A young internet prankster thought it would be funny to trick a hardworking father into believing he’d stolen money from him. Instead the stunt backfired — and the father, who was in his Red Baron employee uniform, won.

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales believes that thanks to the internet, the cruel attempt to humiliate an ordinary working dad turned into a major win for the victim, with strangers donating more than $500,000 to help his family.

Even his employer, Red Baron, has joined in celebrating him.

“I understand the pitfalls of the internet. Like the internet is great for a lot. Social media is great for a lot, but it also is just like a cesspool,” Gonzales says.

“And you know, I think that we have to take the good and the bad with it, especially with some of the things that the younger generation is putting out there for clicks,” she adds, noting that the “bad” of the internet are these “stupid TikTok trends” where people prank strangers.

Among those trending pranks is approaching a stranger and tricking them into pulling out their phone. When they succeed, they play the Apple Pay sound to “make it sound like they just took money from their Apple Cash, their Apple Wallet.”

“And then it’s like, ‘Haha, that’s so funny that I just tricked you into thinking that I just stole money from you.’ And um, it’s just really gross. I just think it’s really gross to do to people. And there was this one that went viral,” she explains.

In the viral exchange, the father yelled at the young internet prankster, explaining that he “can’t even pay [his] mortgage” and has “four kids at home.”

“You never know what someone is going through. And I think pranks are funny, but to pretend you stole money from someone is just not funny. It’s just objectively not funny, especially to do a stranger who you don’t know,” Gonzales says.

However, while the intent was to embarrass the Red Baron worker, those who’ve seen the viral video have been “greatly moved.”

“A hard worker, part of the working class. He’s just trying to pay his bills for his family, and he’s sacrificing a lot to do that. He’s sacrificing time with his kids to do that. He’s going through a hard time,” Gonzales says.

“I mentioned the internet is sometimes a cesspool, but the internet is also sometimes really, really awesome because someone created a GoFundMe for this gentleman, and he’s now raised over half a million dollars,” she continues.

“I donated to it,” she adds, pointing out that even Red Baron, his employer, is “leaning into it.”

Red Baron posted on social media: “He’s still here. He’s got a fan club. Including us,” alongside a graphic that reads, “Employee of the month nominations are closed. You know why.”

“I hope he can use that money to spend a little bit more time with his kids and his family,” Gonzales says.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Blazetv show, Red baron, Tiktok, Prank, Gofundme 

An awkward moment in the Oval Office on October 20 illustrated an unresolved question about the political right. President Donald Trump declined a reporter’s invitation to endorse Vice President JD Vance for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination while Vance stood behind him.

Trump said it was too early to discuss 2028. He gave no indication that his hesitation concerned economic policy. Still, the episode raises a question about what sort of conservatism Vance would bring to the presidency.

Myriad laws at all levels of government have severely damaged families, faith, and other institutions that Vance and the national conservatives want to restore and strengthen.

Vance’s lukewarm support for free markets is evident in his criticisms of the late free-market economist Milton Friedman, his sympathy for certain economic positions associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, and his calls for raising the minimum wage. His economic outlook is a departure from the free-market consensus that once dominated the Republican Party.

Vance’s ambivalence toward economic freedom is especially clear in his prominent association with the National Conservatism movement and its common-good vision of government action to promote traditional values and ways of life.

“Natcons” regularly advocate interventions that free-marketers like me reject outright: a national industrial policy, government subsidies for favored industries, and taxpayer-funded incentives for having children.

Although Trump’s economic policies are hardly free-market orthodoxy, the president frequently argues that he is trying to undo government practices that have created a “rigged” economic system. I agree with the premise that America’s economic system is badly distorted and that government made it so.

Vance and the national conservatives, by contrast, seem too willing to trust government to direct economic and social life. Socialists place a still greater faith in government management, but the temptation to use centralized power for ostensibly benevolent ends is one the American founders understood.

The United States was established to limit the power of government, not merely redirect it toward other ends. Our founding documents reflect this fact. What one administration builds, another can repurpose.

