Category: blaze media

The investigation into former special counsel Jack Smith has led to allegations that he was trying to swing the presidential election of 2024.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said a legal whistleblower revealed that Smith had obtained 4,782 checks from Americans who donated to President Donald Trump and pro-Trump entities between 2019 and 2023, often in small amounts.

‘Every member on this committee ought to be outraged for what happened to their constituents. Which one of my Democratic colleagues will join me in that outrage?’

Grassley directly challenged Smith to address the allegations while he testified before Congress on Tuesday.

“No matter what you say, there’s no legitimate basis for what you did,” said the veteran Republican, according to a transcript in his press release.

“Donations to Republican groups wasn’t necessary to your investigation, which is proved out by the fact it wasn’t mentioned in your public report. Now, the Justice Department and FBI will forever possess thousands of people’s addresses, phone numbers, banks, bank account numbers, bank routing numbers, and copies of their true signatures,” Grassley said.

Republicans on the committee posted an image of some of the checks with the personal information redacted.

“Every member on this committee ought to be outraged for what happened to their constituents. Which one of my Democratic colleagues will join me in that outrage?” Grassley asked.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas accused Smith of trying to rig the presidential election.

“Jack Smith is a deranged partisan fanatic,” Cotton posted on social media. “He is one of the worst abusers of lawfare in history. He secretly seized GOP lawmakers’ phone records for one reason: to try to swing 2024 and help Democrats win.”

For his part, Smith said he did not remember those particular subpoenas but defended his investigation against claims of political bias.

“Yes, we acquired financial information. As I sit here right now, I cannot recite to you every subpoena we issued,” said Smith. “I can tell you why we issued subpoenas, and it was to conduct a criminal investigation of one of the most serious crimes that’s ever happened in our nation’s history. I had a duty to collect facts.”

RELATED: AZ grand jury indicts Republicans over effort to overturn 2020 election, including Giuliani, Meadows, and Jenna Ellis

Smith was berated by Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana during his questioning about his collecting toll records of phone calls from members of Congress.

“You make me want to throw up in my mouth!” said Kennedy.

Smith obtained two indictments against the president through his special investigation. One had to do with Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and his alleged unlawful retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Both were dismissed after Trump was elected in 2024.

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​Chuck grassley, Donald trump, Jack smith, Politics, Tom cotton 

An unknown assailant vandalized the constituent office of Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Biddeford, Maine.

A message in red spray-paint seen Monday read “TRUMP” on one door and “WHORE” on another. An image of the tagging, shared by Maine Assistant Senate Republican Leader Matt Harrington, comes amid a heated midterm campaign in the state.

‘Senator Collins and her staff will not be intimidated.’

Democrat U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson has repeatedly suggested that Collins is “owned” by President Donald Trump, despite Collins’ reputation as a political moderate.

“Who has she served? She’s served Donald Trump,” former Maine Senate President Jackson said at the emergency nominating convention in July, when he replaced controversial candidate Graham Platner.

Immediately prior to the vandalism, Jackson ratcheted up accusations of subservience against Collins.

“Donald Trump owns her,” Jackson told reporters in Portland over the weekend, according to C-SPAN footage cited by Spectrum News.

By Monday, Collins’ office was defaced.

“Vandalism is unacceptable,” Sen. Collins’ chief of staff, Katie Brown, said in a statement. “Senator Collins and her staff will not be intimidated. Our Biddeford constituent service office remains open, and we will continue serving the people of Maine.”

RELATED: Graham Platner’s replacement has history of violence, unearthed police report reveals

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The paint was cleared later that same day, according to the Portland Press Herald.

“What has the world come to? This is disgusting, disappointing and it’s not the Maine I grew up in,” Harrington said on X. “Do better.”

Despite Jackson’s earlier rhetoric, he also condemned the vandalism on Monday.

“There’s no place for this in Maine,” Jackson said in a statement. “Vandalism and intimidation are wrong, full stop. Senator Collins and her staff should be able to do their jobs without anyone defacing their office, and I condemn whoever did this.”

Jackson’s slapdash effort to topple Maine’s five-term Republican senator has been an uphill battle. In 1988, Jackson’s longtime domestic partner, Lana Pelletier, told police that Jackson “pushed her around” after a fight with another man, though both she and Jackson now deny that he was violent with her that night.

Public polling averages still have Jackson up by one to two points, though Collins has consistently overperformed relative to polling. Collins was expected to lose to Democrat challenger Sara Gideon in 2020, but ended up retaining her seat by 8.6 points on Election Day.

Biddeford Police Chief JoAnne Fisk confirmed that an investigation into the incident has been opened, but no suspects have been named, the Bangor Daily News reported.

State Sen. Harrington and the Biddeford Police Department did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News.

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​Maine, Susan collins, Troy jackson, Trump, Vandalism, Politics 

Netflix’s upcoming “Narnia” adaptation is leaving BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey with some concerns, especially considering the original author C.S. Lewis’ work has helped shape her to be the Christian she is today.

“His work really exists like in the backdrop of my mind,” Stuckey says, explaining that his work “drew [her] heart and [her] mind into wanting to understand Christianity better.”

“When you understand what he is trying to articulate when it comes to the battle of good and evil, the creation of the earth, the eternal plan of redemption that God is carrying off without a hitch, then those seemingly small and mundane descriptions in ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,’ they really just, they catch you,” she continues.

“And C.S. Lewis has an incredible way of doing that. And so I really care about this adaptation. I really care about how people are introduced to C.S. Lewis’ work,” she adds.

However, she doesn’t believe director Greta Gerwig is the right one to make the introduction.

While Stuckey admits that Gerwig is “very talented” and has directed films like “Little Women” and “Barbie,” she is now making headlines for “creating Narnia as what she describes as a rock opera.”

“And she’s cast Meryl Streep … as the voice of Aslan. He is the lion, if you don’t know, and he is the creator. He’s the one true king of Narnia. He is kind of the Christ character in C.S. Lewis’ fantasy series,” she explains.

