Category: blaze media

There is a particular horror that attaches to threats you cannot see. In the days before Iran’s centrifuges exploded in Natanz, when they were spinning faster than their operators knew, when the gauges read normal and the logs looked clean, the malware was already there, silently acting. This condition is that of modern national security: the ambient, permanently contested digital terrain on which something is always happening, mostly out of sight.

AI accelerates this condition, introducing compression into cyber conflict, a shrinking of the intervals that give defenders room to think.

By the time anyone understood what was happening, it was over.

The interval between the disclosure of a vulnerability and its exploitation, already punishingly short, shortens further. The interval between reconnaissance and attack, between a phishing message and a compromised credential, between a software flaw and a working exploit, all contract. The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre judged in 2025 that AI-enabled tools would, within two years, improve adversaries’ ability to exploit known vulnerabilities. By May 2026, Google’s Threat Intelligence Group reported a transition from tentative, experimental AI use in attack workflows to industrial-scale deployment, describing what it believed to be the first observed case of a zero-day exploit developed with AI assistance, built for a mass exploitation campaign.

The current moment shares an administrative dimension with earlier military revolutions. The decisive advantage in modern conflict has repeatedly been the capacity to see, sort, prioritize, and act across complex systems faster than the enemy. What is new is the degree to which that capacity is now embedded in software owned by private firms. Sovereignty in the cyber domain is exercised not only through ministries and militaries but through cloud identity systems, software supply chains, security vendors, and the access policies of model providers. When NATO describes cyberspace as contested at all times, it is describing a condition in which the terrain is mostly private property.

The relevant change in technology is agentic AI: systems that pursue objectives, use tools, spawn sub-processes, and take actions in the world with low human involvement. In offensive terms, this architecture compresses the cost of moving through each stage of an attack. The merely competent can now operate more coherently and at greater scale. Researchers at the University of Illinois demonstrated that teams of AI agents could exploit zero-day vulnerabilities, achieving 42% with five attempts on a benchmark of recent flaws, outperforming both open-source scanners and single models working alone. Anthropic and Carnegie Mellon found that frontier models equipped with a cyber toolkit could compromise more than half of 10 simulated business-sized networks.

The barriers to relatively autonomous cyber workflows are rapidly coming down.

RELATED: Big Tech handed the keys to America’s military?

Igorodenkoff/Getty Images

A bureaucracy of bots

A great deal of tacit expertise that once lived in specialist communities, in the accumulated institutional knowledge of people who understood how systems broke, has been translated into natural language interfaces, structured workflows, and reusable tool chains. Cyber capability becomes less the possession of a rare craft elite and more the product of workflow orchestration over commodity tools. In Anthropic’s account of an alleged AI-orchestrated espionage campaign, the operation relied overwhelmingly on open-source penetration-testing utilities and custom orchestration, with novelty concentrated in integration rather than exotic malware.

The imagination of cyber warfare has long been organized around elegance, exemplified by Stuxnet’s nearly surgical precision and the operatic complexity of a state-sponsored zero-day. What is actually emerging looks more like a very fast, very patient bureaucracy. The ENISA 2025 threat landscape found that AI-supported phishing represented more than 80% of observed social-engineering activity. The FBI reported that malicious actors were using AI-generated voice messages to impersonate senior U.S. officials. The losses from AI-enabled business email compromise exceeded $30 million in the 2025 complaint data.

AI does not unilaterally favor offense or defense; it amplifies existing asymmetries. Offense gains most where systems are poorly patched, identity is weak, or social engineering can bypass procedure. Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report found that exploitation of vulnerabilities grew to 20% of known initial access vectors, up 34% from the prior year, with a median remediation time of 32 days and only 54% of edge-device vulnerabilities fully remediated during the year. Mandiant found that one PAN-OS vulnerability spread from disclosure to exploitation by more than a dozen groups within two weeks. However, AI-enabled defense can also make disciplined organizations faster at moving from vulnerability discovery to verified remediation, more capable of turning telemetry into action, and better at maintaining the unglamorous processes on which security relies.

Can freedom survive?

States confronted by permanent digital vulnerability can feel pressure to centralize visibility, broaden preemption, and extend exceptional controls in the name of protection. The joint guidance issued in 2026 by the Five Eyes agencies on agentic AI systems spent considerable energy on accountability: explicit human oversight, incremental deployment, strong governance, clear delineation of which agents may do what, where, and under whose authentication. This guidance presupposes institutional cultures capable of following it.

AI is already changing cyber conflict by shrinking the interval between knowledge and action, making ordinary weaknesses more dangerous, and shifting national security toward a contest over who can govern complex socio-technical systems with the greatest speed and discipline. The centrifuges in Natanz spun faster than their operators knew and then did not spin at all. The lesson was that the attacker had more time inside the system than the defenders knew, and by the time anyone understood what was happening, it was over.

Speed of interpretation determines speed of repair. The new tools available to both sides are faster, and the intervals are getting shorter. The question of whether liberal societies can build a security order that is effective without becoming opaque remains open.

​Tech, Ai, Bot, Iran, Security 

Tom Kean Jr. — one of former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean’s twin sons — secured a seat in Congress in 2022 after serving for two decades as a Republican state senator. He is now running for re-election to represent the Garden State’s 7th Congressional District.

While Kean, whom President Donald Trump endorsed last May and touted as a “Tremendous Advocate of our America First Agenda,” has urged constituents in social media posts to vote for him, he hasn’t voted on their behalf in Congress since March 5, missing over 100 roll-call votes.

‘I understand the need for public transparency.’

Amid mounting speculation about his disappearance from work and public life, the 57-year-old Republican released a statement in late April thanking his “constituents and colleagues for their patience” as he addresses “a personal medical issue.”

“My doctors continue to assure me that my recovery will be complete and that I will be back to the job I love very soon,” said Kean. “I expect to return to a full schedule and be at 100 percent. I take my responsibilities seriously and have a strong record of showing up and delivering, which makes this absence all the more difficult.”

Neither Kean nor his campaign have revealed the nature of the medical issue. His office did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

“Nobody knows what’s going on,” Mary Melfoi, the Republican clerk of Hunterdon County, told Politico. “I’ve never seen a lid on anything tighter in my life.”

“Everybody’s hopeful that whatever’s going on is being addressed and he’s going to come back,” continued Melfoi. “But we’re not going around saying ‘Who do you think we should replace him with?'”

RELATED: Democrat voters in Georgia want nothing to do with Trump-hating ex-Republican

Serhiy Morgunov/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images

Although apparently still actively trading stocks, Kean wasn’t seen or heard from for nearly another month after issuing the April statement. This continued absence prompted Democrats to increasingly like their chances of flipping the seat — an apparent “toss-up” even before he took a leave of absence — that Kean took in the last election with 51.8% of the vote.

Zoe Heath, Democrat chair of Sussex County, said that some of her fellow travelers figure Kean is doomed to lose, noting that “some Democrats are being incredibly cocky about this.”

Tina Shah, an anti-ICE liberal supported by the Hindu America PAC and Indian American IMPACT who is among the Democrats vying to face off with Kean, evidenced a willingness to politically exploit the Republican’s absence.

“What we are being assured is that his team is carrying the torch,” Shah said during a debate earlier this month. “But we elected Tom Kean Jr., not his team.”