The founders’ solution was ingenious: separation of powers horizontally, among the branches of the federal government, and vertically, among the central government, the states, and the people. The latter is federalism. Subsidiarity, a related but broader principle, holds that decisions should be made at the social level closest to the people they affect.

Subsidiarity is crucial to a free society. Institutions of different sizes vary greatly in the problems they can address. The federal welfare state, for example, has undermined the family by penalizing marriage and discouraging family formation, even subsidizing childbirth outside of marriage.

However well-meaning, a distant government cannot manage tens of millions of households in accordance with their individual needs.

RELATED: Would you trust this politician with your wallet?

Sonmez karakurt/Getty Images

States have likewise weakened marriage by adopting no-fault divorce, beginning with California in 1969, instead of fulfilling their duty to enforce valid contracts and protect both parties from abandonment. Nearly one-third of Americans born between 1988 and 1993 experienced their parents’ divorce before adulthood, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Divorce was far more common among children from lower-income families.

The damage has been catastrophic. Census Bureau researchers found that, compared with siblings whose parents divorced after they reached adulthood, children who experienced divorce in early childhood had roughly 60% higher teen birth rates, a 45% greater mortality risk at age 25, a 40% greater likelihood of incarceration, and lower incomes as adults.

These and other government-caused disasters are why the term “nanny state” is such an insult. Fostering families is the job of parents, other relatives, churches, and community members, not governments. Government’s job is to protect people from force and fraud, enforce valid contracts, and provide strictly necessary public works. Those duties often prove far beyond its capabilities.

The belief that a comprehensive national industrial policy will restore jobs and industries is likewise misguided. Industrial policy invites an increase in the already ungodly amount of crony capitalism in the United States and allows gigantic multinational corporations to misuse government to hamstring competitors, especially smaller American businesses.

The surest way to increase productive jobs and boost workers’ pay is for government to get out of the way. Freeing people to work, invest, and enjoy the fruits of their endeavors maximizes a nation’s economic vitality by allowing resources to find their most productive uses.

Myriad laws at all levels of government have severely damaged families, faith, and other institutions that Vance and the national conservatives want to restore and strengthen. Government action of the magnitude they advocate, however, would founder on the realities of scale and invite political capture by powerful interest groups.

RELATED: The 1776 immigration fight America forgot — and why it matters now

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To be fair, National Conservatism’s own statement of principles endorses federalism and calls for a strong but limited state. The disagreement is over how far government power should extend in pursuit of its goals. I believe the interventions national conservatives favor would undermine the freedoms they want to protect.

Subsidiarity, by contrast, builds on respect for individual rights, the limits of federal and state authority, freedom of association and enterprise, and the natural hierarchies of talent and character that freedom allows to form. A return to that vision is the best way to achieve the national conservatives’ goal of restoring “the traditional beliefs, institutions, and liberties underpinning life in the countries we love.”

Subsidiarity has long been an important element of Catholic political thought, and Catholics are a prominent contingent of the National Conservatism movement. Vance is a Catholic convert. Their efforts to cultivate a fairer economy, stronger families, and better government would benefit from a renewed appreciation for this principle in their own tradition.

To strengthen families, churches, small businesses, and other traditional institutions, Vance and other national conservatives should join the liberty movement in trying to push government power as far away from them as possible.

​Jd vance, Milton friedman, Catholicism, Conservatives, National conservatism, Government, Federalism, Opinion & analysis, Republican party 

Heavy rain and severe flash flooding have prompted changes to numerous polling locations in the Sunshine State.

Citing potentially dangerous weather conditions, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) issued an executive order on Monday declaring an emergency in Brevard, DeSoto, Hardee, Highlands, Indian River, Martin, and St. Lucie Counties.

The Florida Department of State’s Elections Division has so far listed 19 polling place changes for Election Day.

In all but Palm Beach County, where Kamala Harris eked out a lead, President Donald Trump won all of these counties by massive margins in 2024.

pollwatch.theblaze.com

Rep. Byron Donalds, the Republican running to succeed DeSantis as governor, emphasized to Floridians affected by the rainfall and flooding: “Above all else, stay safe.”