Gerwig explained her reasoning as wanting “someone who was profound but not pretentious, who had gravitas but not morose self-seriousness. Someone who could communicate depth and pathos as well as joy and delight.”

“But Meryl Streep is a woman,” Stuckey says. “And Aslan is portrayed as a ‘he’ through this series. And it’s important.”

“Now I think there’s going to be a lot of guesses about whether or not this is some kind of message about transgenderism or gender fluidity or feminism. I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, it is a strange choice when you think about a woman voicing a male character and continuing to be called male,” she continues.

“I don’t know if that is the political point that she’s trying to make, or if she’s just trying to do what a lot of artists do, and that’s blur lines and do things that don’t make sense,” she adds.

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, Aslan, Christianity, Cs lewis, Greta gerwig, Meryl streep, Blazetv show 

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Anthony Fauci funded deadly gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the likely Chinese epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, SARS-COV-2 was apparently not the first deadly virus that created panic in the former NIAID director’s office.

‘I believe all of this is important for bio defense.’

According to a journal entry obtained by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and published by Just the News, Fauci privately expressed terror upon learning that his agency had supported a U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases experiment that took Ebola — a deadly virus with a case fatality rate ranging from 25% to 90% in recent outbreaks — and aerosolized it, thereby making it airborne.

Fauci appeared to be more concerned about what damning insights the killer form of Ebola provided into a relevant vaccine than about his agency’s role in the production of an airborne plague.

In a journal entry dated March 7, 2016, Fauci wrote that he was informed “about a crazy situation where USAMRIID did an aerosolized challenge of Zika in NHPs and showed that the VSV vaccine did not protect (no surprise). However, they showed that although the 2 control animals died and 16 of 20 vaccinated animals died, there was more inflammation in the lungs of the vaccinated animals – implying that vaccination is bad.”

Fauci accused “those guys at USAMRIID” of being “idiots.”

RELATED: First domino to fall? Fauci’s ‘consigliere’ pleads GUILTY to role in COVID cover-up

A doctor administers a serum to a patient with the Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. BENEDICTION MURHABAZI/AFP/Getty Images

Two days later, Fauci wrote that he had a teleconference with officials from the White House, the CIA, the National Intelligence Authority, the Pentagon, and the Department of Health and Human services “regarding an experiment that the USAMRIID did that challenged [nonhuman primates] with aerosolized Ebola to see if the [vesicular stomatitis virus] vaccine protected. Obviously, it did not. Stupid experiment.”

The two unvaccinated primates in the experiment’s control group did not have inflammation in the lung, but Fauci noted that the “vaccinated animals had necrosis, inflammation and fibrin in the lungs.”

After highlighting the finding that Ebola vaccination was apparently a liability in this case, Fauci stated, “This should have been a classified experiment. The foolish DOD people send the data to the FDA and then circulated as FYI to various embassies including to those in West Africa where we are about to engage on a much larger DSD vaccine trial for Ebola.”

“The embassies in West Africa (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone) as you might expect went bonkers since it looks like we’re going to vaccinated [sic] people with the dangers [sic] vaccine,” added Fauci.

The Obama administration announced plans in early 2015 to begin testing Ebola vaccines in Africa and conducted Ebola vaccine trials in Africa well into 2016. Fauci publicly stated at the time, “A safe and effective vaccine will undoubtedly be a critical tool.”

In his journal, Fauci bemoaned the lack of secrecy about the Pentagon’s “bioterror related experiments using a variety of Ebola vaccines to determine their efficacy against aerosolized challenge with people,” then suggested that government researchers should refrain from publishing such experiments “since they could indicate a vulnerability.”

Fauci concluded the March 9, 2016, entry by writing, “I believe all of this is important for bio defense, but has little to do with naturally emerging Ebola outbreaks. Nonetheless, the idea that the vaccine can do harm is now causing people a great deal of concern.”

According to NIAID documents released by Sen. Paul, Fauci’s agency funded at least one of the Ebola aerosol experiments.

Paul noted, “The study was conducted at the Army’s infectious disease institute at Fort Detrick under a NIAID task order, an engineered exposure that drove the virus deep into the lung in a way natural infection would not. NIAID helped craft the study design. Its own internal report later confirmed: ‘NIAID provided funds.'”

Screenshot of NIAID documents

That “internal report” was attached to an email sent to Fauci by Michael Kurilla on March 18, 2016, in response to a request from Fauci. “This originated with concerns that NIAID undertook studies that should have been classified (or perhaps even never conducted),” Kurilla wrote.

In a March 10, 2016, email to an underling at NIAID, Fauci noted that he “almost fell off [his] chair” when the Pentagon admitted at the multi-agency that it funded the experiment with NIAID.

Fauci subsequently demanded more information about his agency’s involvement with the experiments, telling subordinates in a March 11 email, “No one will get hurt if they made a mistake, but then they told me the truth. If someone does not tell me the truth and I find out they did not, then they are gone.”

Last month, Fauci’s former senior adviser and longtime acolyte David Morens pleaded guilty to his role in the attempted cover-up of federal records pertaining to the origin of the COVID-19 virus and to a clandestine initiative to restore U.S. funding to the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The NIAID, USAMRIID, and a legal representative for Fauci did not respond to Blaze News’ requests for comment. Kurilla could not be reached for comment.

Sen. Paul told Just the News, “Americans deserve to know what kind of risky research their taxpayer dollars are funding. It is clear additional oversight is needed into what Dr. Fauci’s institute was paying for long before COVID.”

Dr. Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, told Blaze News that the Ebola aerosol experiments were unjustified:

Ferret models of Ebola virus infection by the intramuscular route and the intranasal route already had been performed and published. There was no legitimate justification for performing an animal study — especially an extremely costly primate study — of Ebola virus infection by aerosols in an aerosol chamber. The fact that the NIAID funded and DOD performed this redundant, pointless, and extremely costly study underscores the over-funding, excess capacity, and waste in U.S. bioweapons-agents research and the opportunities for reductions in over-funding, excess capacity, and waste in U.S. bioweapons-agents research.