Kean finally piped up last week, reaching out to a handful of Republican allies and telling the New Jersey Globe in a May 21 phone interview, “My doctors are confident that I’m on the road to a full recovery.”

The congressman claimed that his medical issue would not affect his cognitive health, that he is not expected to suffer any long-term effects or chronic health complications, and that he plans to “return to voting and to the campaign trail” sometime in the next couple of weeks.

“I understand the need for public transparency, and I appreciate the support of my constituents,” added Kean.

The Globe reported that Kean also spoke last week with Hunterdon County GOP Chairman Gabe Plumer, who said the congressman “sounds great and energized.”

Sussex County Republican Chairman Joseph LaBarbera also received a call from the absent congressman last week.

“I asked him if he needed anything,” LaBarbera told the Times. The chairman recalled Kean replying, “Just your prayers.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Congress, Gop, Hunterdon county, Medical, New jersey, Republican, Trump, Politics 

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky has filed for a political campaign in 2028 but says he has not decided whether to run.

Massie, a self-identified libertarian, lost the Republican primary campaign for Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District to Ed Gallrein, a Navy SEAL veteran backed by President Donald Trump.

‘This allows me to raise funds to continue my political operations supporting my position.’

“I filed with FEC for the 2028 House race,” Massie wrote on his social media account on Tuesday.

“This allows me to raise funds to continue my political operations supporting my position as a current office holder and as a potential candidate for federal office,” he added. “I haven’t made a final decision about which office to seek, if I run.”

The Republican campaign for the 4th Congressional District was the most expensive primary election for a House seat ever.

Gallrein is likely to easily win the seat in the heavily Republican district.

“The uniparty in D.C. finally found someone willing to be a rubber stamp for globalist billionaires, endless debt, foreign aid, and forever wars in failed candidate and Lindsey Graham donor Ed Gallrein,” Massie said about his competitor.

Gallrein accused Massie of “burning every bridge” in Washington and voting against the president’s political agenda.

RELATED: Thomas Massie’s viral Epstein poll reveals stunning top belief: He lives

Massie has been in office since 2012 and called the primary election an “inflection point” for the entire country. He also blamed campaign donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for turning what he said would be an easy victory into a loss for him.

“He was a bad guy. He deserves to lose,” Trump said about Massie.

Despite Massie’s recent loss, his supporters still have hope for his political future. Even during his concession speech the night of the primary, the crowd encouraged him to run for president in 2028.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​House race, Kentucky, Libertarian, Politics, Republican, Thomas massie 

A crowd gathered on Memorial Day in Escondido, California, to pay their respects to a proud American, MAGA supporter, and Army veteran who was viciously assaulted outside his “Trump House” last week — and has since died.

Kerry Sheron, the 69-year-old owner of the “Trump House,” died on Sunday, police confirmed. Deputy District Attorney Ross Garcia indicated Sheron suffered severe injuries in the seemingly unprovoked attack four days earlier.

‘Kerry was a Trump supporter, but he was a patriot first.’

“It was a single punch to the jaw,” Garcia said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “The victim then falls to the floor, and there are subsequent hits to the victim’s head area.”

A bystander who intervened during the apparently violent confrontation was also injured.

Thomas Caleb Butler, a 32-year-old neighbor, was quickly identified as the suspected assailant and arrested. He has been charged with attempted first-degree murder, abuse of elder or dependent adult likely to produce great bodily harm or death, making criminal threats, and misdemeanor domestic battery, jail records show.

Butler pled not guilty on Friday, but prosecutors are now considering whether to amend the charges in light of Sheron’s death. Butler is scheduled to appear in court again a week from Wednesday.

“I feel a lot of pain in my heart,” Sheron’s wife, Maria Moreno, said, according to KUSI.

“I want my husband back,” she also said, according to KYMA. “I want my husband because that was my partner, a beautiful man.”

RELATED: Suspect in brutal beating of Trump supporter in San Diego identified as neighbor — and victim’s medical update is devastating

2024 Trump rally in Coachella, California. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Dozens of friends, neighbors, and others of good will paid tribute to Sheron on Monday. Some held signs while others waved flags or dropped off flowers.

“Kerry was a Trump supporter, but he was a patriot first, and when people would come and spew anti-Trump stuff at him, he didn’t let it bother him,” said longtime friend Jim Gillie, according to the Union-Tribune.

“He’d just say, ‘They have a right to freedom of speech, and so do I.'”

Yousef Miller, a member of the North County Equity and Justice Coalition, joined the memorial to stand for free speech in the community and against political violence.

“I believe no one should be harmed for their politics,” Miller said, according to the Union-Tribune. “I’m standing here with my brothers and sisters, even though we have different politics, to say the same thing: Never harm one another, just disagree and move on.”

Sheron’s house has been festooned with pro-America, pro-Trump, and pro-military memorabilia for years, but police have not confirmed any motivation for the attack.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Army veteran, Escondido california, Political violence, Politics 

President Trump’s latest effort to lower prescription drug prices is drawing fierce criticism from the hosts of “The View,” even after the administration partnered with billionaire Mark Cuban on the TrumpRX.gov initiative.

“I think honestly, by this point, President Trump could cure cancer and Democrats and crazy libs would still be against it. They’d be like, ‘But let me tell you why cancer is good, actually,’ because they’re just so unhinged,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments.

“Like they have terminal cases of TDS,” she adds.

After billionaire Mark Cuban and President Trump teamed up to promote TrumpRX.gov, Joy Behar called the president a “dog.”

“First of all, you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas,” Behar said.

“And you know, I like Mark Cuban,” she continued. “I’ve always liked him, but this is a mistake. And once Trump puts his name on prescriptions, we’re all going to die, OK?”

“He is a failed businessman,” Sunny Hostin chimed in. “And if you heard what he said, he said, ‘We both want to make people wealthy.’ He didn’t say, ‘So I should pay 10 times more.’”

“It means, to me, that there’s something in it for him. This is not a well-intentioned person,” she continued, explaining that he’s only doing it “to make money.”

Behar then interjected to compare the Scandinavian health care system to America’s.

“I don’t understand how people watch this unironically. Like, how do people show up in the middle of the day or whenever the hell this is filmed and unironically spend their time going and listening to these dumb b****es talk over each other?” Gonzales comments.

“‘Donald Trump is the devil,’” she mocks, adding, “like, oh my gosh.”

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sara gonzales, Joy behar, Donald trump, Mark cuban, Sunny hostin, The view, Trumprx, Sara gonzales unfiltered 

Pope Leo XIV urged European leaders on Monday to get in gear and address the continent’s demographic crisis by reinforcing the family and affirming the dignity of human life.

The pope’s call to action comes amid a severe demographic collapse that threatens not only Europe’s social and economic stability but the cultural identities and destinies of various nations.

‘A rejection of the Christian inspiration of the founding fathers of the EU institutions has led to a time of drastic sterility.’

The number of live births in Europe per 1,000 persons in 1970 was 16.4. By 2024, the crude birth rate had fallen to 7.9.

According to Eurostat, the European Union’s total fertility rate — the average number of kids born to a woman over her lifetime — stood at 1.34 live births in 2024. Of the children born that year, nearly one in four have a foreign-born mother.