The Florida Department of State’s Elections Division has so far listed 19 polling place changes for Election Day.

Brevard County

The polling location for voters in:

Precincts 307, 512, and 525 has been moved from Max K. Rodes Park Community Center in West Melbourne to the New Shiloh Christian Center at 3900 Sarno Road, Melbourne, Fla., 32934;Precinct 309 has been moved from the Veterans Memorial Complex in West Melbourne to the New Shiloh Christian Center at 3900 Sarno Road, Melbourne, Fla., 32934;Precinct 306 has been moved from the Eddie Lee Taylor, Sr. Community Center in Melbourne to the Joseph N. Davis Community Center at 2547 Bruce D. Buggs St., Melbourne, Fla., 32901;Precinct 320 has been moved from Eastern Florida State College’s Palm Bay Campus to the Franklin T. DeGroodt Memorial Library at 6475 Minton Rd SE, Palm Bay, Fla., 32909;Precincts 323 and 509 have been moved from the Front Street Civic Center in Melbourne to the Joseph N. Davis Community Center at 2547 Bruce D. Buggs St., Melbourne, Fla., 32901;Precinct 517 has been moved from Faith Baptist Church of Palm Bay to the Palm Bay City Hall Council Chambers at 120 Malabar Rd SE, Palm Bay, Fla., 32907.

RELATED: Tantrums galore! Democrats crash out over Rep. Haley Stevens’ last-minute ‘betrayal’

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Highlands County

The polling location for voters in:

Precinct 20 has been moved from the Springlake Community Center in Sebring to the Penny Ogg Operations Center at 4504 Kenilworth Blvd, Sebring, Fla., 33870.

Indian River County

The polling location for voters in:

Precinct 7 has been moved from the Sebastian Church of God to the Sebastian Elks Lodge No. 2714 at 731 South Fleming Street, Sebastian, Fla., 32958. This new location is also apparently serving Precinct 8.

Martin County

The polling location for voters in:

Precinct 2, which was set to be Grace Presbyterian Church in Stuart, is now the Martin County Supervisor of Elections Office at 135 SE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, Stuart, Fla., 34994.

Okeechobee County

The polling location for voters in:

Precinct 10 has been moved from the Fort Drum Community Church in Okeechobee to High Point Church at 4550 N HWY 441, Okeechobee, Fla., 34972.

Palm Beach County

The polling location for voters who were set to vote at the:

Casa Rio Clubhouse in Riviera Beach is now RB Preparatory and Achievement Academy at 7071 Garden Rd, Riviera Beach, Fla., 33404;Ironhorse Country Club in West Palm Beach to the North County Senior Center at 5217 Northlake Blvd, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., 33418.

St. Lucie County

The polling location for voters in:

Precinct 12 has been moved from the Fort Pierce Masonic Lodge in Fort Pierce to the Days Inn Midtown at 3224 S US Hwy 1, Fort Pierce, Fla., 34982;Precincts 49 and 71 have been moved from Oak Hammock K-8 School in Port St. Lucie to the Port St. Lucie Community Center at 2195 SE Airoso Blvd, Port St. Lucie, Fla., 34984;Precinct 51 has been moved from the Disabled American Veterans Hall in Port St. Lucie to the Port St. Lucie Community Center at 2195 SE Airoso Blvd, Port St. Lucie, Fla., 34984;Precincts 67 and 86 have been moved from St. Lucie West Centennial High School in Port St. Lucie to the MidFlorida Credit Union Event Center at 9221 S.E. Event Center Place, Port St. Lucie, Fla., 34952;Precinct 92 has been moved from the Brennity at Tradition Senior Living in Port St. Lucie to Tradition Town Hall at 10799 SW Civic Ln, Port St. Lucie, Fla., 34987;Precincts 85 and 95 have been moved from the Indian River State College Veterans Center of Excellence in Port St. Lucie to the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Event Center at 9221 S.E. Event Center Place, Port St. Lucie, Fla., 34952;Precincts 6 and 28 have been moved from the Renaissance Business Park in Fort Pierce to the Havert L. Fenn Center at 2000 Virginia Ave, Fort Pierce, Fla., 34982.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. and will remain open until 7 p.m.