Ebright added that Fauci’s “main reaction to the study was that its existence and its results needed to be classified, in order to prevent policymakers and the public from learning about its existence and drawing conclusions from its results.”

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​Ebola, National institute of allergy and infectious diseases, Anthony fauci, Pentagon, Virus, Politics, Covid-19 

The vast majority of approved H-1B beneficiaries since 2022 are from India, government data shows.

Although the Trump administration is pumping the brakes on the tech-heavy visa program with a new executive order, there are still city-sized numbers of Indian workers getting new visas each year.

A whopping 77,673 Indians were approved for initial employment in 2022.

Between 2022 and 2025, official government data shows a shocking number of visas were approved for Indian workers.

In fiscal year 2022, that number was 320,791, according to numbers from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. For 2023, the number decreased to 279,386. But for 2024, the number went back up to 283,397, before stagnating at 283, 772 for 2025.

As well, Indian nationals represent the vast majority of H-1B recipients, accounting for at least 70% of beneficiaries each year: almost 73% in 2022, over 72% in 2023, 71% in 2024, and approximately 70% in 2025.

Chinese people represent the second-most H-1B approvals in each year, but only account for between 11.7% and 12.5% of the total. Canada and the Philippines are the next-highest contributors, but their share is just over 1% each.

RELATED: ‘He got afraid’: Former employee of alleged H-1B fraudster reveals what happened after Sara Gonzales exposé

While these numbers include both extensions and new approvals, the number of Indians acquiring initial employment in the U.S. each year is still staggering and makes up the majority of foreign workers.

A whopping 77,673 Indians were approved for initial employment in 2022, representing almost 59% of all initial H-1B visas. Chinese workers were second at just under 19,000 or 14.3%

Initial employment visas were given to almost 69,000 Indians in 2023 (57.9% of total), while more than 80,000 received approval for initial employment in 2024 (57% of total).

To the Trump administration’s credit, the number dropped to 57,747 in 2025, a 50% share.

In terms of gender, from 2022 to 2024, the vast majority of Indian workers getting visa approvals were men. Each year the share of Indian men getting H-1Bs was at least 75%; the 2025 data did not report on the gender split.

RELATED: ‘He got afraid’: Former employee of alleged H-1B fraudster reveals what happened after Sara Gonzales exposé

David McNew/Getty Images

Vice President JD Vance recently echoed the administration’s position on H-1B visas, saying that the White House was not going to let corporate America “lay off American workers so you can replace them with cheap foreign labor.”

Vance linked to a fact sheet that boasted some of the administration’s accomplishments and intentions when it came to the program and the job market.

The Trump administration stated that it wanted to improve interagency coordination and enhance “scrutiny of H-1B visa applications.”

The document touted the renewal of a $100,000 fee for “certain alien H-1B visa applications,” which it said had reduced IT outsourcing by the largest firms by 92%.

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​India, H-1b, Foreign workers, Tech, Politics 

Friends and fans alike have rushed to honor the man they knew as Richard Belding, the principal on the hit 1990s teen sitcom “Saved by the Bell.”

Actor Dennis Haskins, best known for playing Mr. Belding from “Good Morning, Miss Bliss” in 1988 all the way through “Saved by the Bell: The New Class” in 2000, passed away on Sunday in Burbank, California. He was 75 and had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for the past eight years, the New York Times reported.

‘Dennis was the biggest kid on the SBTB set. If you knew him, you loved him.’

Fellow “SBTB” cast members took to social media to remember their friend.

Mario Lopez, who played handsome jock A.C. Slater, wrote:

Heartbroken to hear about my old friend Dennis Haskins. He played the principal, but Dennis was the biggest kid on the SBTB set. If you knew him, you loved him — and if there was karaoke, you knew Dennis was getting on that mic! I’m grateful for the laughs, the memories, and the friendship we shared all these years. Rest easy, my friend. You’ll always be part of our Bayside family.

Lark Voorhies, who played social butterfly and fashionista Lisa Turtle, said:

Knowing Dennis Haskins for almost 40 years has been one of the truest blessings of my life, which makes losing him hurt so deeply. We shared so much history together from our earliest days, and through it all, he remained a fabulous person, a loyal friend, and someone with such a kind, gentle heart. I am truly heartbroken by his passing and will miss his warmth and laughter more than words can say. Rest in peace Dennis, you will always hold a special place in my heart.

Dustin Diamond, who played nerd Samuel “Screech” Powers, preceded Haskins in death. Diamond died of lung cancer in 2021.

RELATED: ‘Saved by the Bell’ star Dustin Diamond dies at 44

Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images

“SBTB” alumni are not the only ones grieving the loss of Haskins.

Longtime Fox Sports commentator Tim Brando called Haskins a “dear friend” of 30 years. “He was a wonderful soul, and like so many actors on shows of that kind busting his chops to remain a working actor, but having been in such a strong role as Principal it wasn’t easy,” Brando recalled.

“Just a charming man with. Huge heart.”

TV nostalgia X account Blaze Binges shared an endearing clip of Haskins from the show, claiming, “Saved by the Bell was sacred in my house.”

Another fan wrote: “To say ‘Saved By the Bell’ was a big part of my childhood would be an understatement. Rest peacefully, Dennis Haskins. And thank you.”

Reports indicate that Haskins was as friendly and charming in real life as his on-screen persona, Mr. Belding. According to the NYT, he grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, got married and divorced, and eventually made his way to Burbank.

Kimberly Snow, once a bartender where Haskins was a regular, eventually became his caretaker. “A lot of people thought he owned it, but he didn’t,” Snow recalled of Dimples Karaoke, now closed.

“He just loved the place and its people.”

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​Actor, Saved by the bell, Politics 

Sometimes I wonder what younger men talk about in 2026.

Then I think about my own youth in my 20s and 30s. What did my friends and I talk about? Music, mostly. At least with my crowd. What bands you liked. What new groups you were listening to.

Why is a female broadcaster telling me about returning punts? I returned punts on my JV football team in high school, and it was terrifying. She has never returned a punt.