The fertility rate necessary for a population to maintain stability and replenish itself without requiring replacement by foreign nationals — what is referred to as replacement-level fertility — is 2.1.

Even when factoring in Europeans’ replacement by foreigners, statisticians project the EU’s population will fall by 11.7% between now and 2100 — from roughly 452 million to 399 million. Among the countries expected to thin out are Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Poland, projected to suffer population declines of 19.3%, 24%, 30.1%, and 31.6%, respectively.

RELATED: Conservatives are afraid to talk about the real marriage problem

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

In his address this week to European officials, including members of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Demography, Pope Leo stressed that the continent’s demographic crisis “stands as a crucial juncture for the anthropological, social, and economic future of Europe.”

Echoing his predecessor, Pope Francis, Pope Leo said that Europe is not becoming the “old continent” because “of its glorious history, but because of its advancing age.”

After emphasizing that “children are the future,” Pope Leo noted that “a rejection of the Christian inspiration of the founding fathers of the EU institutions has led to a time of drastic sterility, not only because too many have been deprived of the right to be born, but also because there has been a failure to pass on the material and cultural tools that young people need to face the future.”

In addition to faulting the Europeans for increasingly abandoning their Christian roots, the pope reprimanded them for Trojan-horsing the means of their demographic demise into policies advertised as “family-friendly” — policies that he said “simultaneously promote discrimination against motherhood, exalt abortion as a right, and undermine the very foundation of the desire to start a family.”

To both address the demographic challenge at hand and counter the “two extremes of excessive state intervention and individualism,” the Roman pontiff noted that Europeans must respect and promote the central place of the family — which “is founded on marriage between a man and a woman” — and apply the principle of subsidiarity.

“Only a fresh springtide for the family can transform the winter chill of our aging populations,” said the pope.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Abortion, Birth rate, Demographics, Europe, European union, Family, Fertility, Policy, Pope leo, Replacement, Vatican, West, Politics 

I’ve been thinking about how often we encounter the word “premium.”

It used to mean something materially better: better leather, better denim, better craftsmanship, richer ingredients, more care. Now it usually means smoother software, cleaner interfaces, fewer inconveniences, more optimization.

I’m not particularly worried about AI replacing meaningful creative work because I suspect it may end up clarifying what creativity actually is.

But in the AI era, the meaning of the word may flip again. When flawless synthetic output becomes infinite and nearly free, reality itself starts becoming premium.

Man vs. machine

I was having lunch with a group of conservative thinkers the other day when the topic of AI came up. After a brief discussion about the impact on the workforce and the broad and possibly revolutionary effects it may bring, someone turned to me and asked how I thought it might impact my work as a writer and photographer.

I said something to the effect of the following.

I am not particularly worried about AI — at least not for myself. For others, definitely. For the world as a whole, yep. But for myself and my work? No.

Why? Because I think AI will have a strangely asymmetrical impact. The more something already resembled machine output — efficient, predictable, frictionless, synthetic — the more vulnerable it is now that actual machines can produce it at scale. But anything trying as hard as possible not to seem machine-made will become more valuable than ever.

For all the photos and videos that were overly surreal or trying to be as smooth and perfect as possible, the jig is up. AI will do it better and easier. There will be no need for glossed-up photos or videos that look unreal and appear like cheap visual candy. Eventually — and we are already seeing it — this style and whole aesthetic will be completely unwanted and thought of as one of the most egregious examples of what is now known as AI slop.

For the cheap writing with no meaning and no purpose, the words that exist only to fill the page, it’s over. It’s the same story for anyone who has spent recent years trying to perfect the art of being a human Wikipedia page without any heart or humanity. All of this stuff will be replaced by AI.

Essentially the skills that are basically humans just attempting to act like, or perform the functions of, computers will be less valuable than ever.

RELATED: Going to Europe on my own at 14 was an adventure. Can today’s kids ever feel as far away from home?

PASCAL PAVANI/AFP/Getty Images

Great divide

Certainly, there will be a great divide, and surely many people will continue to enjoy the AI slop. They will watch the videos on Facebook not knowing or even caring if they’re computer-generated. They will listen to AI music and be content, like the driver of the cab I recently took in Italy. There will be people who actually prefer the machine-made over anything human.

But for those of us who value personality, judgment, taste, eccentricity, and genuine presence, all things human will become more valuable than ever.

In a world of infinite fake perfection, the real will become more valuable. The unedited image will become premium. A film photograph is not just an image file floating around a server farm somewhere; it is the physical residue of a real moment. Light literally struck a strip of chemical-coated film and permanently altered it. Someone had to choose the frame, press the shutter, and live with the result.

Proof of life

The faceless information-spewer is finished. Once machines can produce infinite competent text, competence itself becomes cheap. What those who care will seek out instead is the evidence of a particular consciousness. In the age of AI, the most valuable thing a creator can offer is proof that a real human being was here.

I’m not particularly worried about AI replacing meaningful creative work because I suspect it may end up clarifying what creativity actually is. It’s not just the domain of painters or novelists but of anyone with the courage to put something of themselves into their work, something that resists the eerie, frictionless perfection of the AI age.

The more we are immersed in that perfection — the more inescapable it becomes — the more people will hunger for signs of actual life — that “handmade” quality of something one human creates for another.

That will be premium.

​Men’s style, Books, Lifestyle, Culture, Family life, The root of the matter, Ai, Art 

Robots and artificial intelligence may not be as popular as some think, and a new viral video proves it.

An X user is hoping robots do not revolt against him after he posted a video with the caption, “The greatest video I’ve ever seen.”

‘The lifeless clanker carcass just laying there.’

The clip stems from an event at an alleged customizable robot store in China, called Future Era.

The Shenzhen, China, event showed a robot wearing a white outfit, grooving on stage in an attempt to mimic Michael Jackson. As one of Jackson’s biggest hits — “Billie Jean” — played, the robot glided around, copying the late pop star’s dance moves.

About five seconds into the footage, the robot already found itself stumbling over a pair of steps, but it eventually recovered. After struggling with the moonwalk, the humanoid bot attempted to walk up the stairs again, but this time it fell, permanently.

The bot’s corpse laid motionless for about 10 seconds as the upbeat music continued to play. The crowd remained completely silent in the dystopian moment until a stagehand approached the bot’s lifeless body, grabbed it by the collar, and ceremoniously dragged it off stage.

The video has been viewed over 5.3 million times at the time of this writing.

RELATED: ‘Yes, I will devote myself’: Korean monks initiate Chinese robot that could actually spy on them

“This is the greatest video I’ve ever seen,” the caption read. “No notes. The lifeless clanker carcass just laying there. No crowd reaction, anything. Just Billie Jean. Until its lifeless shell is shamefully dragged off. Purely amazing.”

Despite the joy the video seemed to bring viewers, at least one person was offended by it, writing on X, “imagine feeling so threatened by a robot you start using newly made slurs against it.”

However, the overwhelming sentiment showcased a growing level of robot fatigue, as the fumbling bots are being pushed out into society at a rapid pace around the world. The rising “anti-clanker” movement is showing a greater appetite for violence against machines seemingly designed to replace human beings. Readers have already seen the bots chase wild boars and be welcomed into monk orders, among other bizarre situations.

