When a garage pull rope that was shaped like a noose was discovered in Bubba Wallace’s garage at the Talladega Superspeedway in 2020, the media had a field day.

Despite the FBI determining Wallace was not the victim of a hate crime, NASCAR’s reputation was tarnished.

Now, according to BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock, NASCAR is “fixing its popularity problem” with Michael Jordan.

Jordan joined NASCAR in 2020 and is making history in the sport after his 23XI Racing team won its third straight NASCAR race to start the 2026 season.

“There’s nothing that the media, mainstream media, loves more than a racial story, and Michael Jordan and Tyler Reddick are making a lot of history in a sport that has a lot of so-called racial baggage,” Whitlock says.

“Around 2006, 2007, NASCAR fell off a cliff in terms of popularity and visibility and just relevance and traction. Most people attributed that fall-off to the stock market crash in 2007 and that the hundreds of thousands of fans that would go from city to city to city with NASCAR, they lost their economic stability,” he explains.

“And that’s what most people believe gutted NASCAR. I’m going to posit a theory that, yes, the economic collapse played a role, but the economic collapse was about gutting all of the working class. And NASCAR built its reputation on southern rednecks, working-class people, you know, heart of America people,” he says.

“There was one path back, that NASCAR had to place the race card. They had to create ‘Race Jam.’ They tried to do it with Bubba Wallace. Bubba Wallace is a weak, inferior driver. He’s no good. And so, they couldn’t do it with Bubba,” he continues.

But Michael Jordan is different.

“The guy stepped away from basketball 25 years ago, hasn’t lost a bit of relevancy, and it’s Michael Jordan, and they’ve injected him into NASCAR, and they’ve injected that storyline into NASCAR,” Whitlock says. “And I think it’s going to produce results.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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Three females were caught on video going on a rampage at the drive-thru window of New Jersey Wendy’s fast-food restaurant recently — and now they’re facing criminal charges.

Police in Ewing Township said the incident occurred just before 3 a.m. Feb. 21 at the restaurant in the 1700 block of Olden Avenue. It is open 24 hours a day.

‘Insane.’

Police said they received a report about disorderly customers who broke a drive-thru window.

An investigation revealed that three females damaged property, attempted to assault employees with items, and fled the scene before officers arrived.

However, police said employees recorded video of the incident, and as a result, police were able to identify the suspects: 18-year-old Saniyah Brittingham, 19-year-old Leah Williford Stevens, and 23-year-old Honesty Harrison, all of whom hail from neighboring Trenton.

Police said Brittingham and Williford Stevens are facing charges of burglary, criminal mischief, and unlawful possession of a weapon, while Harrison is facing charges of criminal mischief and burglary.

Brittingham and Harrison turned themselves in Friday, but Williford Stevens was still at large, according to WPVI-TV.

In the station’s video report below, the females are seen chucking drinks and other items at employees as apparent food is splattered around the drive-thru window — as well on the suspects. It appears toward the end of one clip that the trio get a taste of their own medicine as a huge batch of liquid flies in their direction as they take off running.

RELATED: Wendy’s worker punches drive-thru customer through car window — then steals car, hits victim with car, bites 2 cops: Police

WPVI said police didn’t indicate what may have sparked the incident, and a handful of people the station interviewed seemed deflated by the whole thing.

“I kinda get depressed about seeing young people just do that,” Rupert Johnson of neighboring Lawrence, N.J., told WPVI.

“This is not something that should be happening,” Dawn Hemsey of Ewing Township told the station, adding that the actions caught on video are “insane.”

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NBA legend Charles Barkley says “stupid” people “need something to trigger them.”

The Hall of Fame player was referring to the Team USA men’s Olympic hockey team visiting President Donald Trump at the State of the Union address and the White House last month. The event sparked controversy because of the way Trump delivered the invite.

‘I’m not a Trump guy. I want to make that clear.’

The president called the men’s locker room after the team defeated Canada 2-1 in the gold medal game on February 22, but his invite to the White House included a joke about the women’s gold medal team.

“We’re going to have to bring the women’s team,” the president told the team as they laughed. He added that he “probably would be impeached” if he didn’t.

While the call resulted in apologies, condemnations, and struggle sessions with the media, Barkley defended the team’s choice to visit the capital.