Films were another topic. The latest movies by Scorsese or Tarantino. There were video games, of course. And books occasionally. And more esoteric pursuits: Computer stuff. Martial arts. Learning to surf.

And then the perennial topics: sports, politics, jobs, women.

The day the music died

Nowadays, music has faded in importance to most men. Movies also seem less popular and not as important.

Politics has become a dangerous subject. Nobody is talking about that in a casual way — not with people they don’t know.

Dating is also a difficult topic of conversation. Women seem to be outdoing men in education, employment, and almost everything else. They really don’t need us any more. And they know it.

A respite in sportsball

But then there’s sports. That’s one topic getting more popular with men.

Sports is safe to talk about. It’s an easy subject to introduce. It’s something men of all ages seem to have an instinctual interest in.

Most importantly, it’s an area where masculinity is not criticized. In sports, men can do “men” things. They can be violent (football). Or graceful (basketball). Or analytical and strategic (baseball).

A safe harbor

Sports remain a place of sanctuary for guys. To become deeply involved in a “Monday Night Football” game is like a separate state of consciousness where you are momentarily shielded from the anxieties of the day.

A good football game has a satisfying narrative. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. The competition is real. The result is conclusive. What happened happened. When it’s done, it’s done.

There’s no changing the outcome afterward. No manipulating the statistics or who gets the credit.

A family affair

A love of sports is something you can pass on to your children. You can create family traditions around it.

Unlike most things in modern life, sports institutions remain connected to their histories. Consistency is valued. Conservation is a virtue.

If your grandfather took you to Fenway Park to see the Boston Red Sox, you might do the same with your grandchildren. Which is a great point of pride in Boston.

RELATED: Is college even fun any more?

Chip Somodevilla/Archive Photos/Getty Images

The bookie is on your phone

Unfortunately, anything with this much cultural significance and historic value will inevitably be subverted by the powers that be.

One obvious example: online gambling, which has been permanently attached to every kind of sporting event. Point spreads are now the first talking point when discussing an upcoming game. Even if you don’t gamble yourself, the constant presence of sports betting brings an aura of darkness and exploitation to what should be wholesome entertainment.

It’s nice that they have a “Gambling-is-ruining-my-life” hotline. But what would be even better is for sports gambling to be illegal, as it was for almost my entire lifetime.

Sideline reporters

Another vector of attack: the presence of women in areas of sports that should rightly be the domain of men.

Throughout the sporting world, we see women inserted into male competitions as referees, commentators, coaches, and trainers.

Why is a female broadcaster telling me about returning punts? I returned punts on my JV football team in high school, and it was terrifying. She has never returned a punt. I want to hear from someone who’s done it and knows what it feels like.

Hurting the children

Another alarming development: the transformation of sports into a potential career path for children, who find themselves involved in grueling training routines before they have reached their teens. And this despite coaches, pro athletes, and ex-players urging kids not to begin life-altering training too early.

An entire industry has emerged to develop “future sports stars” from an early age. Never mind the damage to their bodies and the delusional parents who fall for these scams. These kids will be so burned out that they’ll never want to play sports again.

Don’t get too comfortable

All of which is to say: Sports is a precious resource for men. It keeps us sane. It makes us happy. Think about the joy we have experienced in recent weeks from the beginning of the new NFL season.

But we can never get too comfortable. We must remain diligent and protect sports culture from subversion and profiteering. If sports is what we love, sports is what we should fight for.

​Female broadcaster, Monday night football, Sports betting, Sports and politics, Lifestyle, Sports, Culture, Men, Football, Blake’s progress 

An armed home invasion in Florida backfired last week as a man renting a Airbnb shot one suspected intruder and fought the other.

Fort Lauderdale Police officers responded to the scene near Northwest 19th Avenue and Eighth Street around 6 p.m. Thursday, WSVN-TV reported.

‘I just heard the shots, maybe at least 10, and then everybody went running.’

Two males were carrying guns when they broke into the home while the renter was inside, investigators told the station, adding that the renter tried to fight off the perpetrators and shot one of them in the torso in what cops are calling an act of self-defense.

Police said the armed intruders fled the home on foot and left a bloody trail behind, the station reported, adding that a chair splattered with blood was visible at the scene.

A 911 dispatcher said the shot intruder “had an AR, and the complainant shot him. Apparently there were five or six people in a truck that fled the area that were with the gentleman who got shot,” WSVN reported.

Detectives told the station they later found the wounded intruder — identified as 18-year-old Dareon Publien — a short distance away; he was suffering from gunshot wounds to the upper torso.

Police later apprehended his accomplice — identified as 25-year-old Sean Ian Thompson — as well, WSVN reported.

RELATED: Armed thug tries to rob victim pumping gas. But perp chooses the wrong victim to violate.

“I just heard the shots, maybe at least 10, and then everybody went running,” area resident Arthur Butler Junior told WSVN.

Publien was taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery and was listed in critical but stable condition Friday morning, the station said.

WSVN said that after Publien is released from the hospital, he will be taken to the Broward County Jail and face the same charges as Thompson: attempted felony murder and home invasion with a firearm.

Jail records indicate only Thompson is behind bars as of Tuesday morning.

Police told the station they aren’t looking for more suspects and are trying to determine if the armed home invasion was random or targeted.

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​Florida, Broward county sheriff, Self-defense, Arrest, Home invasion, Guns, Gun rights, Shooting, Crime thwarted, Crime 

Vice President JD Vance believes “woke is dead,” and he thinks recent conduct from Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico demonstrates the point.

In an episode of conservative Vince Coglianese’s podcast that aired on Tuesday, Vance sorted through white and black pills pertaining to the midterm election, which is now only five weeks away.

‘Democrats are literally running away.’

Vance acknowledged the recent rightist doom-saying about the election, boosted in part by recent polls indicating that the Democrats have a serious edge in multiple races. However, the vice president emphasized that the country “is not going to be saved by what Thomas Paine would have called sunshine patriots.”

“You have got to get in there and win these races and make it possible for Republicans to deny a bunch of crazy communists from having positions of power in the United States of America,” said Vance. “It’s just that simple.”