RELATED: The FCC just banned foreign-made routers — here’s which ones might be stealing your data

CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images

However, this bot — which is likely a Unitree G-1 — is not exactly the technological advancement that China promoted in February. At the time, bots showed advanced martial arts capabilities and choreography in a video that was allegedly free from special effects and was meant to show off new capabilities regarding coordination and fault recovery.

It seems there may be more work to be done, however, after one of the $13,500 robots was defeated by exactly two steps in the viral video.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Artificial intelligence, Return, Robots, Unitree, Viral video, China, Tech 

Several teammates of New York Giants star quarterback Jaxson Dart came to his defense over the long weekend.

Dart sparked headlines when he introduced President Donald Trump at a rally in New York on Friday, and even though his comments lasted less than a minute, his appearance was enough to set the internet ablaze with reactions.

‘Locker Room is fine.’

Giants linebacker Abdul Carter was among the first in the league to react early Saturday morning, initially saying that he thought the video of his teammate at the Trump rally was created by AI.

“Thought this s**t was AI, what we doing man,” Carter asked. However, by the evening, Carter wrote on X that he and Dart were “good” after having a discussion.

“We spoke earlier as Men. Yall can keep yall narratives,” Carter explained.

However by that time, Boston Globe reporter Ben Volin had already taken Carter’s words and come to the conclusion that Dart had “divided his locker room.”

That comment did not sit well with Giants offensive lineman Jermaine Eluemunor.

RELATED: Actress Ilana Glazer attacks women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines: ‘You’re just stealing money’

“Locker Room is fine,” the 6’4″ guard wrote on X. He then told the Globe reporter he should keep his attention on his local NFL team.

“Focus on New England,” Eluemunor added.

Four-time Pro Bowl cornerback Marlon Humphrey of the Baltimore Ravens voiced his point of view on Sunday evening, calling the online hate toward President Trump fabricated.

“The fake Trump hate funny to me,” he wrote. “Majority voted for him but everybody seem to hate him lol … Somebody lying.”

These remarks mirror similar comments Humphrey made in February 2025, when he wrote on X, “I’m confused how everyone appears to ‘hate’ Trump but he won the presidency … Some of yall lying.”

Humphrey also remarked in 2024 that Trump “took a bullet for America.”

RELATED: FIFA president reveals why World Cup tickets are so expensive — because they can be

Meanwhile, another of Dart’s teammates came to his defense over wild claims that have circulated online for a year. Wide receiver Darius Slayton responded to a claim made by former NFL player Aqib Talib, who said on a podcast that Dart uses the N-word. Talib was referring to a viral video from 2025 where Giants running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. prank calls his teammates to jokingly tell them “good night.”

One response in the video has been rumored to be Dart and has been used in countless compilation videos asserting he said the N-word. However, Slayton rejected the assertion, saying it was not the young quarterback on the other side of the phone.

“The video talib referring to ain’t even Jax talking. This tweet pure cap,” Slayton said. Some Giants fans have claimed it was teammate Tyler Nubin on the phone, but the identity of the speaker is unclear.

It should be noted that in the same clip of Talib referencing the prank call, the former player said that he has white friends who use the N-word, which he is “cool” with.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Fearless, Politics, Football, Nfl, Donald trump, Jaxson dart, Sports 

A male teenager was arrested in connection with a stabbing that occurred on campus after a high school graduation Friday in Daly City, California. Daly City is just minutes south of San Francisco.

The teen was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, police told KTVU-TV.

‘We understand this news is deeply upsetting for our students, families, staff, and community.’

The Daly City Police Department told the station that officers responded at 4:30 p.m. for a report of an active fight involving multiple individuals. The stabbing occurred at Westmoor High School, the station added.

Arriving officers found a 21-year-old victim suffering from non-life-threatening stab wounds, KTVU said, adding that the victim was taken to a hospital for treatment.

A 15-year-old boy was identified as the stabbing suspect and was arrested, the station added.

Police said no other injuries were reported in connection with the fight, KTVU said, adding that officers recovered at the scene the weapon used in the stabbing but did not describe the weapon in detail.

The violence was captured on cellphone video.

RELATED: Mugger slashes teen in face, steals his phone — but victim grabs knife from mugger and fights back in brutal fashion: Report

Westmoor High School Principal Victor Zou issued a statement saying school officials “are cooperating fully with law enforcement. We understand this news is deeply upsetting for our students, families, staff, and community. Our thoughts are with all those impacted by this incident,” KTVU said.

Zou’s statement didn’t indicate whether the suspect is a student but did say the victim has no relationship with the school district, the station added.

More from KTVU:

KTVU has received videos of violence on campus from separate sources. The chaotic moments of a fight breaking out on an outdoor basketball court are captured. One video shows a person on the ground being attacked by a group and someone coming to their defense. The person who came to the defense is also attacked.

Later in the video, two people who are fighting are pulled apart. One of them appears to be bleeding profusely from their face and torso. By the end of this video, police arrive on the scene and chase people involved in the fight on foot.

Someone can be seen trying to intervene to break up the fight. There are plenty of bystanders, some are wearing their caps and gowns.

Other videos show different angles. One person in the background can be heard saying, “Get these punks out of our school.” Others can be heard calling for some type of security intervention.

Police are asking those with more information about the incident to contact them at 650-991-8169, the station said.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Stabbing, California, High school graduation, Daly city, Arrest, Police, Crime 

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was supposed to mark a turning point for the pro-life movement — but according to Seth Gruber, it exposed just how compromised many pro-life leaders really are.

And BlazeTV host Steve Deace could not be more disappointed.

“How is it possible after its greatest victory — the overturning of Roe — that the pro-life movement has lost so much substantial ground? How is this possible?” Deace asks Seth Gruber on the “Steve Deace Show.”

“I mean, brother, it’s so heartbreaking,” Gruber responds, explaining that the reason the pro-life movement isn’t more successful is because it has been “compromised.”

“Many RINO Republicans and … tragically, many pro-life organizations who take donor dollars from sweet little Christian grandmas who want to end abortion … are actively working against the aims of ending abortion — of criminalizing abortion,” he tells Deace.

“It’s just many pro-life establishment leaders and organizations who are too dumb or compromised to grasp what the lay Christian absolutely understands without having to think about it,” he continues.

Like Deace, Gruber had high hopes after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but it unfortunately did not “awaken the spiritual energy and motivation of Christians and pro-life organizations in purple and red states to just go out there and criminalize it.”

And not only is abortion not criminalized, it’s getting worse.

“There are more babies getting murdered on an annualized basis every 12 months in the land of the free and the home of the brave, Steve, than there were being killed at an annual rate in the 10 years leading up to the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” he says.

However, those numbers are “just based off of what’s being reported,” as “states are not required to report their abortion data.”

“Thanks to Clinton, it’s nearly impossible to track real abortion data when it comes to the RU-486 abortion pill, which, according to Planned Parenthood’s own numbers, accounts for 70-plus percent of the total abortions,” he explains.

“700,000-plus babies every 12 months being murdered, and their bodies are flushed down toilets,” he says.

“Those abortion pill numbers are not being reported,” he adds.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Abortion, Planned parenthood, Pro-life, Roe v. wade, Seth gruber, Steve deace, Steve deace show 

U.S. Central Command, which has been blockading the Strait of Hormuz since April 13 with the support of multiple carrier strike groups and guided-missile destroyers, conducted “self-defense strikes” on Monday in southern Iran.

