Nine times out of ten, if asked to choose sides in a dispute between Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ronald McDonald, I would choose the McDonald. No questions asked. Warren, after all, went viral for claiming Native American ancestry, only to be ridiculed and forced to offer groveling apologies. Ronald, meanwhile, has spent over 60 years selling Americans Happy Meals and creating plenty of happy memories.

Yet we live in strange times, so strange that I now find myself siding with the teepee-loving teller of tall tales. Warren, along with four other Democrats, recently sent McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski a furious letter.

Your perceived wealth dictates your bill.

In it, the pols demanded answers about the company’s AI-powered pricing tools. The technology estimates what customers at each location are prepared to pay and quickly recommends the prices the company believes will make it the most money. It’s sneaky, and I’m certainly not lovin’ it.

The golden arches built a huge empire on low-cost convenience. Drive into any suburban strip mall, drop a few dollars, and receive a standardized slab of meat-like matter. The transaction was simple and straightforward. Today, that transaction is morphing into a machine-learning surveillance operation designed to calculate the absolute limit of your financial tolerance.

The question is no longer what a Big Mac actually costs to produce, but how much McDonald’s thinks it can fleece you before even a Jack in the Box burger starts to look appealing.

Maybe one lost customer doesn’t even register for a chain as big as Mickey D’s. But dissatisfaction can spread like wildfire. And every day, the fast-food giant serves approximately 26 million people across the country. In other words, well over a million people every 60 minutes. At that scale, little algorithmic tweaks that leave you grumbling can net out to megabucks of profit.

May I take your Orwellian order?

Corporate executives love to hide behind technical jargon and market theory. They insist that their AI doesn’t technically set menu prices because individual franchisees retain final authority over their final prices. Three separate franchisees told Reuters that the pricing engine’s recommendations have noticeably widened the cost gaps between nearby locations. When a multibillion-dollar corporate headquarters sends automated price targets to a franchise owner, those numbers carry the weight of an imperial mandate. Calling it a mere suggestion is nothing but corporate doublespeak.

Let me paint a somewhat sinister picture. Two working-class parents pull up to a drive-thru window after a 10-hour shift. Ten miles down the highway, another family pulls up to an identical menu board. The meat in the kitchen arrived on the same refrigerated truck. The workers behind the register wear the exact same uniforms and earn the exact same hourly wage. Yet the family living in the slightly higher-income neighborhood pays an extra dollar for every single item. The AI analyzed local income metrics, traffic patterns, and economic desperation, concluding that those specific parents had nowhere else to go.

RELATED: Your zip code or computer type can determine what you pay for groceries, deliveries, and services

Your zip code or computer type can determine what you pay for groceries, deliveries, and services L-R: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg/Getty Images, Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto/Getty Images

This dynamic is disturbing, and it flips traditional commerce on its head. In a standard market, prices reflect supply, demand, and overhead costs. Algorithmic pricing discards that tried-and-tested trinity, creating a localized dynamic in which your perceived wealth dictates your bill. Forget inflation. Forget rising beef costs or supply chain bottlenecks. McDonald’s has built a shady system designed to squeeze every penny out of your pocket.

The broader implications extend far beyond a bag of French fries. Fast food has historically functioned as an economic equalizer, a place where a plastic surgeon and plumber bought the exact same lunch for the exact same five-dollar bill. Algorithmic pricing makes each neighborhood into a distinct cash cow, milked through digital demographic profiling.

And if this software succeeds across 14,000 American locations, you can be sure it won’t stop with burgers. Every major retail sector could adopt the exact same play. Supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations, and hardware stores may run machine-learning software to price basic necessities based on your neighborhood’s financial scorecard.

Flimsy defenses

American consumers are already struggling to keep their heads above water. More and more have less than $500 in savings, while countless others are being squeezed by higher rents and eggs priced as though they came with the chicken.

Eating out at a fast-food chain used to provide a brief reprieve from economic stress. Now, even a simple meal has become a calculated financial extraction exercise. You drive up to the speaker box, state your order, and wait for a computer server in Chicago or California to decide how much value it can pull from your checking account today.

McDonald’s insists that its machine-learning tools merely help store operators navigate ever-changing economic environments. That defense is flimsy, and it ignores the fundamental contract between a business and its customers. People don’t walk into a fast-food restaurant expecting to be on the receiving end of algorithmic manipulation. They want a quick burger, a side of fries, and a few minutes of peace without worrying about their bank balance.

If the golden arches can turn a routine bite into a localized wealth-extraction test, the traditional concept of a fair price is dead. We are rapidly moving toward a future in which the price tag on the wall is little more than an illusion, tailored in real time to extract maximum revenue from whichever unfortunate soul craves some greasy goodness. Elizabeth Warren might be an unlikely defender of the average American’s wallet. But on this issue, McDonald’s has made the not-so-native American look surprisingly reasonable.