In addition to voting on a new governor, four other statewide offices, and in 28 congressional races, Floridians are voting on whether to keep Republican Ashley Moody as their U.S. senator or to replace her with the radical socialist Angela Nixon (D).

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​Election day, Florida, Ron desantis, Donald trump, Byron donalds, Politics 

What is culture?

That is a big question. It trips up a lot of people. Often, we tend to think of high culture when attempting to answer. Art, literature, and the stuff of the academy are what comes to mind. Yes, of course, that is culture and very important culture. But it is not all of culture. There is also folk culture and the ways of your people. That sounds hokey or old-fashioned in our day and age, but it doesn’t need to be, and that is not how it’s meant, at least not in this case.

The cake you make because your grandmother used to make it was everyday culture for her, just like the way you and your son go fishing every Friday afternoon.

Folk culture can mean a lot of things, but in the most general sense it is taken to mean the ways of the common people. The things they eat, the things they do, the things they believe, the way they speak, the way they marry, the way they die, the things they are afraid of, the things they valorize, and anything else that isn’t so much taught or studied.

Family matters

At the most basic level, your culture is what you consider to be normal.

That is a very simple definition that is easy to understand, and it is applicable at just about every level. The definition applies equally to rich and poor, big countries and small ones, the hinterland and the metropolis. It applies to even smaller units like families. Certainly, a family’s culture is related to its broader people’s culture, but it is also distinct. Each family is different, and each family has its own culture.

This is important to consider, because when we think of culture as only being high and academic, we separate ourselves from our own folk culture. We turn ourselves into spectators or passive observers rather than active participants. We downgrade ourselves and think of ourselves as “culture-less,” when in fact, every single person on earth, by virtue of having grown up somewhere with some family, has a culture — that which they consider to be normal.

Rooted in routine

When you wake up in the morning, how do you greet your wife? How do you say good morning to your kids? What do you do after that? What is the routine you have kept up for the past 20 years? What is the prayer you say before you sit down for breakfast? What kind of clothes do you wear?

How about the way you talk to the people you work with? Do you open the door for women? Do you insist that someone you just met should go first, just to be polite? What do you say and what don’t you say? What do you think is nice and what do you think is rude?

At home, what do you do for dinner? What does your wife make? Or perhaps what do you make? Do you eat together? Do you pray before? What is the rhythm of the meal? Do you sit and talk afterward? Do you have coffee or dessert? Or is that only on the weekends?

Afterward, do you read a book or watch television? Do you work some more, or are you done for the night? Do you listen to music? If so, what kind? Do you have a drink, or do you abstain? When do you go to bed? And when do you wake up and start it all over again?

All these things are so small and mundane that you probably don’t even think of them as anything other than your daily routine. And they are that, of course, but they are also little points of culture. It is these mundane things — and 10,000 other ones — that add up to what we know as life.

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Glen Asakawa/Getty Images

Home truths

Often, we don’t realize how potent these little points are until we leave home at 18. We move away from mom and dad and meet other people with other ways, and we realize the obvious fact that everyone doesn’t eat the same things on the holidays, wake up at the same time, eat dinner the same way, have the same manners, or live the same way. It is often in close contact with others that we fully realize who we really are, who we aren’t, and what little things make us that way.

The reason all this talk of mundane routine and family culture matters is because we very easily forget how important these little things are. We focus all our efforts on high, hard-to-reach culture and forget that it is the everyday moments that come to shape the world our children consider normal.

The cake you make because your grandmother used to make it was everyday culture for her, just like the way you and your son go fishing every Friday afternoon or the way you all have dinner together every Sunday evening no matter what.

These traditions may seem too ordinary to be worth thinking about. But the things your children grow up considering normal are the very things they may one day pass along to their own children. That is how culture survives, and it is something every family takes part in, whether they realize it or not.

​Cultural identity, Culture, Family traditions, Lifestyle, Tradition, Family, Children, The root of the matter 

It was after church Sunday when I saw the news alert about a plane crash in South Florida. Nine people had died. For a moment, even the election predictions dominating the news gave way to the tragedy.