According to CENTCOM spokesman Cpt. Tim Hawkins, the strikes targeted missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to emplace mines and were executed with the aim of protecting American troops from “threats posed by Iranian forces.”

‘I laugh at all of the Dumocrats, RINOS, and Fools.’

Explosions were reported along the coast hemming the Strait of Hormuz and in the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas, reported Reuters.

Hawkins said that CENTCOM nevertheless continues to use restraint during the ongoing ceasefire with Iran that was brokered on April 8.

America’s latest kinetic action against Iranian targets took place nearly 90 days into the war and amid peace talks, which President Donald Trump hinted in recent days are progressing.

Trump announced on Saturday that he had a “very good call” with the leaders of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates regarding Iran and a memorandum of understanding pertaining to peace.

RELATED: Thousands more American troops stationed in Middle East this Memorial Day as peace with Iran looms on the horizon

Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Dan Snow/US Navy/Getty Images

“An Agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the various other Countries, as listed,” said Trump, adding that the agreement, if ratified, would result in the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.

This announcement of a possible forthcoming agreement — which reportedly involves a 60-day ceasefire extension, a reopening of the strait, and a plan for future negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program — greatly distressed hawks as well as some Israelis.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), for instance, said he was “deeply concerned” about the alleged deal with Iran, noting that a result favoring the Iranians “would be a disastrous mistake.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) concern-mongered about “a deal that is perceived to allow Iran to survive.” He also added that “Iran being perceived as having the ability to terrorize the Strait in perpetuity and the ability the inflict massive damage to Gulf oil infrastructure is a major shift of the balance of power in the region and over time will be a nightmare for Israel.”

After other prominent voices expressed their concerns stateside and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered them some reassurances, Trump stated early on Monday, “I laugh at all of the Dumocrats, RINOS, and Fools who know nothing about the potential deal I am making with Iran, things that haven’t even been negotiated yet.”

The president clarified that “it will only be a Great Deal for all or, no Deal at all — Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before — And nobody wants that!”

In addition to emphasizing that the peace process was a “very complex puzzle,” Trump said that the Middle Eastern leaders on his Saturday call should sign onto the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel.

Later on Monday, the president noted that “the Enriched Uranium (Nuclear Dust!) will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed or, preferably, in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or, at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event.”

Iranian officials were similarly evasive about a possible deal.

“It is correct to say that we have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai said on Monday. “But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent — no one can make such a claim.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Donald trump, Iran, Us central command, Military, War, Strait of hormuz, Tehran, Israel, Ted cruz, Lindsey graham, Conflict, Peace, Politics, Benjamin netanyahu 

Florida just became the first state to seriously challenge the surrogacy industry after a gay couple living in France contracted with a woman in Florida to be their surrogate.

The couple petitioned the Broward County court for early parental rights.

While Judge Marlon Weiss granted their petition, he questioned whether surrogacy is constitutional, claiming it violates the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

“Judge Marlon Weiss argued that if unborn children are legally entitled to personhood, then they cannot legally be part of a contractual arrangement that treats them as property,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey explains on “Relatable.”

In November, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier moved to intervene after the child was born, also calling the practice unconstitutional.

“Today, registered sex offenders and foreigners — including Chinese nationals — buy thousands of babies from U.S. surrogacy companies. This modern day slavery is morally wrong, endangers children, and threatens national security. It must be stopped,” Uthmeier wrote in a post on X.

“It is akin to slavery,” Stuckey agrees. “Like, if we genuinely believe that the unborn are human beings, it follows that buying and selling them is slavery.”

“And that is what is happening during surrogacy, especially when it is the surrogacy that is by two men, because you have to purchase the eggs of one woman and rent the womb of another woman. And so, you are purchasing half of the DNA of that child from the genetic mother,” she says.

And this is why Stuckey believes it’s “a form of trafficking.”

“I’m not saying all of those children will literally after birth be harmed or be trafficked or be abused in some way, but it is a way of commodifying women’s bodies and children. It is. It is a way of saying, ‘I don’t care what you have to go through. I want this child,’” she says.

Stuckey recalls an interview she once did with a woman named Brittney, who had previously carried a baby for a gay couple.

“She was then diagnosed with cancer when she was about 20 or so weeks pregnant, and the couple urged her to abort her child, and she didn’t want to have an abortion,” Stuckey explains, noting that the couple wanted her to get an abortion because the child was going to be born premature.

“She did end up giving birth, and the child died. She did end up, you know, having chemotherapy. But the dads, one of whom was biologically related to this baby, didn’t even show up at the hospital — not to check on her, not to hold the baby,” she says.

“I’m telling you, that kind of story is so common. Many times in these surrogacy contracts, these women are obligated to say they will get an abortion if the intended parents want an abortion,” she continues.

“I think that happens far more often than we realize,” she says. “These babies have no rights.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Allie beth stuckey, Child trafficking, Surrogacy, Ethics, Reproductive rights, Pregnancy, James uthmeier, Slavery, Relatable 

In his essay for We Are the Mighty, Stephen Ruiz declared that President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 Memorial Day speech observing the interment of an unknown Vietnam service member at Arlington National Cemetery “healed scars.”

“We write no last chapters,” Reagan told the crowd, Ruiz recalled. “We close no books. We put away no final memories. An end to America’s involvement in Vietnam cannot come before we’ve achieved the fullest possible accounting of those missing in action.”

‘The Vietnam Unknown never heard such cheers.’

More from Ruiz’s essay:

A decade after the final U.S. troops left Vietnam on March 29, 1973, some service members who fought in Southeast Asia couldn’t forget the harsh treatment that fellow Americans heaped upon them. Some were spat on while others received the middle finger or were called “baby killers.” They served their country and were blamed for the United States not defeating the North Vietnamese.

Reagan realized old wounds can’t go unattended. Two years after the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Reagan used his oratorical gifts to promote a better understanding of what Vietnam veterans endured.

The president continued a tradition from past wars and awarded the Medal of Honor to the Vietnam Unknown. That nice moment was not enough for Reagan. He reached out to military families residing in a continual, painful limbo because of a loved one MIA. Reagan told them that a grateful nation understood their plight.

“They live day and night with uncertainty, with an emptiness, with a void that we cannot fathom,” Reagan said, Ruiz recalled.

The author noted that Reagan’s speech added references to President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address — and that volunteers read nearly 58,000 names on the Vietnam Veterans Wall in 1982 over the course of three days.

Ruiz also noted that Reagan read from a newspaper article about a restaurant dinner former Marines shared and that a group of college students — “some of them likely still in diapers when the first U.S. troops arrived in Vietnam in 1965,” Ruiz wrote — mingled with them, then applauded them as the veterans left the eatery.

Ruiz remembered that Reagan, reading from the newspaper article, quoted one former Marine’s response: “The whole week, it was worth it just for that.”

RELATED: Stories Behind the Stars: On a mission to honor every American who died in WWII

“The Vietnam Unknown never heard such cheers,” Ruiz added in his essay. “In so many ways, wars never end for those who knew someone MIA. So many unanswered questions remain, threatening to expose a deep sense of loss always lingering just below the surface.”