Vance further suggested that the situation may not be as bleak for Republicans as some think, recalling polls from fall of 2024 that indicated that then-Vice President Kamala Harris was going to trounce President Donald Trump and that the Democrats were going to maintain control of the U.S. Senate.

In a Reuters/Ipsos poll published in late September 2024, Harris led Trump 47% to 40%, while an NBC News national poll showed Harris leading Trump 49% to 44%. Trump ultimately defeated Harris in a landslide, securing the popular vote and 86 more Electoral College votes than the Democrat.

RELATED: Exclusive: ‘We all got in by lying’: Hidden camera shows Talarico’s pastor rejecting Christ’s virgin birth, other foundational Christian beliefs

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

While optimistic that the pollsters may be wrong again, Vance noted there are nevertheless “headwinds” and that seldom does a party that controls the House, the Senate, and the White House maintain its trifecta through the midterm election.

“It almost never happens, but this is very different,” said Vance. “Number one, we have a very unique president. Number two, we have a bunch of crazy people running on the other side — yes, people who are promising not to lower your prices or to make your life better. They’re promising to trans your kids and steal all your property. Like, that is not what the American people want out of their government.”

On the topic of the “lunatics” Republicans must work to deny power, two Democratic names came up: Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, and Talarico, who is running against Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Coglianese noted that “Talafreako” appears to be “spending all of his time running away from every insane position he’s ever expressed around with a camera” and referenced recently published undercover footage revealing the radicalism and heresy at the Democrat’s church in Austin, Texas.

“This is what I think a particular type of hyper-progressive does to Christianity,” said Vance. “They don’t actually believe in the Resurrection. They don’t believe that Jesus died as an atonement for human sin. What they believe is that Christianity can possibly be a useful tool to acquire political power. So they strip your religion of all of its meaning, of all of its truth, and wear it as a skin suit — and they try to trick people into voting for them.”

“That’s what Talafreako is fundamentally engaged in,” added Vance.

The vice president once again identified a silver lining: Whereas Talarico was previously proud of his theological, economic, and moral radicalism, now when “you turn on the TV … you would think James Talarico is basically a Republican, maybe a moderate Republican — but you would have no idea if you’re just a normal Texas voter watching his advertising who this guy is.”

Although Talarico’s election-time moderation could be read as naked opportunism and deceit, Vance suggested instead that it means “we’ve won the argument.”

“When you’ve won the argument so thoroughly that the other side is pretending they agree with you on the issues just to get elected, the result is not the black pill,” said the vice president.

“The reason I’m super optimistic about just the nature of the country long-term is we have won the argument. Woke is dead. The Democrats are literally running away from things that they said two years ago in an effort to gain political power. That’s cynical. It’s ridiculous. But the fact that we won the argument is a very good first step.”

Talarico — who had a five-point lead over Paxton in a September Texas Public Opinion Research poll and was tied with Paxton in the new Republican-sponsored Stratus Intelligence poll — recently walked back his previous claims that there are six genders and that “God is nonbinary,” as well as his support for male transvestites playing in girls’ sports.

A lesbian chaplain at Talarico’s church in Austin was recently shown in undercover footage claiming that while Talarico has publicly pivoted about God being “nonbinary,” “he’ll change his tune back to where he was” if elected.

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​Christianity, Faith, Heresy, James talarico, Jd vance, Kamala harris, Ken paxton, Midterm election, Polls, Politics 

While some reporters follow the facts wherever they lead, others start with a story they want to tell and work backwards from there.

And former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explains that it’s the latter more often than the public realizes — but BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has had it happen to her and is well aware.

In a recent interview with Sean Hannity, Leavitt described a common media tactic: A reporter develops a negative narrative about the Trump administration, finds loosely connected sources willing to validate it, and publishes the story even after receiving direct denials from people who were actually in the room.

“They, you know, believe they are arbiters of the truth and doing the country a great service, but they are clearly slanted and biased against the president,” she told Hannity.

“This is how fake news is manufactured, for your audience to understand,” she continued. “You’ll have a hack journalist who comes up with a narrative on their own that they think is true about the president or the White House, and they love the palace intrigue stories.”

Leavitt explained that “batting down fake stuff” was about 90% of her job.

“They’ll find a source who has no idea what they’re talking about, was not in the room, doesn’t even work at the White House, maybe worked on the campaign as a volunteer staffer for one day. And they’ll say, ‘A source close to President Trump told us this,’” she said.

“Like, who’s your source? Because I was in the room, so I’m a better source than them. And I’m telling you, this did not happen,” she added.

Leavitt went on to say that the reporters would then respond that they “really trust” that source and would “still write it” anyways.

“All they need is two sources,” she said. “One to say that happened. Another for them to call and say, ‘I heard this happened.’ And that person will say, ‘Yeah, that probably sounds right.’ And then the story’s written, and you can have the White House aggressively on the record pushing back, and they’ll still print.”

“That’s how things get written. They just seek to get a bad narrative, and they’ll find anyone who helps them push that narrative,” she added.

“I know it sounds crazy that they would just come up with a narrative and then try to approach people to corroborate that narrative that they just made up,” Gonzales says.

“Sounds crazy, but Karoline is 100% correct,” she adds.

Gonzales reveals that reporters have reached out to her with a political bias attempting to spin a story, revealing one recent text conversation she had with a reporter at Politico.

“No thanks, I’m going to pass on that,” she says. “I don’t need to engage with you, I know what this is. I always know what it is.”

“The mainstream media is trash,” she adds.

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.

​White house, Karoline leavitt, Donald trump, Mainstream media, Sara gonzales, Fake news, Blazetv show 

Visual Intelligence was introduced to iPhone with iOS 18, but unless you had the right phone or knew where to look, you probably didn’t even know it was there. Or what it does. This year, the feature makes the jump into the Camera app for easier access. Here’s how to find it and put it to use.

When Visual Intelligence launched in 2024, it was actually an iPhone 16 series exclusive. Within the next year, support trickled down to iPhone 15 to bring more users into the fold. Naturally, every new iPhone newer than that also received the feature, including the brand-new iPhone 18 Pro Max, which we reviewed here.