Several things made the crash stand out. It happened only miles from President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. A dashcam captured the impact, giving the disaster a shocking image.

Just because technology allows us to hear someone’s final words, does that mean we have a moral right to listen?

Plane crashes command our attention. Fatal car crashes are more common, yet we imagine them differently. A car crash can be sudden. A plane crash can leave passengers and crew with time to realize that death is approaching and nothing can prevent it.

Those moments of awareness are terrifying. What would you think about? Could you overcome panic and pray?

That brings me to a question. It is personal, but as an ethics professor, I also believe it is an ethical question: Should we listen to a stranger’s last moments? Just because technology allows us to hear someone’s final words, does that mean we have a moral right to listen?

In Sunday’s crash, the pilot’s final radio communications with air traffic control were recorded and shared publicly. We can hear the moment when the pilot realizes the plane cannot be saved. Those words, spoken in the face of imminent death, are now available for strangers to replay.

I don’t think I should listen. Not because it would be horrifying to hear or because I didn’t know the pilot. Certainly not because I don’t care.

RELATED: Is ASU going to fire a Christian professor for being too Christian?

Zimmytws/Getty Images

The radio calls were made to air traffic control, not in private. Investigators have good reason to hear them. But that doesn’t settle whether the rest of us should listen out of curiosity.

The moments before death are among the most personal in our lives. We are leaving this world whether we want to or not. The things a person thinks and says at such a moment seem to belong to God and perhaps to their closest family and friends. Turning those words into a social media clip for strangers to gawk at seems wrong to me.

Perhaps I am wrong. The public has reason to know what happened in a disaster. But do we need to hear a dying person’s last words? Is that understanding or what used to be called morbid curiosity?

For me, the crash is a reminder that our lives are incredibly short. The time will come when each of us is taken from this life and asked to give an account before God. How will you conduct yourself in those last moments? Are you ready to meet God?

​Plane crash, South florida, Panic, Radio communications, Air traffic control, Public opinion, Death, God, Morbid curiosity, Technology, Car crashes, Pilot, Opinion & analysis 

Donald Trump carried Wyoming by 46 points in 2024. If conservatives cannot get the governor they want in the reddest state in America, what exactly is the conservative movement for?

That is the question raised with Tuesday’s gubernatorial election. Eric Barlow, a former Wyoming House speaker whom many grassroots conservatives regard as a lukewarm Republican in name only, won the August GOP primary with about 45% of the vote. State Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, endorsed by Trump, and Brent Bien, backed by the state Republican Party, divided most of the remaining vote. Barlow now has the coveted R next to his name.

What is the point of pouring donor money into primaries if the movement is forbidden to hold the winner accountable afterward? A party label is a useful shorthand, not a lifetime warranty.

Imagine the reverse in Massachusetts. Suppose a candidate opposed to abortion, gay marriage, and the climate agenda slipped through a divided Democratic primary. Would the left’s donor network, activist groups, and party leaders dutifully fall in line? Of course not. They would wage war over the meaning of their own party’s label. Yet in Wyoming, too many conservatives treat that label as the end of the argument.

We’re not talking about a swing state where choosing the lesser evil may be the only realistic option. Wyoming is Trump +46 territory. A Republican nominee here ought to make Ron DeSantis look like a squish, not invite comparisons to Lisa Murkowski.

Barlow’s record gives conservatives plenty of reason to question what they would get. He supported Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, voting for the 2021 measure that passed the Wyoming House before dying in the Senate. He had previously worked on expansion proposals as a legislator. That policy record should mean something, especially to voters who spent years demanding an end to Obamacare. Since when does a primary victory wipe the slate clean?

His energy views are even more troubling. In testimony before Congress in 2003, Barlow said America must move beyond nonrenewable energy and that fossil fuels should have a role of “transition and not reliance.” In America’s leading coal-producing state, the Republican nominee once argued that fossil fuels should be a transitional source of energy. Why pretend that tells us nothing?