The author added that “in 1984, Reagan was acutely aware of that.”

In his speech, the president said of the unknown soldier, “About him we may well wonder, as others have: As a child, did he play on some street in a great American city? Or did he work beside his father on a farm out in America’s heartland? Did he marry? Did he have children? Did he look expectantly to return to a bride?”

In conclusion, Reagan noted, “Today, we simply say with pride, ‘Thank you, dear son. May God cradle you in His loving arms.'”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Ronald reagan, Vietnam war, Arlington national cemetery, Speech, Stephen ruiz, Unknown solidier, We are the mighty, 1984, Memorial day 

This Memorial Day, thousands more U.S. servicemen and -women than usual are stationed in the Middle East due to the ongoing tensions with Iran, even as recent developments suggest a peace agreement may be near.

In late March, the New York Times reported that 50,000 U.S. troops were in the Middle East, an increase of about 10,000 from the 40,000 troops who are typically in the region. Many of those troops were stationed “at sea,” the outlet noted.

At the time, an additional 2,500 Marines, 2,500 sailors, and 2,000 Army soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division had just arrived. While the exact location of the Army paratroopers was not made public, they would be “within striking distance of Iran,” the Times reported.

It seems that little has changed in the weeks since. The Times reported on May 6 that the 50,000-strong U.S. forces remain “on standby in the region” as the delicate ceasefire with Iran hangs in the balance.

As recently as May 11, Trump said the ceasefire is on “life support” after Iranian officials sent a proposal that Trump called a “piece of garbage.”

RELATED: Trump administration establishes ‘red, white, and blue dome’ to allow safe passage through Strait of Hormuz

U.S. Navy/Getty Images

When reached for comment, the War Department referred Blaze News to U.S. Central Command. A source familiar with the matter told Blaze News that for safety reasons, CENTCOM does not comment on troop movements or schedules.

The four-to-six-week timetable President Donald Trump initially gave for the attacks on Iran has long since expired, but the president does not seem as focused on the protracted process as he is on the results.

And his patience may be paying off.

Over Memorial Day weekend, news of a possible peace deal began spreading online. While Trump has not divulged many details, he wrote on Sunday that “negotiations are proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner” and that America’s “relationship with Iran is becoming a much more professional and productive one.”

Trump even teased that should a deal be reached, Iran may someday join the “Nations of the historic Abraham Accords.” Still, he cautioned that the U.S. would not “rush into a deal in that time is on our side.”

Above all, Trump pledged that Iran will never have nuclear weapons and that any agreement he reaches with Iranian officials will be “THE EXACT OPPOSITE” of the “pallets of cash” deal former President Barack Obama made in 2016, quipping, “Unlike those before me who should have solved this problem many years ago, I don’t make bad deals!”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Iran, Troops, Middle east, Centcom, Politics, Strait of hormuz, Donald trump 

Memorial Day means different things to different Americans. For some, especially those whose losses remain fresh, no national holiday is required to preserve memory. Grief already structures daily life; the formal rituals of remembrance — flags, ceremonies, cemetery visits — may still offer recognition, but the dead are hardly absent.

For others, the connection is more distant: a grandfather never met, a name on an old photograph, a relative spoken about only occasionally. The holiday can become less an occasion for immediate mourning than a meditation on inheritance and historical continuity.

Memorial Day, like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, exists because modern war produces anonymity at a scale human beings struggle to comprehend.

Still other Americans may have no direct personal connection to war at all. For them, that distance is itself a kind of blessing. Memorial Day may register primarily as a feeling of generalized gratitude — gratitude for the country itself and for those who fought on its behalf.

Yet the holiday’s deeper purpose is more specific and, in some ways, more demanding. Memorial Day asks us to remember individuals whose lives were interrupted by war, individuals with whom we may have nothing in common but our shared nation.

In recent years, debates over immigration, national identity, and social cohesion have forced Americans to ask what citizenship actually means. Memorial Day offers one answer older and less ideological than many offered by contemporary politics: Citizenship implies obligations not only to the living, but to the dead. A nation becomes more than a marketplace or administrative zone when its citizens believe they owe remembrance to those whose lives became bound up with the country’s history.

Memorial Day is one of our few remaining holidays that ask us to remember strangers. Not celebrities or family members or ideological allies, but ordinary people, fellow Americans whose lives were cut short by violence that history inevitably turns abstract.

In an increasingly individualized society, that obligation can feel unfamiliar. Yet to remember our fellow citizens across distance, class, region, and even generations is to affirm that we belong to one another in ways deeper than convenience or self-interest.

These are a few of the many Americans we remember today.

James Robert Montgomery

When Drew Gilpin Faust wrote about the Civil War’s culture of mourning in “This Republic of Suffering,” she lingered over a bloodstained letter written by James Robert Montgomery, a 26-year-old Confederate signal corps soldier mortally wounded at Spotsylvania in 1864.

A former law student from Mississippi, Montgomery spent his last moments taking pen to paper and — in labored but still elegant script — composing a farewell message to his father:

“I write to you because I know you would be delighted to read a word from your dying son.”

The word “delighted” now feels shocking. Yet, as Faust observed, Civil War Americans placed immense importance on the final words of the dying. Even in agony, Montgomery worried about consoling those at home.

“I would like to rest in the grave yard with my dear mother and brothers but it’s a matter of minor importance,” he wrote, just before signing off as “your dying son.” “Let us all try to reunite in heaven.”

His final resting place remains in Virginia.

Bert Stiles

Before World War II, Bert Stiles was a Colorado college student obsessed with becoming a writer. The son of a Denver electrician and a music teacher, he spent summers working as a junior forest ranger in Estes Park, experiences that became material for his short stories. While attending Colorado College, he wrote constantly — stories, poetry, newspaper features — and briefly embraced the pacifist sentiments common on American campuses before the war.

In 1941, convinced he could become a serious writer, Stiles hitchhiked repeatedly to New York to meet literary agents who had shown interest in his work. He eventually found mentors willing to support him, and his stories soon began appearing in publications like the Saturday Evening Post.

For many celebrated American writers, war became a harsh but formative education — the crucible from which emerged figures like Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, and James Jones. Looking backward, it can almost seem like a foregone conclusion that their talent would survive long enough to become literature. But for every writer history remembers, there were others swallowed by the machinery of war before their lives had fully begun. History offers no exemption for promise.

Stiles continued writing throughout his combat service, producing articles and journal entries while flying bombing missions over Germany with the Eighth Air Force. He completed a full combat tour in B-17 bombers, volunteered for a second tour flying P-51 Mustangs, and was killed in November 1944 during a dogfight south of Hanover. He was 23 years old.

Henry T. Waskow

War correspondent Ernie Pyle became famous during World War II not for writing about generals or battlefield strategy, but for documenting the emotional lives of ordinary American soldiers. His most enduring dispatch may have been his account of the death of Captain Henry T. Waskow during the Italian campaign in 1944.

Pyle wrote:

Capt. Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.

“After my own father, he came next,” a sergeant told me.

Pyle described soldiers bringing Waskow’s body down a mountain trail by mule under moonlight alongside other dead men. One by one, exhausted infantrymen approached the body, lingering beside their captain in silence.