​Tech, Mcdonald’s 

Do you ever notice how the WNBA demands respect but seems to have an awfully hard time giving it?

Respect the players. Respect the league. Respect the game.

Imagine a white player committing a hard foul on a black opponent, getting ejected, then posting ‘BLACK PRIVILEGE’ at the other team.

All reasonable requests.

Now how about respecting the fans who pay to watch? The players who don’t hold the approved opinion? And while we’re at it, how about respecting the rule book?

The 2026 season is finally over. Mercifully. But believe me, this play is not over.

The WNBA is on fire. And not in a good way. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert keeps handing out fiddles when somebody ought to be looking for a fire extinguisher. And too much of the sports media stand beside the flames explaining that the real problem is the people pointing at the fire.

Before we address the blaze, ma’am, what does your T-shirt say?

I’ve worked for Walt Disney Studios, the WWF, and the Dodgers. Alongside my wife, I own an independent production company. I thought the idea of running a business was fairly straightforward: Give people something they want. Make them feel welcome. Give them a reason to come back.

Apparently, I missed the Ted Talk where you learn to resent the customers.

The WNBA finally has people looking through the window. More people are buying tickets, following players, and turning on games. Now would seem like a good time to open the door. Instead, parts of the league seem determined to slam it in their faces.

You’re watching for the wrong reason. You’re cheering for the wrong player. You’re wearing the wrong shirt.

I’ve had easier relationships with cable companies.

I have never seen so many people associated with a business work so hard to make new customers regret showing up. Except Hollywood. Tinseltown has spent years insulting its audience and then acting bewildered when the masses find something else to do on opening weekend. The WNBA seems determined to see whether that business model works with a shot clock.

The escape lane

Start with A’ja Wilson’s confrontation with a fan during the Indiana playoff series. The rule book says a player who deliberately enters the stands, other than as a continuation of play, is subject to ejection. After a lengthy discussion, the officials gave Wilson a technical. That was it.

The league declined further punishment, explaining that she remained in the “player escape lane.”

The what? Yes. The “player escape lane.” Even as your lying eyes clearly show Wilson moving toward the fan and leaning over him in his second-row seat.

Apparently, the WNBA’s escape lane is expandable. Perhaps the most flexible boundary in professional sports. Does it go all the way to the concession stand? The parking lot? Somewhere, a surveyor is watching the footage and wondering whether he needs to renew his license.

Show us the boundary. Explain the ruling. Apply it consistently.

Then there’s the officiating, which of course brings us to Caitlin Clark. During a June game, Phoenix’s Alyssa Thomas made contact with Clark’s throat with her fist. The officials called no foul. After reviewing the play, the league assessed a flagrant 2 and suspended Thomas for one game.

The league eventually recognized what happened. Unfortunately, the officials on the floor apparently needed to wait for the morning papers.

Later, in Indiana’s deciding playoff game against Las Vegas, Clark ended up with a bloody mouth. No flagrant review. Lexie Hull gets brought down with a perfect WWE suplex. But she gets called for the foul.

I worked in the WWF. Yes, before the E. I’ve seen more than a few people get taken to the mat. At least there, when somebody landed on his back, we knew who had done the slamming.

The answer is better officiating for everyone. Clark. Reese. Hull. Cunningham. Wilson. All of them. Of course basketball is physical. So is moving furniture. But you still notice when somebody drops a refrigerator on you.

Instead, we get another promise of improvement. The league says it will begin using the NBA’s centralized replay facility in 2027. Wonderful. Rome’s new sprinkler system opens next spring.

The golden goose

Meanwhile, the league keeps supplying reasons to question whether its biggest commercial attraction is appreciated inside her own workplace.

Clark finished 11th among guards in player All-Star voting. Eleventh. The WNBA’s own announcement had her fifth in league scoring and second in assists. She was second among guards in fan voting, was third in media voting, and was selected as a starter.

You can argue about who belongs first. Eleventh requires considerably more imagination.

I’m beginning to think some of those ballots were filled out with the same map that located A’ja Wilson in the escape lane.

The golden goose is bringing people through the gates. And some of her colleagues appear to be shopping for stuffing.

That doesn’t mean other players aren’t talented. They are. It doesn’t mean the league started with Clark. It didn’t. But her drawing power has helped fuel growth that supports bigger media deals, higher salaries, and opportunities throughout the league. The smart business move is to give those new fans a reason to stay and discover the rest of the talent.

The selective sisterhood

And then there’s the racism.

The WNBA and its media defenders have spent plenty of time condemning racist behavior directed at black players. They should. No player should be subjected to racial abuse for playing basketball.

But the principle seems to get fuzzy when the hostility is directed toward white players.