“Guys who didn’t want to go shouldn’t have to explain why they didn’t go. I’ve said this before. I’m not a Trump guy. But if I got invited to the White House, I would go,” Barkley told co-host Ernie Johnson on “The Steam Room.”

“I’m not a Trump guy. I want to make that clear,” Barkley reiterated. “But I respect the office. He’s the president of the United States. But if guys don’t want to go, I understand that too. It doesn’t have to be a talking point. It doesn’t have to be … ‘un-American.'”

Earlier in the discussion, the 63-year-old made a point of saying that while he did not agree with everything the government does, he understands that the general public can’t stop themselves from being triggered.

RELATED: Boston Bruins players cave over Trump phone call: ‘Certainly sorry’ — ‘we should have reacted differently’

“Yo, man, why do y’all have to mess up everything?” Barkley said about Trump’s phone call. He then told his fellow Americans to stop “falling for stupidity” like that, while also placing blame on the government for purposely saying things that trigger people.

“I know y’all say stuff to trigger them. Y’all say stuff, and y’all know they going to be fools,” Barkley told the administration.

When co-host Johnson tried to redirect Barkley’s blame to Trump’s call to the hockey team, the former athlete said that people should control themselves and not react to everything, but also that they often react anyway because they are “stupid.”

“We don’t have to fall for stupidity, Ernie,” Barkley argued. “But we do, [and] that’s my point. These people out here are stupid. They need something to trigger them.”

RELATED: Team USA players interrogated by woke Canadian media over Trump call — ‘Why would you laugh?’

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Barkley went on to say he did not like how divisive the phone call had become, and that such division has “screwed up” the United States.

“Everything is not Democrat, Republican, conservative, or liberal,” he argued. “That’s why we got this divided, screwed-up country.”

“Stop it, man,” Barkley soon pleaded, looking directly into the camera. The Alabaman then reinforced his reasoning one more time.

“The public — they’re idiots. They’re fools. They can’t think for themselves.”

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s challenge to incumbent Sen. John Cornyn went unresolved in Tuesday’s heated Republican primary race, as neither candidate proved able to secure 50% of the total vote.

With over 95% of the votes in as of Wednesday afternoon, Cornyn leads Paxton 41.9% to 40.7%, reported the Associated Press.

‘We must win in November.’

Several hours after the Cornyn campaign stated on social media that “Judgement Day is coming for Ken Paxton,” President Donald Trump announced that he would be staging an intervention and handpicking which of the two candidates — each of whom netted the support of approximately 900,000 Texans — he wants to compete against Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) in the general election.

Trump stated that the GOP primary race in Texas “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. IT MUST STOP NOW!”

Claiming that his GOP endorsements have “been virtually insurmountable,” Trump said that he will be endorsing one of the two candidates imminently and asking the disfavored candidate “to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”

“We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively!” continued the president, referring to Talarico. “Both John and Ken ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT!”

RELATED: Chip Roy’s political future uncertain after nail-biting Texas AG race

Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images, Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

“We must win in November!” he concluded.

The runoff election will be held on May 26 in the event that both candidates remain in the race.

On Wednesday afternoon, Paxton tweeted, “Last night, in a historic failure for John Cornyn, he failed to get nearly 60% of the GOP vote after spending $100 million. It’s time to finish the job in the runoff.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling deciding how persecution claims can be handled in asylum cases.

The unanimous decision in Urias-Orellana v. Bondi found that federal courts must defer to immigration agencies about facts being claimed by asylum seekers.

The unanimous decision says courts must accept findings from the immigration agencies unless they meet a ‘substantial evidence’ standard.

Douglas Humberto Urias-Orellana is an immigrant from El Salvador who fled to the U.S. in 2021 with his wife and his minor child after allegedly facing death threats from a drug cartel. The family’s claims were deemed by an immigration judge not to meet the persecution standard and ordered them to be deported.

Urias-Orellana sued against the deportation and called on the Supreme Court to accept his persecution claims.

Instead, the unanimous decision says courts must accept findings from the immigration agencies unless they meet a “substantial evidence” standard.

The bottom line is that asylum seekers will find it harder to challenge orders of deportation if their persecution claims are denied.