One soldier looked down and muttered simply, “God damn it.” Another stood over him for a moment before saying, “I sure am sorry, sir.”

Then one man sat beside Waskow’s body, holding the dead captain’s hand silently for several minutes before gently straightening his shirt collar and rearranging the torn edges of his uniform around the wound.

Thomas Joseph Fox Jr.

After he was killed in action in 1970, Thomas Joseph Fox Jr. was remembered by friends as an easygoing Sacramento teenager who loved football, rock music, and cars.

One fellow artilleryman later recalled Fox borrowing his Creedence Clearwater Revival tapes at a fire base near Chu Lai. Fox talked often about home. When his tour ended, he said, he wanted to spend weekends at William Land Park waxing and polishing his car while watching girls drive by.

Another childhood friend remembered playing tackle football with Fox at East Portal Park just before he shipped out to Vietnam. After the game, Fox encouraged him to try out for the high school football team — a small moment the friend said he still carried with him more than 40 years later.

One friend who enlisted alongside him later recalled escorting his body back to Sacramento by train.

“I miss you, old friend,” he wrote decades later. “I think about you all the time.”

Marvin Winston Murray

Marvin Winston Murray had been in Vietnam less than two months when he died at 21.

A high school classmate from New York City remembered practicing relay handoffs with Murray during track practice in New York.

Years later, the memory still lingered with him. After unexpectedly encountering friends dressed for Murray’s funeral while home on military leave himself, he eventually visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to see Murray’s name etched into the black stone wall.

“I’m going to get a rubbing,” he wrote decades later. “So I can frame it.”

Dan Bullock

Dan Bullock was only 15 years old when he was killed in the Vietnam War in 1969, likely the youngest American serviceman to die there. He had enlisted in the Marines at 14 after altering his birth certificate to appear older.

Born in North Carolina and later raised in Brooklyn, Bullock talked about becoming a pilot, then a policeman, and finally a Marine. “Mostly he wanted to make his mark in life,” his father later said. “He wanted to be something.”

Bullock arrived in Vietnam in May 1969 and was dead just 21 days later after an attack on An Hoa Combat Base. The Marines around him did not know his real age, but many sensed something unusual about him. One recalled years later: “He was younger, and he didn’t belong.”

When a reporter visited the family’s home, they searched for his last letter home but couldn’t find it. The line his stepmother remembered poignantly captures a certain youthful bravado.

“He said he was fine,” she recalled. “He said he didn’t have any holes in him.”

Chance Phelps

Chance Phelps was funny, outdoorsy, and always on the move — “the kind of person who had to be in the thick of things,” as his mother later put it.

Raised partly in Wyoming and Colorado, Phelps loved football, hunting, fishing, and making people laugh. A former teammate remembered him as “kind of like a country boy,” always smiling and doing something goofy. Another friend later admitted that before Iraq, “I thought we were both invincible, that nothing could touch us.”

After the attacks of Sept. 11, Phelps told his mother he felt compelled to serve.

“I absolutely have to go,” he said. “I’ve got to do something.”

Phelps was 19 when he was killed near Ramadi in April 2004, barely a month after arriving in Iraq. When Marines came to inform his mother in the middle of the night, she later recalled being struck most by one detail:

“They were crying.”

Unknown

At Arlington National Cemetery, the remains of one unidentified American serviceman from World War I lies buried without a name. The tomb simply reads:

“Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”

Memorial Day, like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, exists because modern war produces anonymity at a scale human beings struggle to comprehend. Each grave, each name carved into stone is an attempt to resist that anonymity, to point to an ordinary human life of infinite value.

Today is our humble opportunity to come together as a country and proclaim: These people existed. They belonged to us. They should not disappear.

​Tomb of the unknown soldier, American civil war, Citizenship, Combat, Culture, History, Memorial, Soldiers, Vietnam war, War, World war 1, World war 2, Memorial day 

While some believe that Christians should stay out of politics, Pastor Josh Howerton not only disagrees — he believes that they “have a spiritual responsibility to vote.”

“What the Scriptures teach is that God has ordered the world in terms of three. God has established three institutions: the family, the church, and the state,” Howerton tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“In the same way that it would be morally wrong for a husband to refuse to lead his family, and it would be morally wrong for a pastor to refuse to lead his church, it would be morally wrong for the leaders of a nation to refuse to lead the nation,” he explains.

“But this is what’s really important. We live in a constitutional republic. We do not live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic. In a constitutional republic … the elected officials are representatives of the people,” he continues.

“So in a constitutional republic, the voters are at the top of the org chart. So I think that’s something that I think a lot of well-meaning, but I’ll gently say, maybe a little naive, a lot of well-meaning but maybe naive Christians forget,” he adds.

Howerton points to Romans 13, which instructs that God has established the governments and governing leaders in our constitutional republic.

“If you are a voting Christian, God has placed you at this time, in this place, at the top of the constitutional republic org chart in which you find yourself,” he explains.

“And so, I would gently say in the same way that if a man won’t lead his family, we messed up. If a pastor won’t lead his church, we messed up. If the Christian voters of a nation refuse to lead that nation and abdicate their spiritual responsibility to lead,” he says, adding, “I think we’re messing up.”

And the reason it’s so important not to mess up is because “whatever God creates, Satan tries to co-opt.”

“In Genesis 2 and 3, Adam refuses to lead his family … so Satan does,” Howerton tells Stuckey.

“In Revelation 2 and 3 … you had some passive pastors who instead of leading their churches to repent of sin, they led their churches to tolerate sin. So they in their passivity, and Romans 2 and 3 literally say those churches became quote ‘a synagogue of Satan,’” he says.

“In the same way, if spirit-filled godly people will not lead their nation by voting,” he continues, adding, “godless people will.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Allie beth stuckey, Blaze media, Blaze news, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze podcast network, Blaze podcasts, Blazetv, Christians in politics, Family church state, Godless people, Governing leaders, Relatable, Representatives of the people, Romans 13, Satan coopting, Spiritual responsibility to vote, Synagogue of satan, The blaze, Three institutions, Tolerate sin, Voting christian, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

As a boy in the early 1970s, I remember my father serving as a U.S. Navy Reserve chaplain in Atlanta. One of his duties was casualty notification, informing families that their loved one had been killed in military service, usually the Marines.

In winter, he wore his Navy service dress blues while accompanying other officers into some of Atlanta’s poorest neighborhoods and housing projects. There were no cell phones, GPS systems, or easy ways to locate families quickly. The notifications were time-sensitive, and strangers in uniform were often met cautiously in neighborhoods already carrying more than their share of hardship. Some families hid at first because they thought the men approaching their doors were police officers.

This Memorial Day, a nation pauses to remember the Americans who never took off the uniform.

But my father carried a different burden: the worst message a family could hear.

In addition to preaching from a pulpit, he ministered on doorsteps.

He served for many years, eventually retiring with the rank of captain. But long before that, I watched him carry one of the hardest duties a chaplain could bear.

Memorial Day means more to me because of that.

Not all memorials are granite.

Some are folded into flags handed to trembling families. Others hang quietly in framed photographs or rest beneath white crosses overlooking distant oceans. And some are so small that readers almost miss them in Scripture.

One appears in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit, Matthew records the lineage of Jesus carefully: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon.