Chicago’s DiJonai Carrington was ejected after striking Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham in the head and neck. Then Carrington posted “WHITE PRIVILEGE” and tagged the Indiana Fever.

Imagine a white player committing a hard foul on a black opponent, getting ejected, then posting “BLACK PRIVILEGE” at the other team. How many days would that dominate the coverage?

I keep hearing that judging people by the color of their skin is wrong. I could not agree more. Racism directed at black players is wrong. Racism directed at white players is wrong. That really should be a two-sentence policy.

Then there’s Cunningham, who said she wants to protect girls’ opportunities and safety in girls’ sports. Coaches and players are free to disagree with her. But disagreement too often seems insufficient. She needs to be corrected, condemned, and made an example of.

And check your shirt at the door, because the wardrobe department appears to operate by a different set of rules.

Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve can wear a “Trans kids belong” shirt while coaching against Indiana. Meanwhile, fans wearing XX-XY Athletics shirts, supporting female-only sports, have been told to cover them.

At Game 1 of the Finals, XX-XY Athletics founder Jen Sey and friends wore the company’s shirts. Sey says fans cursed at them and told her to kill herself; she posted video of parts of the confrontation. Security pulled the group aside after complaints about their clothing.

Earlier in the season, Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton confronted young fans wearing XX-XY shirts. The league fined her and suspended her from five home games. Good. It acted. But consider what it took to get there: A team owner had to be reminded how to behave toward paying customers.

Usually, when an owner approaches your seat, you expect a handshake and appreciation. Now you wonder whether you should bring an attorney.

That’s an interesting approach to inclusion. Everybody belongs. Except you.

The rule book, again

And a big one for me, that pesky little thing known as our national anthem.

In all seven games of the championship Finals, the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries left the floor before the anthem, then returned as soon as it was over. The Valkyries say it’s part of a long-standing pregame routine.

I’ve seen the timing. As a veteran, I find their absence during the anthem offensive. Others can disagree. I’m not asking them to agree with me. I am asking the league to explain its own rule.

The WNBA rule book contains language about players standing and lining up during the anthem. But the league suspended the protocols in 2017. If the rule has been suspended, say so clearly. If teams can leave, explain who decided that. And if the words no longer mean what they appear to say, why are they still in there?

The WNBA can spot an objectionable shirt from across an arena. Finding a straight answer in its rule book apparently requires a search party.

The media plays along

Some of the coverage has been every bit as selective. USA Today columnist Nancy Armour invoked the murder of Emmett Till in a column about Clark’s on-court reactions. Think about how far a sports column has to travel to connect a basketball player arguing calls with one of the most horrific racial murders in American history.

The Guardian characterized Cunningham’s concern about girls competing against biological males as an “anti-trans dog-whistle.” There’s a convenient way to avoid debating someone’s actual argument: Assign an ugly motive to it and move on.

The WNBA doesn’t need a cheering section in the press box. It needs people willing to cover the whole story.

Here’s an interesting little stat. A YouGov survey commissioned by the Bulwark and Pablo Torre Finds Out asked 1,417 American adults about their opinions of public figures. Caitlin Clark registered 56% favorable and 11% unfavorable. Sophie Cunningham scored 38% favorable. Angel Reese stood at 24% favorable, with 21% unfavorable and 54% saying they didn’t know who she was.

Popularity doesn’t make anyone right about everything. It doesn’t win a basketball game, either. But it ought to tell the league something about the people bringing an audience to its product.

And just when you thought the WNBA couldn’t find another way to make its business more difficult, there was Game 6 of the Finals. The tip-off at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena? 12:30 on a Thursday afternoon. That’s 9:30 in the morning for Golden State fans.

Nothing says “championship basketball” quite like watching the opening tip between your first cup of coffee and your second meeting.

RELATED: Charles Barkley defends WNBA, but says ‘race’ and ‘sexuality’ are behind Sophie Cunningham clashes

L-R: Michael Reaves/Getty Images; Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

A new conductor

Cathy Engelbert has announced that she will retire as commissioner at the end of the year. Having worked for large corporations, I know how these announcements can sound.

Thank you for your years of service and dedication. There’s cake in the conference room, a lovely parting gift on the table. Oh, and your key card will stop working at five.

Now, Engelbert says the decision was hers. Okay, I’ll take her at her word.

The bigger question is what happens next. Will the next commissioner enforce the rules consistently? Protect all the players? Welcome fans who don’t think exactly like everyone in the front office?

The WNBA has grown. New viewers, new money, new opportunities for extraordinary athletes. It has something very valuable to squander.

Give the fans a better game. Enforce the rules. Protect the players. Treat the customers with respect. Let people disagree without deciding that half the audience needs to be shown the door.

Instead, we keep getting smoke, excuses, and another lecture.

Rome is burning. League leaders are fiddling. And too many sportswriters are reviewing the concert.