The ruling was written by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

RELATED: US Catholic bishops call on SCOTUS to shut down Trump birthright citizenship order and protect ‘human dignity’

The Alliance for Justice issued a statement prior to the ruling supporting the asylum seeker’s cause.

“In Urias-Orellana vs. Bondi, the Court could raise the bar as to how much deference courts of appeals should give to a determination by the Board of Immigration Appeals on whether an asylum seeker has been persecuted in their home country,” their statement read. “A ruling that raises the bar could mean that individuals with credible fears for their safety may be denied refuge simply because they cannot meet a higher procedural threshold.”

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Weeks after Don Lemon and dozens more agitators allegedly stormed a church service in Minnesota, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon made a much-anticipated announcement.

On Wednesday, Dhillon announced that all 39 individuals suspected of disrupting the church service had been arrested as of Monday, adding an intriguing detail about a couple of the arrests.

‘Outstanding work by DOJ. You don’t get to terrorize churchgoers in America.’

“As of Monday, all 39 individuals indicted in the attack on Cities Church in MN had been arrested, two of them while abroad,” Dhillon wrote on X.

“We @CivilRights look forward to bringing justice to the victims of this attack and demonstrating our commitment to justice for all!” she continued.

RELATED: Don Lemon enters plea following January arrest in connection with Minnesota church disruption

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Activists stormed Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 18.

Apparently among them was ex-CNN talking head Don Lemon, who previously pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to violate someone’s constitutional rights and violating the FACE Act.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) praised the DOJ’s persistence in this case: “Outstanding work by DOJ. You don’t get to terrorize churchgoers in America.”

Likewise, BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre lauded the arrests, noting how easily the case could have disappeared in the news cycle.

“I appreciate the follow-through on this. Many people predicted that the administration would do nothing and with all of the other news it would have been easy to let this quietly drop out of the cycle. But they didn’t, they charged them all,” MacIntyre said.

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Before telling employees they do not get a say in how the government uses OpenAI services, CEO Sam Altman said intelligence agencies are no longer allowed to use OpenAI as they see fit.

On Monday, Altman cited the Fourth Amendment as a reason to change OpenAI’s contract with the federal government.

‘The Department also affirmed that our services will not be used by Department of War intelligence agencies.’

Altman said the company would amend its deal to include the following text: “Consistent with applicable laws, including the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution … the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.”

The text added, “For the avoidance of doubt, the Department understands this limitation to prohibit deliberate tracking, surveillance, or monitoring of U.S. persons or nationals, including through the procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information.”

Altman expressed a desire for a “democratic process” that could protect the civil liberties of Americans, while adding that the Department of War agreed to the new terms that keep his product out of the hands of the intelligence community.

“The Department also affirmed that our services will not be used by Department of War intelligence agencies (for example, the NSA). Any services to those agencies would require a follow-on modification to our contract.”

Unfortunately for Altman, his post was hit with a hard community note that claimed this was “the opposite” of what he told employees the next day.

RELATED: Gamers REVOLT over age-verify scheme subjecting users to ‘suspicious entity detection’

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

As CNBC reported, Altman told staff at an internal meeting that the company does not get a say in how the government uses OpenAI for operations.

“So maybe you think the Iran strike was good and the Venezuela invasion was bad,” Altman reportedly said on Tuesday. “You don’t get to weigh in on that.”

OpenAI does not “get to make operational decisions” regarding how its AI is used by the Department of War, the CEO added.

Altman also reportedly told his team that while the Pentagon respects his company’s expertise, the agency made it clear that the final decisions rest solely with Secretary Pete Hegseth.

RELATED: Sam Altman slams ICE in message to OpenAI employees: ‘What’s happening … is going too far’

The about-face seems even more bizarre when considering Altman’s follow-up post on X from Monday evening. In it, he described “alignment, democratization, empowerment, and individual agency” as the principles he cares most about.

At the same time he explained how AI needs to be “democratized” for the world as an open product, he wondered how he would feel if his product could have prevented an attack on U.S. soil but was not used by the government.

“I think there are real dangers coming to the world, and maybe pretty soon; I tried to put myself in the mindset of how I’d feel the day after an attack on the US or a new bioweapon we could have helped prevent.”

This is more in tune with what he told his employees on Tuesday, which also included that he hoped the government would be “willing to work with us, even if our safety stack annoys them.”

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