If you were fortunate enough to avoid the news cycle churn on Thanksgiving Day, the United States and Canadian governments declared high alerts after a vehicle headed toward Canada (not toward the U.S.) wrecked and exploded on the American side of a Niagara Falls bridge. The assumption and declaration of “terrorism” at 11:30 that morning interrupted the busiest travel day of the year in the region, and unnecessarily sowed fear among citizens on both sides of the border.

In addition to the closure of Rainbow Bridge and Buffalo’s Peace Bridge, the Lewiston-Queenston and Whirlpool Bridges were also closed. Other crossings were put on “heightened alert status.” Amtrak suspended service between New York State and Toronto, and the Buffalo Niagara International Airport was closed to international flights and all cars were stopped and screened for explosives before entering the airport area. Meanwhile, 400 miles to the south, New York Mayor Eric Adams got a momentary break from campaign corruption investigations to assure those in New York City that NYPD was posting officers at all entry points to the city.

Typical of the flash headlines was this from The New York Times, which reported “Fiery Crash at Canadian Border Kills 2, Alarming Washington and Ottawa”: “The United States and Canadian governments went into high alert, four international bridges were closed and cross-border train travel came to a halt after a car exploded on the American side of a Niagara Falls bridge, upending travel plans and sowing fear on the busiest travel day of the year.” The Washington Post blared similar headlines about the “massive response,” but both the Times and WaPo headlines and stories were soon updated.

New York’s inept Governor Kathy Hochul declared videos of the incident looked like it was “generated by AI,” but all the hype about fabricated AI videos only supplement the endless loops of fake news already being produced by the the Demos’ Leftmedia talkingheads and scribes.

It was only after hours of unwarranted hype about the “terrorist attack” flooded the mainstream media commercial churn machines that Hochul and the FBI’s Buffalo office finally reported, “At this time, no known terrorist connection.” The FBI said its investigators found no explosive materials or “terrorism nexus.” Hochul declared, “I want to be very, very clear to Americans and New Yorkers, at this time there is no indication of a terrorist attack.”

And not a New York second too soon.

In other words, the Hochul and the FBI accomplished what no terrorists did on Thanksgiving Day — interrupting the lives of tens of thousands of people and instilling fear and angst.

As it turned out, the vehicle involved was a $285,000 Bentley Flying Spur, driven by its 53-year-old owner or his wife, who were killed in the accident. The couple, who own a chain of homebuilding supply stores, had just left the Seneca Niagara Resort Casino and were on their way to a Kiss concert in Toronto (which had actually been canceled earlier in the day). It is not clear what caused the accident but some reports suggest it could have been related to a defect with the Bentley. Time may resolve that question.

For the record, when I was advised of the incident and reviewed it about 30 minutes after the wreck, no question it was a spectacular crash and explosion. But there were immediate reports that the driver of the Bentley had deliberately avoided injuring others in the minute before the crash. I concurred with the seasoned law enforcement analysts who contacted me that nothing about this fit a “terrorist profile.” Had the vehicle been heading south, one might have reasonably cautioned that this could have been an intentional attack.

I get the precautionary measures taken by both the FBI and Hochul, particularly regarding the risk of an Islamic attack in the wake of the Iranian-controlled surrogate Hamas attack on Israel. The cognitive agencies responsible for preventing such attacks in the U.S. were already on heightened alert. But taking this alert public with no evidence supporting terrorism — and, in fact, evidence to the contrary — risks desensitizing people to the threat in accordance with the fable, “[The Boy Who Cried Wolf]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheBoyWhoCriedWolf).”

This isn’t just armchair “hindsight 20/20” criticism. The warning measures taken should have been commensurate with the threat assessed, and they were not — much as Joe Biden’s warnings about “Islamicphobia” amid the flood of attacks on Jewish Americans is not commensurate with the threat.

Meanwhile, there was virtually no reporting on the fact that elsewhere on the U.S./Canada border, the Border Patrol thwarted an effort by four vehicles attempting to rush into the U.S. from Canada at a Maine border crossing just before Thanksgiving. According to the Border Patrol report, agents stopped the invasion effort by using using emergency vehicle barriers.

Turns out it was a group of 20 Romanian nationals, both adults and youth, two of whom were human traffickers similar to those responsible for the record flood of illegal immigrants invited across our open southern border by Biden and company. Notably, according to the Border Patrol, while “two subjects were positive Transnational Criminal Organized Crime matches and were processed for Expedited Removal proceedings,” the rest will likely be processed and flown to your neighborhood.

And finally, today we hear that DHS is shutting down some southern border crossing points ahead of the next surge if illegal immigrants. Here is a suggestion: SHUT ‘EM ALL DOWN!