​Biological sex, Female athletes, Protect kids colorado, Title ix, Transgender athletes, Womens sports, Lifestyle, Sports, Culture, Did you ever notice…?, Caitlin clark, Wnba, Cathy engelbert, Sophie cunningham 

The dystopian future writers once imagined has quietly become our reality, and Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck has been sounding the alarm for years — but not everyone is paying attention.

“We’ve slipped into ‘Brave New World’ and Orwell at the same time,” Glenn tells best-selling author and former Navy SEAL Jack Carr, adding, “and then didn’t even notice it.”

“Some of us noticed it. Some of us did,” Carr responds. “But you have to be a reader to notice these things. You have to be a reader, both fiction and non. You have to build that foundation so that you’re aware of the manipulations and are able to apply the wisdom of the past to current problem sets.”

“And we’re not very good at doing that in this country, especially with the manipulation devices in our pockets,” he adds, before the conversation turns to Carr’s hit series, “The Terminal List” — a work of dystopian fiction with some unsettling real-world parallels.

In the series, the main character, James Reece, is a Navy SEAL commander who unknowingly leads his team into an ambush orchestrated by the U.S. government. The attack is meant to cover up the government’s alleged experimentation on his team, which left the men with brain cancer.

As the sole survivor, Reece sets out to exact revenge on the powerful figures responsible for his teammates’ deaths.

Glenn points out that the storyline is one Americans can easily relate to, given the growing distrust of the nation’s institutions.

“I think that’s the real message that everybody should, in Washington, get,” he tells Carr.

“And that’s scary. No country can survive that. If your institutions are completely distrusted, there’s nowhere to go. In ‘Terminal List,’ you have James, you know, exacting justice because the government, you know, gave these guys brain cancer,” he continues.

“Where’d that come from?” Glenn asks.

“Is that just a response to looking for something that, you know, people will relate to?” he says.

“Or did any of that come from any of the stuff that the American government has done to our soldiers in the past?”

“Certainly,” Carr responds.

Carr recalls the Church Committee hearings of the mid-1970s, which he tells Glenn “brought to light a few instances of our government using drugs on soldiers, on mental institution patients, on university students, prisoners, those sorts of things, doing those experiments back then.”

“So that’s really where some of that idea came from,” he says.

“And I thought, well, what if somebody didn’t get the memo all these years later? And of course, while I was in the military, I was getting poked and prodded with all sorts of things, anthrax shots and all that,” he continues.

“So I thought, well, what if one of these things is a test? Because they’ve done it before,” he adds.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Brave new world, Jack carr, Navy seal, The terminal list, Blazetv show 

Incoming Democrats have been honest about one thing — they plan to abuse their power to settle political scores.

By their own words, they’re not here to legislate or conduct genuine oversight. They’re here to issue blanket subpoenas and intimidate folks who are not part of the Democratic Machine from serving in government. In fact, Democrats’ public comments have more in common with practices in Third World banana republics than the America we are familiar with.

‘They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing.’

The Supreme Court settled this question decades ago: “Investigations conducted solely for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to ‘punish’ those investigated are indefensible.”

In Watkins v. United States, Chief Justice Earl Warren’s majority opinion drew a clear line: “No inquiry is an end in itself; it must be related to, and in furtherance of, a legitimate task of the Congress.” Since 1957, courts have continually ruled that congressional investigations that primarily seek to expose or punish are not a valid legislative function.

Democrats have been explicit about their wish to investigate and prosecute their political opponents in the past. This is distinct from using the investigative process for purely legislative means. After the past decade of lawfare waged by the left, this behavior is nothing new.

Let’s review some of the recent comments by members of the incoming Democrat majority.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.): “If you’re involved in any way with the Trumps, and if you’re part of an American business, you’re going to respond to the Congress.”

Garcia treats mere association with the 45th President as sufficient to compel disclosure of private business matters. The case can be made that all 36 million businesses in the country are involved with the executive branch in some capacity. The incoming Oversight Chairman lacks the general authority to expose the private affairs of individuals without justification in terms of the function of Congress.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.): “There are so many criminals in this administration … Day one, we need to be opening investigations into the heads of every single one of these agencies, and we need to hold them accountable.”

Ocasio-Cortez labels her political targets “criminals” and calls for using the congressional investigative process to hold every agency head accountable. This is punishment, as it does not serve a legislative purpose.

RELATED: The GOP’s old dogs had better learn some new tricks

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-N.J.): “We’re going to toss out subpoenas like Mardi Gras beads.”

Rep. Mejia treats subpoenas as a mass, indiscriminate tool of pressure rather than targeted legislative inquiry. Again, this is using the legislative process as a penalty or sanction against individuals, rather than for a clear legislative purpose.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.): “They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing.”