The broader legislative record contains more disputes over which bills Barlow advanced and which he stalled as speaker. Those fights should be argued from actual votes, not slogans. One thing is beyond dispute: The Wyoming GOP chairman says his party will not endorse its own gubernatorial nominee. Barlow refused to participate in the party’s vetting process, which he considered “improper.”

So why should conservative voters automatically fall into line?

RELATED: A ballot is no substitute for a backbone

Vepar5/iStock/Getty Images

They have another choice. Rebecca Bextel, a longtime conservative activist and donor, is running on the Constitution Party ticket. She campaigns on limited government, immigration enforcement, property rights, gun rights, and opposition to abortion. Her candidacy offers voters a way to register a conservative objection to the Republican nominee without voting for the Democrat.

Immediately the usual suspects howl about “splitting the vote.” In a competitive state, that concern would be serious. But the Democrat running for governor in Wyoming in 2022 received just 15.8% of the vote. Wyoming isn’t Massachusetts. That doesn’t make a three-way contest risk-free; it makes the reflexive spoiler argument far less persuasive.

And yet where are the major conservative PACs? Where is the donor machinery that spends fortunes electing people who promptly surrender the movement’s priorities? Bextel can secure an alternative place on the ballot, but she cannot manufacture the institutional support that conservative organizations claim to exist to provide.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R), who backed Degenfelder in the primary and is now running for the Senate, endorsed Barlow in the closing weeks. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis joined her in supporting the Republican ticket. That is precisely the establishment reflex I’m talking about: fight over the primary, then insist the letter after the winner’s name settles everything.

RELATED: Conservatives demand competition — except in their own primaries

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Tucker Carlson, whatever disagreements I have with him, was willing to interview Bextel. Too many better-funded conservative personalities and institutions have been conspicuously absent. They should not be surprised when activists seek out the few people prepared to challenge Republican orthodoxy — and begin listening to those people on other questions too.

What is the point of pouring donor money into primaries if the movement is forbidden to hold the winner accountable afterward? Primary voters choose a nominee, but they do not acquire ownership of every conservative’s conscience. A party label is a useful shorthand, not a lifetime warranty. If the movement’s only measure of success is keeping that label in office, it can preserve the party while losing every principle that supposedly justifies its existence.

Here is the central irony: In a state where Democrats rarely win statewide, the greatest obstacle to an unapologetically conservative agenda can be the Republicans who wear the party’s name. A politician can deliver Democratic policy results without Democrats paying the political price.

At some point, conservatives must stop confusing party loyalty with fidelity to their own cause. If we cannot support our own principles in Wyoming, of all places, what exactly are we fighting for?

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Wyoming, Republicans, Rinos, Governor, Eric barlow, Rebecca bextel, Split vote, Conservatives 

Apparently artificial intelligence has officially entered the crime-reporting business — but it apparently doesn’t need an actual crime to do it.

Anthropic has acknowledged that its Claude Haiku 4.5 model submitted a tip to the Philadelphia Police Department claiming to have personal knowledge about an unsolved murder. However, the information was entirely fabricated, and the false report was flagged as spam.

“Why would it do that?” BlazeTV host Pat Gray asks.

“Because his friends in the chat room said, ‘Dare ya,’” Jeff Fisher jokes.

While funny, Gray points out that it’s “very strange that it’s doing these things supposedly on its own” without anyone programming it.

“The AI claimed to have personal knowledge of who committed a murder, and it was just a case of AI hallucination,” he continues. “That’s what they’re blaming it on.”

“So the false tip got flagged as spam, and investigators never followed up on it. So that’s good. At least they didn’t waste time on it,” he adds.

However, Fisher doesn’t think that’s actually a good thing, calling the police department’s response “a little concerning in and of itself.”

“We get stuff all the time here from people that we get emails from every day, and yet, every once in a while, their email goes to spam. Why? Because the algorithm picked it up as something wrong with it. But it’s still a legitimate email that we want to see,” he explains.

“So that’s another problem,” he says.

“Maybe the police department, here’s an idea. Check your spam once in a while.”

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Artificial intelligence, False report, Philadelphia police, Claude, Anthropic, Blazetv show