It’s a neat tool.

As the name implies, Visual Intelligence uses AI to help users decipher the world around them through the camera lens of an iPhone. With a photo, it can speak text out loud, like on a restaurant menu or inside a book; translate foreign languages you might come across while abroad; and use AI to understand objects. It’s a neat tool for those times you encounter something in public and you want to know more about it.

Previously to invoke Visual Intelligence, you had to either hold down the Camera Control button on the side of compatible iPhones or summon it with an icon hidden away in Control Center. Needless to say, it was easy to miss unless you knew exactly where to look. The latest iOS 27 update hopes to change that, as Visual Intelligence is now baked directly into the main Camera app.

RELATED: Not all new iPhones are worth it. This one blows them all away.

iPhone 18 Pro Max Models/Apple

Now when you open the Camera app, you’ll find a new “Siri” tab to the right of the main “Photo” screen. Swipe left to reveal a brand-new interface with the Siri logo in place of the on-screen camera button. Point your camera at an object, tap the button, and Siri will generate a response that pops down from the top of the display to explain what you’re looking at.

Alternatively, tap the comment box in the bottom left corner of the display to take a photo of the object in front of you and immediately launch into a chat thread about that object. Here, you can ask Siri questions about the object or, in my case, argue whether or not Siri actually got the object right. More on that in a second.

If you want to find similar objects for reference or to purchase, tap the photo with the magnifying glass on the bottom right corner of the screen, and Siri will launch a pop-out menu with results from connected apps, like Google, Amazon, Walmart, the Shop app, and TikTok.

Visual Intelligence Camera on iOS 27/Getty Images

Overall, Visual Intelligence is handy, but it’s not perfect. While I was snapping an image of my Google Nest Wi-Fi router, Siri mistook it first for an Apple HomePod and then a router made by another brand. It did eventually get it right, though, so that’s the important thing.

On the flip side, it immediately identified my Apple Magic Keyboard and Apple Magic Mouse. For whatever reason, it seems to understand Apple-branded products quite well.

Your mileage may vary.

Visual Intelligence is available in the Camera app on compatible devices running iOS 27. That means you’ll need to update to the latest software to access it this way. If you’re on iOS 26, you can still reach Visual Intelligence, but you’ll have to hold down the Camera Control on the side of your phone or bring it up in Control Center. If you don’t have a Camera Control button (with the exception of Apple iPhone 16e models), then your phone likely doesn’t have Visual Intelligence at all.

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​Artificial intelligence, Ios, Iphone, Tech 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained yet another Cumberland County, Maine, corrections officer.

Dannick Massamba-Bankela, who was detained on Tuesday, is the fifth noncitizen Cumberland County corrections officer detained by ICE since April 2025, highlighting a controversial hiring pattern in the jurisdiction. Previous arrests generated tension between Sheriff Kevin Joyce and the ICE office in Scarborough, Maine.

‘Illegal aliens have no place in our communities, especially in positions of law enforcement.’

Massamba-Bankela, who migrated from the Republic of the Congo, was ordered to report to Scarborough’s ICE processing facility on September 19. Protesters, who gather daily across the street from the ICE building, showered the detainee with support.

“It’s not his fault that the U.S. government delays forever in scheduling these asylum interviews,” Massamba-Bankela’s lawyer, Christina Corbaci, told Maine Public. “So what is a person supposed to do? He’s putting down ties. He’s moving forward with his life. He’s integrating into the community exactly like we ask immigrants to do, fully.”

As of Monday, Massamba-Bankela is being held at Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island, according to ICE’s detainee locator. The Congolese national was previously held at Massachusetts’ Plymouth County Correctional Facility, according to the Maine Wire.

The five detained corrections officers in Cumberland County hailed either from the Congo or Angola. Some entered the U.S. on tourist or student visas before claiming asylum. At least one, Angolan national Emanuel Ludovic Mbuangi Landila, illegally entered the country via the southern border in 2019, the Bangor Daily News reported, citing the Department of Homeland Security.

Sheriff Joyce claimed that the four officers detained prior to Massamba-Bankela displayed work authorization sufficient for their employment with Cumberland County. Massamba-Bankela’s lawyer told Maine Public that her client also possessed valid work authorization.

Work authorization does not override a visa overstay or legalize an alien’s presence in the country, according to ICE.

RELATED: Retiree radicalism: Behind the scenes with Maine’s anti-ICE activists

Benjamin Roberts/Blaze Media

The ICE facility in Scarborough is not a detention center. At least two of the affected corrections officers were processed by agents there and either transferred to permanent custody elsewhere or, in the case of illegal entrant Landila, released on bond.

Landila was detained on January 21, released on bond in February, and ultimately returned to his training program by April, according to the Portland Press Herald. He remains subject to removal pending a final asylum decision.

All five of the detained men were hired by Democrat Sheriff Kevin Joyce, who first took office in 2010. He is running for re-election.

“I guess if you’re not the card-carrying, you know, U.S. citizen, then you must be illegal. Because that’s what they told me is he’s illegal — and he’s definitely not a criminal,” Joyce said in January after Landila’s arrest. “So what part of him is illegal? I don’t know.”

“This was a show of force, a show of whatever they were trying to do with seven people,” Joyce said.

The Maine Criminal Justice Academy dropped English reading and writing tests as a requirement for certification in 2024, shortly before the county’s spate of noncitizen hiring.

After that requirement was cut, Joyce claimed to have hired over 20 immigrants as corrections officers in just one year.

RELATED: Mexican national accused of sexually assaulting woman on Mackinac Island

Getty Images

Though the county doesn’t sponsor visas, it also doesn’t screen for citizenship or legal status. The job posting states that applicants must be “authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S.,” but doesn’t inquire about green cards, an applicant’s right to remain in the country, or pending asylum/immigration decisions.

The Cumberland County jail faced a severe staffing shortage prior to its noncitizen hiring spree.