Markey is no stranger to the legislative process, having served 20 terms in the House and three so far in the Senate. His statement celebrates the volume of compulsory process as the point, implying burden (as punishment) as the goal. This practice is not a valid use of legislative investigative powers according to Watkins v. United States.

These direct quotes by congressional Democrats reflect their eagerness to use their elected offices, not for any specific legislative purpose, but to settle scores with their political opponents.

Democrats are open about their wish to harass or intimidate targets rather than gather facts needed for legislation as a means to generate headlines or political damage. Not only would this be unconstitutional, it’s a promise to abuse power, made by the crowd that claims to be “protecting democracy.”

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally on X.

​Abuse of power, Analilia mejia, Ed markey, Robert garcia, Congressional democrats, Midterms election, 2026 midterms, Alexandria ocasio-cortez, Opinion & analysis, Oversight, Lawfare, Donald trump, Weaponization 

First came same-sex marriage. Now, parts of California are taking another step toward redefining marriage — this time by recognizing polyamorous relationships.

“We have Los Angeles County now legally enshrining polyamorous couples,” BlazeTV host John Doyle begins. “You’ve got throuples, foursomes, not in a golf-concerned context, as basically being the legal equivalent of marriage.”

This concept, he explains, originated “from this idea of having these kinds of deviant relationships be granted equal status to marriage under the law.”

“California struck down gay marriage in 2008 when it was put to a democratic vote,” Doyle says, “and then less than 10 years later, the Supreme Court of course discovers the right to marry a man if you are a man in the Constitution.”

“So it seems to be the result less of this kind of slippery slope, more of just like hyperfocused, dedicated leftist activism,” he adds, asking Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, “What do you make of all of this?”

Knowles recalls that Andrew Breitbart, whom he describes as “the king of the Hollywood conservatives” aided in organizing Friends of Abe.

“There are a lot of conservatives in California. It’s just that there were more left-wingers,” he tells Doyle.

“So Breitbart had this line that went very, very viral, which is that ‘politics is downstream of culture.’ And really what he was saying was we need to get involved in the arts and the media and take over all those institutions,” Knowles explains.

Although he admits that Breitbart “was totally right about that,” he also notes that “some people made an idol out of that maxim and tried to raise it to the level of political philosophy.”

“It isn’t quite that because what you saw with Prop 8 and now the throuples … in California is the opposite,” he says.

“You see that culture is downstream of politics,” Knowles argues.

“When it was put up for a vote, when the popular culture was asked, do you want gay marriage? The culture said, ‘No, we don’t want that,’ even in liberal California,” he explains.

But Knowles argues that the issue ultimately wasn’t left to voters.

Rather, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom Knowles sarcastically calls “a romantic poet,” invoked “the right to intimacy that we have.”

“And he just rewrote the Constitution to say that two fellas can get married. Not merely rewriting the Constitution, but also trying to rewrite natural law,” he explains.

“And after that, guess what? If you put it up to a vote, people will vote for it. They will support it,” he continues. “Now, that’s declined a little bit in recent years as the reality of these weird sexual relationships has come to light, but nevertheless, it’s still majority support.”

“So you see that in California, and you see it elsewhere in the country,” he adds.

Want more from John Doyle?

To enjoy more of the truth about America and join the fight to restore a country that has been betrayed by its own leaders, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Los angeles county, Polyamory, Gay marriage, Michael knowles, Blazetv show 

The son of the head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration was arrested after officials say they found horrific child pornography on his device.

Kyle Owen Brennan was arrested on Friday afternoon at his workplace in Herndon, Virginia, according to the Daily Mail.

The FBI claimed in the criminal complaint that on Kyle Brennan’s iPhone, agents had ‘observed approximately 88 images that appeared to depict minor girls, including prepubescent girls.’

Brennan’s father is John Brennan, who has been accused of politicizing the CIA during the Obama administration.

The FBI claimed in the criminal complaint that on Kyle Brennan’s iPhone, agents had “observed approximately 88 images that appeared to depict minor girls, including prepubescent girls, engaged in sexually explicit conduct.”

One photograph allegedly showed a “fully nude, pubescent minor girl” with her wrists and ankles bound and a gag in her mouth, the complaint said.

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia said that a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led to Warrenton police identifying Brennan as the owner of an account allegedly used to upload suspected child pornography.

The complaint indicated that the suspect’s phone was obtained when the Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at his residence in July 2024, when President Joe Biden was still in office. In early October 2026, the case was referred to the FBI, which was able to search the contents of the phone.

Kyle Brennan made his first appearance in court on Friday in the Eastern District of Virginia. Brennan is facing a felony charge of transportation of child pornography and faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years and up to 20 years if convicted.

The federal public defender listed as representing Brennan did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Both foreign and domestic intelligence services are known to have the ability to upload incriminating files onto devices connected to the internet.

