always this quest to find what is the next thing to revolutionize," she said.

Riboua pointed to Thunberg’s evolution into a vocal anti-Israel activist as an example of the growing ideological overlap between climate activism and broader anti-West protest movements.

"Greta is not an Islamist, and I think that she never read Karl Marx, but she has all the good instincts of a revolutionary against the evil oppressor, Westerner, and the United States," Riboua said.

Shaffer warned the growing convergence is increasingly affecting industries critical to America’s economic and technological competition with China.

"Energy is crucial to the AI race, to the data centers," Shaffer told Fox News Digital via a Zoom interview.

Shaffer argued that while activist groups in the West target fossil fuels, AI infrastructure and industrial development, China continues rapidly expanding coal production, manufacturing capacity and energy generation.

"So we're truly by adopting international climate policies, we're weakening the West," Shaffer said.

"China really benefits from these policies that we adopt and we just let them keep forging ahead with coal."

Shaffer compared the trend to Soviet-backed anti-nuclear activism during the Cold War, arguing that adversarial powers have historically benefited from anti-energy movements in the West.

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"You saw traditionally the Soviet Union funding movements against nuclear energy in Europe so that Europe would remain dependent on Soviet and later Russian gas," Shaffer said.

She also warned that increasing Western dependence on Chinese renewable-energy supply chains could create new strategic vulnerabilities because China dominates major parts of the global solar and inverter market.

Shaffer argued many activist campaigns focus on delaying or blocking energy and infrastructure projects in the United States while China rapidly expands coal consumption and industrial production.

Riboua added that many ordinary protesters are not necessarily driven by ideology, but by simplified narratives amplified through social media clickbait and activist messaging.

"Some people are generally good people and they want to have a moral position," she said. "They know headlines … there’s a lot of ignorance."

Shaffer warned that artificial intelligence infrastructure requires enormous amounts of reliable electricity and said the West risks falling behind China if energy costs continue rising and infrastructure projects continue facing activist opposition.

"You can’t have an arms industry built on solar energy," she said.

As Maine’s presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate faces criticism for insulting the armed forces on his now-deleted Reddit account, additional comments have emerged showing the combat veteran discussing prostitution overseas, including defending men who cheated on their wives while abroad.

Graham Platner made allusions to both Thai and Latin American prostitution in a pair of deleted Reddit posts from 2019 and 2012, respectively. In another post, dated April 2012, he defended men who cheat on their wives and girlfriends overseas while responding to a news article about prostitution. 

"You don't have much experience with Latin American hookers, do you?" Platner wrote in April 2012, responding to another user who was expressing concerns that "prostitutes in Colombia are part of a giant sex trade and the women are effectively slaves."

TOP OFF-THE-WALL REDDIT POSTS HAUNTING GRAHAM PLATNER’S MAINE SENATE BID

The reviewed comments do not establish that Platner hired sex workers, and the account often used crude or hyperbolic language.

The comments emerged as Platner’s deleted Reddit history has become a growing liability in his bid to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, particularly after posts surfaced in which he called the U.S. Army "full of fat, lazy trash" and mocked Ted Daniels, a former Army infantryman and Purple Heart recipient who was wounded in Afghanistan. The archive has also shown Platner using slurs, denigrating white rural Americans, expressing support for political violence and making sexually explicit comments.

The same day as his post on "Latin American hookers," Platner made a post defending men who had cheated on their significant others while abroad. 

"I've heard that idiotic sentiment made within the confines of the the [sic] military. ‘If you can't remain faithful to your wife, how can you remain faithful to your comrades?’" Platner wrote, responding to a piece about Secret Service agents using prostitutes. "Well, I have many good buddies who lied and cheated with women, and yet were straight shooting hard men when it came to their work."

"I find it is a sentiment only held by moral relativists who need something to cry about, intelligent people realize they are not mutually exclusive," he added.

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Years later, Platner continued his discussion of prostitution on Reddit.

"And sadly, the Afghan tax f---ed everybody on the 330 game," Platner wrote in 2019. "Spend your leave banging hookers in Thailand instead of getting b----ed at by the wife back home, and you could sell it as avoiding federal income tax."

He was likely referring to a tax strategy used by some government contractors working abroad, where, if they spent more than 330 days outside the United States, they could avoid paying federal income tax.

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The Platner campaign did not respond to a request for comment when reached by Fox News Digital on Friday.

The posts were made by the Reddit account "P-Hustle," which Platner acknowledges was his. Comments from that account have been compiled into a searchable database by the Maine Monitor.

"Graham Platner's moral depravity has alarmed Maine voters, forcing Democrats to distance themselves from him and his scandals," National Republican Senatorial Committee press secretary Bernadette Breslin told Fox News Digital. 

The Senate hopeful has attributed his online behavior to psychological trauma stemming from his combat deployments as well as the "crude humor" and "offensive language" he became accustomed to while serving as a Marine. 

"I’m sorry for this. Just know that it’s not reflective at all of who I am," Platner said of his Reddit comments in October. "I don’t want you to judge me on the dumbest thing I ever wrote on the internet. I would prefer if people could judge me on the person I am today."