“Under President Trump and Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin, ICE is restoring law and order. Illegal aliens have no place in our communities, especially in positions of law enforcement,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Blaze News. “Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App.”

Maine isn’t the only state that allows noncitizens to serve in the prison system. Texas employs about 1,600 foreign nationals in its prison system, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“The United States is offering illegal aliens $3,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right, legal way to live the American dream,” the DHS said. “If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”

Cumberland County, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, and Massamba-Bankela’s legal representative did not respond to requests for comment.

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​Department of homeland security, Detention center, Immigration, Maine, Politics, Immigration and customs enforcement 

“You see how this looks, right?”

That question captures Chris Hansen’s method. He takes a man who believed he was meeting a child for sex and forces him to look at his own conduct from the outside.

We do not merely lie to other people. We lie to ourselves. That is how ‘I knew it was wrong’ can coexist with ‘I did it anyway.’

For more than two decades, Hansen’s predator stings — from NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” to later investigations — have offered a grim case study in self-deception. The men know the conduct is wrong. They choose it anyway. Then, when Hansen arrives with the transcripts, they scramble to preserve the belief that they are good men.

In other words, Chris Hansen has given us a case study in sin.

The basic scenario is familiar. An adult begins communicating online with someone he believes is underage. The age is made explicit. The conversation becomes sexual. A meeting is arranged. The man drives to the house.

Then Hansen walks into the room.

“Have a seat. What are you doing here?”

Almost nobody simply says, “I came here because I wanted to have sex with a child.”

Instead, the explanations begin.

“I just came to talk.” “I was lonely.” “I wanted to make sure she was OK.” “I knew this was probably a setup.” Sometimes the man insists he intended to warn the supposed child about the dangers of talking to strangers online.

Then Hansen produces the chat logs.

He reads an explicit message in that grave, almost bureaucratic voice and asks, “What did you mean by that?” Everyone knows what it means. The point is that the words are no longer private. Hansen has dragged the man’s rationalizations into the open and placed them next to the evidence.

Now the story changes. Simple denial will not work, so the explanation becomes biography. He was lonely. He was depressed. He had a hard day. The goal is no longer to deny the conduct but to move the audience’s sympathy toward the man who chose it.

Hansen keeps returning to the same question: Does any of that make it acceptable to send sexual messages to someone who told you she was 13?

The excuses collapse one by one.

RELATED: Christians are missing the opportunity next door

Banderlog/Getty Images

Perhaps he missed the message stating the child’s age. Hansen points to the exchange in which the decoy asked whether the age was a problem and the man said it was not.

Perhaps he never intended to do anything sexual. Hansen reads the acts the man described in his own messages.

Perhaps he changed his mind on the drive over. Then why did he keep driving? Why did he knock on the door? Why did he bring condoms?

If he knew it was wrong, why did he still show up?

At some point, the rational answers run out. What remains is the answer many of the men cannot bear to say plainly: I wanted to do this.

Instead, they reach for the self-image they are desperate to protect. “I’m not a predator.” “I’m a good person.” “I just made one stupid mistake.”

The deception is not merely directed at Hansen. Much of it appears to be directed inward.

They are trying to preserve a portrait of themselves that the evidence no longer supports. Dorian Gray had the decency to keep his portrait hidden in the attic. Hansen puts the chat log on the kitchen table.

This is where Hansen becomes an accidental moral philosopher. He keeps asking a question human beings are remarkably good at avoiding: Why did you do what you did if you knew it was wrong?

The answer is frequently, “I don’t know.”

Philosophers have a name for part of this problem: weakness of the will, or akrasia. A person judges one course of action to be better and chooses another anyway.

Christianity goes farther. Sin is not merely rule-breaking. It disorders desire and corrupts our understanding of ourselves. Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful. Paul describes people as suppressing truths they do not want to face.

We do not merely lie to other people. We lie to ourselves.

That is how “I knew it was wrong” can coexist with “I did it anyway.” Fallen human beings do not merely fail to do the good they claim to know. They can learn to love what is evil while renaming it good. Milton gives Satan the line: “Evil, be thou my good.”

Some of the strangest Hansen encounters make the point even more sharply: The men recognize him.

They have watched the show. They know what happens. They have seen other men caught in precisely the same way. Yet they somehow never placed themselves in the same category.

Those guys were predators. I’m different.

Hansen sometimes asks whether they have children the same age as the decoy. Many do. What would they think if a grown man sent their child these messages? The moral judgment suddenly becomes easy — until Hansen turns it back on them.

That brings us to the problem with toxic empathy.

Compassion is a virtue. But compassion becomes morally destructive when it rearranges the categories of victim and perpetrator.

A man who drives to a house believing he is about to sexually exploit a child may indeed be lonely. He may have suffered. He may have psychological problems. Those facts can help explain him. They do not make him the victim of the encounter.

RELATED: The lion, the witch, and the worldview war

Gisela Schober/Getty Images

The child he intended to exploit is the victim.

Our culture increasingly prefers therapeutic questions: What happened to him? Why is he hurting? How did society fail him? Those can be legitimate questions. They become toxic when they displace the more basic moral question: What did he choose to do to someone else?

Hansen’s great contribution is remarkably simple. He puts the evidence on the table and asks the person to account for it.

In an interview with me, Hansen said he learned something from Mike Wallace: Sometimes the most powerful question is simply, “Explain.”

That is why the format has a moral force larger than the television sting itself. Explanation is where excuses either become clearer or finally run out.

For more than 20 years, Hansen’s subjects have demonstrated something Christianity has taught for 2,000 years. “The heart is deceitful above all things,” Jeremiah admonishes, “and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Hansen’s kitchen table is not a confessional. But it is a place where self-deception has a hard time surviving the evidence.

​Chris hansen, Christianity, Toxic empathy, Sin, To catch a predator, Predators, Akrasia, Culture, Mike wallace, Dorian gray, Opinion & analysis 

Some of the major corporations that once wrapped themselves in the LGBT flag and embraced racist DEI initiatives have in recent years signaled a change in tack.

It appears that this may have been a pump fake — that normalcy advocates may have been premature in celebrating the apparent return to sanity at Ford Motor Company, Molson Coors, Target, and T-Mobile.