RELATED: Trump says ‘irrefutable proof’ shows Obama is guilty of ‘treason’ — and names other Dems in ‘biggest scandal’ in US history

Kyle’s father, John Brennan, has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and his administration for over a decade. John Brennan has even been accused of abusing his authority while in office by falsely accusing Trump of colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election.

John Brennan was also one of the 51 former U.S. intelligence officials who signed a public letter identifying the Hunter Biden laptop story that broke just before the 2020 election as having all of the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

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​Child pornography, John brennan, Politics, Federal bureau of investigation 

The 2026 midterms were a drubbing for Republicans at nearly every level of government. But there’s an overlooked upshot of the Democrats’ sweep that could effectively alter the U.S. Constitution and the way the country elects its president.

The National Popular Vote Compact is now easily achievable.

I cannot overstate the seismic shift that the NPVC will bring to presidential elections

The NPVC is an agreement among states to assign their Electoral College votes to whoever wins the most votes nationwide in a presidential election, regardless of which candidate wins the most votes in the state. It goes into effect only if enough states join, through state legislation, to ensure the compact states will anoint the winner. Hence the states in the compact must have collectively 270 or more Electoral College votes.

The compact is also a partisan issue — Democrats support it; Republicans oppose it. Until the morning of November 4, the NPVC was stuck at 222 Electoral College votes.

However, with Democrats gaining lawmaking authority — i.e., control of both houses of the state legislature and governorship — in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada, the NPVC has a clear shot of controlling the outcome of the 2028 election.

If the five newly Democrat-controlled states pass compact legislation, the NPVC will reach 283 Electoral College votes. Any one of Arizona, Wisconsin, or Nevada could not pass NPVC legislation, and the compact will still go into effect.

I cannot overstate the seismic shift that the NPVC will bring to presidential elections, nor ignore the significant constitutional questions it raises.

The NPVC will make every vote cast in every hamlet, town, and metropolis have equal influence in the final tally for president. Traditional swing-state-based electoral strategy will be useless — the goal for presidential campaigns will be to turn out every voter that they can everywhere in the country.

From a democracy perspective, it sounds great. “Every vote equal” is the rallying cry for the NPVC movement. It is not an unalloyed good, though. For folks skeptical of money in politics, the NPVC makes campaigning drastically more expensive.

Take, for example, the closest thing we’ve had to two parties competing on a national scale for every possible vote: the 2026 midterms. Democrats and Republicans actually tried to win every Senate contest, and the result was the most expensive election in American history: close to $12 billion spent.

The high for presidential elections, in 2020, is just over $6 billion, because whole swaths of the country — the South, the Northeast, the Pacific Coast — are uncontested. And the newly opened battlegrounds will be in some of the most expensive places to campaign: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and so on.

RELATED: The GOP’s old dogs had better learn some new tricks

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Presidential elections under the NPVC will look a lot more like midterms, and given the higher stakes, the country could easily see more than $20 billion spent for a single office. Presidential election spending will finally catch up with potato chip spending (about $25 billion per year).

In addition to spending, the NPVC raises some thorny legal questions.

Right now, the national popular vote is a fiction calculated by summing 51 separate jurisdictions’ final vote tallies. But each state gets to its final tally in a different way. Some are all mail ballots, others have longer or shorter early voting, and so on. So a vote in Oregon doesn’t really mean the same thing as a vote in Florida.

That’s a significant, nationwide equality problem for the NPVC.

Additionally, since states shifted to awarding their Electoral College votes to the statewide winner in the 1830s, Americans expect their vote to translate to their state’s influence on the outcome. Under the NPVC, each state’s voters lose their unique impact on who becomes president.

For example, think of yourself as an Indian-American voter in California who had the opportunity to express, through California’s electoral votes, your preference for the first candidate of Indian descent, Kamala Harris. With the NPVC, you can’t do that any more, because California’s Electoral College votes would have gone to Donald Trump in 2024.

So the five states that have shifted to unified Democrat control should carefully consider whether they want to join the NPVC. While attractive from an abstract perspective, the compact has significant flaws and downsides.

If the states do join, though, 2028 will be an objectively historic election.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

​Battleground states, Campaign expenses, Donald trump, Early voting, Election, Electoral college, Electoral votes, Kamala harris, Mail ballots, Midterms, National popular vote, Opinion & analysis, Political science, Swing states, Voter turnout 

Veterans Day — celebrated as Remembrance Day elsewhere in the Anglosphere — was haunted this year by some veterans’ uncertainty about whether their efforts and the sacrifice of their comrades translated into improvements for their respective nations.

Alec Penstone was 15 years old and working in a factory when World War II kicked off.

‘Our country’s going to hell in a handbasket.’

After the Germans started bombing London, Penstone volunteered as an air raid precautions messenger — a role in which he found himself occasionally pulling his countrymen’s bodies out of the rubble.