But when he arrives at Solomon, Matthew writes something unusual: “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah” (Matthew 1:6).

Bathsheba’s name is not mentioned. Her husband’s is.

Uriah the Hittite.

King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged for Uriah to die in battle. Scripture does not sanitize David’s sin: “The thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (2 Samuel 11:27).

David repented. God forgave him. But the consequences remained.

Still, God preserved the name David tried to bury.

Every Memorial Day, I think about that.

Uriah has now been remembered for nearly 3,000 years, not because kings honored him properly. His own king had him killed. But God refused to let him disappear.

And Uriah was not even an Israelite by birth. He was a Hittite. Yet he served honorably even when his king acted dishonorably toward him.

Memorial Day reminds us that service is vital.

As America approaches 250 years as a nation, countless men and women have worn its uniform unto death. Some died heroically in combat. Others died through confusion, incompetence, training accidents, or the failures of leaders far from the battlefield.

War has always mixed courage with tragedy, honor with human failure. But generation after generation, Americans still stepped forward, willing to bear costs most citizens pray they never personally face.

Many of those never came home alive.

My own sons are now about the age my father was when he knocked on those doors in a Navy uniform, carrying news no family ever wants to hear.

Looking at my sons, I cannot imagine them carrying that burden repeatedly.

Yet those moments marked my father for the rest of his ministry. His faith was forged in living rooms where stunned families learned someone they loved was not coming home.

He carried both the duty of the nation and the ministry of the church into rooms shattered by grief.

His grave marker bears both his rank and his calling, a reminder that he stood beside grieving families in their darkest hours.

So this Memorial Day, a nation pauses to remember the Americans who never took off the uniform.

But in that pause, if you served beside a military chaplain, remember them as well.

Many spent their ministries carrying unbearable news to frightened families, fighting back tears while praying for those who could not, burying the dead, and offering words no one who hears them ever forgets:

“On behalf of a grateful nation …”

History forgets names. Monuments weather. Politicians fail. But God does not forget.

In the genealogy of Christ, God preserved the name of a faithful soldier. No service and no sacrifice poured out in duty escapes the sight of God.

Not all memorials are granite. Some are written where time cannot erase them.

​Chaplain, Faith, Grief, Honor, Memorial day, Navy, Opinion & analysis, Sacrifice 

More than 970 Americans honored our nation’s veterans this Memorial Day by participating in Run for the Wall, an annual 10-day coast-to-coast motorcycle ride from Ontario, California, to Washington, D.C.

RFTW, which started in 1989, was organized by Vietnam veteran Gunnery Sergeant James “Gunny” Gregory and a small group of fellow veterans to raise awareness for prisoners of war and those missing in action. It is the largest and longest-running organized cross-country motorcycle ride.

‘It restores my faith in America and in humanity.’

This year, riders departed from California on May 13 to take one of the RFTW’s three routes across the U.S. — Central, Midway, and Southern Routes — to reach the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in the nation’s capital on May 23, just a couple of days ahead of Memorial Day.

A fourth drive, known as the Sandbox Route, took riders from D.C. to the Middle East Conflicts Wall Memorial in Marseilles, Illinois, to pay respect to younger generations of veterans who served during the Global War on Terror.

As riders stop in cities along their routes, they are greeted by cheering locals who line the streets waving American flags. Gallup, New Mexico, a pitstop on the Central Route, hosts a large motorcycle parade through town, followed by a “Gathering of Veterans” ceremony and a dinner for the riders at Red Rock Park.

RFTW’s motto is “We ride for those who can’t.”

For each leg of the journey, riders honor the memory of a service member who was killed in action, missing, or held as a prisoner of war. They write the person’s name and branch of service in chalk on the ground and display a photo and a biography so others can stop by to pay their respects.

RELATED: A Marine’s Memorial Day message: Don’t forget the price

Image source: Run for the Wall

At the front of the pack, they ride in a Missing Man Formation, which involves five motorcycles with an empty space where a sixth bike should be to symbolize the missing serviceman’s absence. The photos and bios of the service members are brought to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and placed at the panel where their name is inscribed.

Ted “Boots” Kapner, the director of public relations for RFTW, told Blaze News that Memorial Day has taken on “a whole new meaning” for him since he started participating in the cross-country ride in 2017.

Kapner, who hosts the RFTW podcast, explained that during the show, he will read the biographies of individuals whose names are inscribed on a memorial wall.

“I feel like for every bio that I read on the podcast, I get to know them,” he stated, describing learning about their family and where they grew up. “I carry these bios with me and deliver them to the wall; it’s not just a barbecue and a celebration, it’s really a day of solemn remembrance.”

RELATED: Gold Star grief never ends — remember the fallen this Memorial Day

Image source: Run for the Wall

Kapner described reaching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., with his fellow riders as “a cascade of emotions.”

“We’re all in tears, and we’re all there, arm in arm, supporting one another,” Kapner told Blaze News. “It’s a family. … It restores my faith in America and in humanity.”

“America is still a great nation, and it is our best hope. There comes a time when we all have to set aside our differences and know that we’re more alike than we are different,” he stated.

Kapner encouraged Americans to take time on Memorial Day to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Memorial day, Veterans, Ride for the wall, Motorcycle, Motorcycles, Politics 

Move over, citronella oils and sound emitters. It’s time to take mosquito repellant into the space age.

When nets, spray, and anti-mosquito pills are just not working, one company says it is almost ready ship a mosquito defense system that seems like it should be fitted on the Death Star.

‘When used as directed, there is no risk to adults, children, babies, or pregnant women.’

Just when technology seemingly couldn’t get any crazier, the Photon Matrix is a new product hoping to ship to consumers worldwide this summer.

Labeled the world’s first portable laser mosquito defense system, the Photon Matrix Lab team says its light detection and ranging system combined with an electromechanical measuring instrument — called a galvanometer — is the answer to ridding one’s back yard, cottage, or camping trip of mosquitoes.

The company promises that its “precision laser striking system” delivers an automated and chemical-free way to zap mosquitoes out of the sky as soon as they are within range.

The product works by shooting its laser at objects within an approximately 19-foot radius that are between 0.08 and 0.8 inches in size.

The device cannot kill houseflies, roaches, wasps, or moths, because they are larger and faster than mosquitoes, the company says. Therefore, it is also allegedly safe for operation around bees or butterflies, which have different flight patterns that the machine does not recognize.

RELATED: This new laser farming technique could free us from pesticides — forever

– YouTube

With obvious safety concerns as the first question, this Chinese company out of Changzhou City, China, says if a large pet or human comes into the target zone, the device will automatically stop shooting.

At the same time, the company claims the laser is very low power with extremely short pulse duration, so it would not cause burns even in the “extremely unlikely” event of direct skin exposure.

The company wrote, “When used as directed, there is no risk to adults, children, babies, or pregnant women.”

RELATED: America’s next-gen weapons face a down-to-earth foe: The elements

Francisco J. Olmo/Europa Press/Getty Images

The product is expected to ship in Q2-Q3 2026, which is listed as approximately July-August, currently priced at around $650 USD.

It does require monthly cleaning; users are instructed to clean the laser’s optical window to prevent dust buildup.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​China, Lasers, Mosquitoes, Pests, Return, Tech