The Briton, whose father had been grievously wounded in the trenches of the previous world war by friendly fire, soon joined the Royal Navy, serving as an able seaman on D-Day and beyond on submarines and an escort aircraft carrier. He also participated in arctic convoys, then shipped east to fight the Japanese.

In a crushing interview he gave last November with “Good Morning Britain,” Penstone — then 100 years old — reflected on the decayed state of the country for which he fought and for which his friends gave their lives.

RELATED: ‘Dark times’: Tommy Robinson faces 10 years for giving reporters a taste of their own medicine

Alec Penstone. LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images.

“I can see in my mind’s eye, there was rows and rows of white stones of all the hundreds of my friends and everybody else that gave their lives. For what? The country of today? No, I’m sorry,” said Penstone. “The sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that it is now.”

“What we fought for was our freedom,” continued the veteran. “Now, it’s a downside worse than what it was when I fought for it.”

Penstone died in May at the age of 101. The Veterans’ Foundation (U.K.) stated at the time, “Alec represented a generation whose sacrifice and commitment must never be forgotten.”

On Wednesday, footage of Penstone’s bleak assessment made the rounds again on social media.

Penstone was hardly alone in casting doubt on whether the West of today is worth the blood of yesteryear.

Don Poole is a 102-year-old veteran who served in the British Home Guard during the war, then with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in India.

Investigative journalist Steven Edginton asked Poole in an interview published on Wednesday whether, in view of the state of the United Kingdom today, the war was worth fighting.

The veteran answered, “It was worth fighting for because it got rid of, shall we say, the worst evil the world had ever seen for centuries and centuries. So it was worth fighting for that. But what happened afterwards — what was allowed to happen afterwards? It wasn’t worth fighting for.”

“If war was to break out tomorrow,” continued the veteran, “it wouldn’t be worth fighting for this country.”

Poole — who earlier in the interview criticized the United Kingdom’s decision to admit millions of migrants from India, Pakistan, and other third-world nations — suggested the country wasn’t worth fighting for in part because of its infiltration by criminal “scum” from abroad.

RELATED: Diversity is our strength? Britain has to remind migrants: Don’t rape kids

Like Poole, Carl Spurlin Dekle — a proud sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps who fought in the Pacific during World War II — made waves by expressing vexation with post-war developments in his nation.

The Silver Star recipient told WTVT-TV before his passing at the age of 100 in 2022, “People don’t realize what they have. They bitch about it.”

“Nowadays, I am so upset that the things we did and the things we fought for and the boys that died for it — it’s all going down the drain. Our country’s going to hell in a handbasket,” said Dekle. “We haven’t got the country we had when I was raised. Not at all.”

Dekle said that Americans today won’t have the opportunities or the fun he had growing up.

Breaking into tears, Dekle said, “That’s not what they died for.”

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​Veterans day, Marines, Britain, United kingdom, Immigration, Politics 

Sometimes the smallest acts of kindness leave the biggest marks.

And over 30 years ago, one Japanese teenager left a mark on a young Korean girl that never faded.

The young Korean girl was left sobbing on the street after someone had slashed open her school uniform.

“Her uniform was slashed open, and she couldn’t stand up because it meant being seen,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck explains. “So she is now down on the ground. She’s folded around herself and just weeping. And this high school kid sees her, and he was Japanese.”

The Japanese teenager didn’t know her, and “they had no connection whatsoever.”

“Most people just walked by. And he could have done that,” Glenn says.

“He’s wearing a winter coat. It’s black wool. It was brand-new. His parents had just purchased it for him,” he says. “And if you’ve ever been a teenager with something new that you’re proud of, you know what that coat meant to him.”

“So he walks by her, and he sees her, and he takes his brand-new coat off and he gives it to her. He didn’t lend it to her; he just gave it to her. He put it around her shoulders so she could stand up and walk home covered,” he continues.

“And he walked her home, and then he went home without it,” he adds.

Glenn points out that “this was done at a time when there were no cameras.”

“There were no phones in anyone’s pocket. No teacher heard about it. No newspaper wrote about it. Nobody called it heroic. He forgot about it. But she never did,” he explains, noting that the girl “kept that coat for 30 years.”

“So just a couple of months ago,” he continues, “she opens up a newspaper in Japan, and there’s this article about a guy who’s doing charity work and helping single mothers. He’s 50 years old now. There was nothing in the story about a coat or a girl or a day 30 years earlier.”

“Only thing that she noticed was the name. It was the same name on the coat,” he adds.

She reached out to him and finally gave his coat back.

Glenn believes the story is “remarkable.”

“It shows what started with this kid, this boy, ended up to be a lifetime,” he explains.

“Most likely, he had been raised by great parents or he had just some burning spirit inside of him. But it looks like he went on to live his whole life, and he did it without the accolades that you would get today,” he says.

Glenn calls him a “real man” and notes that all young men can take a lesson from his story.

“If you happen to be young and you don’t know how to become a real man, that’s it. Do that,” he says.

“You see somebody suffering, help them in any way you can and then just leave. Don’t post about it,” he continues.

“You have no idea the impact you will make on people,” he adds.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, 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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Yeah … baby?

Austin Powers is tan, rested, and ready for a comeback. So says Mike Myers, creator of the British spy who shagged his way into our hearts in the 1990s.

‘People often say that Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves. The slaves basically emancipated themselves because they wanted freedom.’

No franchise is ever truly dead, and Myers hasn’t had a hit since, well, Austin last signed off in 2002.

Will anyone care, though? Delayed sequels have a spotty track record, from the sublime (“Top Gun: Maverick”) to the atrocious (“Independence Day: Resurgence”). And Austin’s libido could be tricky to recreate in a post-MeToo era.

Imagine an intimacy coordinator on the set of an “Austin Powers” comedy. The mind reels …

Under the Gunn

Do we have Skydance to thank for dodging a speeding superhero bullet?

James Gunn’s reign as head of DC comic-book movies came to an end this week, more fallout from Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros.. One report suggested Gunn’s upcoming “Superman” sequel is a turkey, which necessitated Gunn’s pink slip. That’s not all.

Team Gunn reportedly had plans to bring back Wonder Woman in the sequel, titled, “Man of Tomorrow.” Not only was Gal Gadot left out of said plans (huge mistake), the Amazon warrior was going to go the full Ellen.

Is it any wonder Skydance gave Gunn the early hook?

Freedom faker

We know “The View” is the dumbest show on television. The hosts prove it on a weekly basis, and there’s nary a legacy media fact-checker in sight.

Even by those lower-than-low standards, co-host Sunny Hostin embarrassed herself and the show anew this week. To no one’s surprise, Hostin dug deep into a racial conversation and came up with the hottest take imaginable: American slaves freed themselves.

Really.

“[In] the Civil War the enslaved left and joined the Union Army because they wanted to fight for this country and for their freedom. People often say that Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves. The slaves basically emancipated themselves because they wanted freedom and they fought for their freedom.”

They “freed themselves.” And ABC insists “The View” is a “news” program. Try “comedy” …

Scribe scrum

Too many cooks in the kitchen? What about the writers’ room?

The upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” just unveiled its official list of screenwriters. Many movies are written by the director in question. Others use two or three scribes for the finished film.

The “Avengers” writers assembled in a very big way. The film boasts 10 credited screenwriters, including two whose names we know from their acting gigs: Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.

Reynolds is a pretty quippy guy for an actor, and he helped co-write the last two “Deadpool” movies. Jackman hasn’t had a single writing credit during his decades in the business. But he does now.

Plus, the film notoriously boasts a massive cast of previous superhero actors, including the casts of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men features. Up until now, neither Reynolds (Deadpool) nor Jackman (Wolverine) were part of the announced supergroup.

Here’s guessing they didn’t pen a few lines for Thor or Ant Man …

RELATED: ESCAPE FROM LA: Think Hollywood had problems before? Meet new mayor Nithya Raman.

Robert Gauthier/Apu Gomes/Archive Photos/Getty Images

‘Inglourious’ departure

When Quentin Tarantino calls, you answer the phone. And when he invites you to a table read, you show up (maybe with donuts??).

Actress Isabelle Huppert got just that call from the director in the run-up to his 2009 World War II movie “Inglourious Basterds.” Contract squabbles emerged, and when the actress failed to show up for a table read, Tarantino did what directors do.

“She didn’t show up, so f**k it. I fired her,” Tarantino recalls in Jay Glennie’s new book, “The Making of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds,” according to People.

Maggie Cheung ended up taking Huppert’s role. The film earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Christoph Waltz waltzed off with the movie’s only win — Best Supporting Actor.

He’ll be back

“Get to da othah choppah!”

Arnold Schwarzenegger may be 79, but the former A-lister isn’t slowing down. In fact, he has a trio of sequels on his plate. He told propagandist Jimmy Kimmel that he’s mulling updates to “Conan,” “Commando,” and “Predator.” The latter may be the most interesting, in part, because the 1987 original was one of the decade’s best sci-fi adventures.

Plus, that series has had two recent successes — the Hulu original “Prey” and the big-screen “Predator: Badlands.” That’s called “buzz” in the business.

“Predator’s” original characters were killed by the alien beastie the first time around, but the creature’s fascinating look and sound became part of pop culture lore.

What’s our suggestion? In the words of “Dutch” Schaefer, “Come on! Come on! Do it! Do it!” After all, Ah-nold isn’t getting any younger.

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