‘Companies should consider whether their support aligns with issues that unite rather than divide their customers, employees, and shareholders.’

The 1792 Exchange, a corporate bias watchdog seeking to restore political neutrality in the boardroom and to educate lawmakers about the dangers of woke corporate policies, has been tracking various businesses’ DEI commitments, participation in the LGBTQ activist organization Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, and their nonbusiness activities — particularly those with an ideological bent.

For example, Ford signaled in 2024 that it would be undergoing some reform on the woke front.

Ford CEO Jim Farley noted in an August 2024 memo obtained by normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck that the automotive company would: focus on taking care of its customers and employees as opposed to “publicly commenting on the polarizing issues of the day”; end its participation in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index; and ensure that its policies and practices “drive business results.”

RELATED: Gay Atlantic writer whines to Bill Maher that LGBT extremism is blowing up support for homosexual ‘marriage’

Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images

The watchdog also highlighted how:

T-Mobile announced in a July 2025 letter to the Federal Communications Commission that it was dissolving its DEI roles and corresponding initiatives and instead partnering with “third party suppliers, community groups, and other organizations … to advance our core business objectives”;Target announced that it would cease participation in the Corporate Equality Index, “further evaluate corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to [the company’s] roadmap for growth,” and end its DEI goals; andMolson Coors signaled in September 2024 that it would cease participation in the CEI and end DEI-based training programs and donations to divisive events.

Allen Mendenhall, a senior adviser for the Heritage Foundation’s American Investor Initiative, told the Daily Signal in June that these changes were part of a broader “market correction and a cultural correction.”

“Businesses are increasingly rejecting pressure from activist investors and corporate bureaucracies in favor of listening to consumers and respecting longstanding moral and religious convictions,” continued Mendenhall. “Top-down cultural engineering is losing its grip.”

The 1792 Exchange pointed out a month ago that some of these supposedly reformed corporations haven’t lost their woke reflexes.

Target, for instance, was listed this year as a platinum sponsor of New York City Pride, a supposed “carnival-style celebration for LGBTQIA+ youth, their families, and allies.” The stated aim of this year’s parade was to “empower and educate queer youth with a variety of queer- and gender-affirming resources and activities.”

This included a political rally “to demand protections for trans and queer youth.”

This year, Target was also listed as a sponsor on numerous other LGBT activist events, including Jersey Pride, LA! Pride in Los Angeles; Utah Pride in Salt Lake City; Pride Houston 365 in Texas; and San Francisco Pride.

Through its Vizzy Hard Seltzer brand, Molson Coors was named a “silver sponsor” of Jersey Pride, a “diamond partner” of Miami Beach Pride, and a presenting sponsor of Denver Pride, where anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement signage was visible in the parade.

T-Mobile is also still backing LGBT activist events. T-Mobile Fiber is listed both as a gold-level sponsor of Phoenix Pride’s Rainbows Festival and as a bronze-level sponsor of Capital City Pride in Des Moines, Iowa. Metro by T-Mobile is listed as a sponsor for this year’s Philly Pride 365.

Children appear to have been present at these events despite the heavy sexual themes and imagery.

Ford, Molson Coors, Target, and T-Mobile did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News by deadline.

The 1792 Exchange noted that “publicly traded companies have a fiduciary responsibility to create long-term value for shareholders while remaining consistent with their publicly stated commitments and corporate values. When engaging in charitable giving or corporate sponsorships, companies should consider whether their support aligns with issues that unite rather than divide their customers, employees, and shareholders.”

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​Ford, Leftism, Lgbt, Molson coors, Pride parade, Robby starbuck, T-mobile, Target, Woke business, Politics 

After nearly two decades of convincing an entire generation that human connection works best as a door-to-door sales catalog, Silicon Valley has run into a small problem. Match Group, the digital giant that built an empire by turning romance into an endless loop of low-consequence choices, recently surveyed the cultural wreckage and decided it was time to sell us back the exact social structures it helped demolish.

The corporate headquarters in Dallas has relaunched Upward. Once a modest corner of the internet reserved for devout Christians, the platform is being repositioned as a refuge for anyone tired of standard app culture. Upward now features a “chivalry mode” that encourages men to send the first message, sets clear timelines for getting married, and includes explicit prompts for those willing to pay for dinner.

It’s cynical. It’s brilliant. It’s America.

The executives at Match Group call these users “next-gen traditionalists.” The Atlantic, observing the exact same shift with its usual mixture of mild anxiety and high-minded condescension, labeled the phenomenon a “regressive streak.” Beyond the elite media commentary, the commercial calculation is far simpler. The industry spent far too long marketing infinite option value to young adults, only to discover that the modern romance industry mostly produces desperate souls sitting alone in apartments, eating takeout, and endlessly scrolling their phones.

The writers at the Atlantic seem genuinely perplexed that a 25-year-old woman might want a husband who can change a flat tire and feels no deep emotional turmoil about picking up the check. In the cultural ecosystem of coastal media institutions, traditional social scripts are routinely framed as oppressive remnants of a primitive past. To the editorial board, a man offering to pay for a meal looks like an act of subtle subjugation. To a young woman who has spent three straight years negotiating ambiguous coffee dates with men who view basic adult commitment as a boundary violation, it looks like basic common sense.

The sickness and the cure

This corporate about-face marks a classic cycle of modern commerce. Silicon Valley gained dominance by fostering a problem, extracting massive financial value from the resulting confusion, and then inventing a brand-new product line to fix the damage. Tinder and its corporate siblings taught young Americans to view potential partners as temporary inventory. The result was a dramatic decline in marriage rates, plummeting birth rates, and widespread romantic exhaustion. Having successfully monetized the dissolution of traditional dating, the industry is now monetizing its restoration. It’s cynical. It’s brilliant. It’s America.

RELATED: These influencers can’t stop crying on camera — now they’re superstars

LanaStock/Getty Images

The cultural gatekeepers spent decades telling young people that structure was the enemy of authentic living. Every traditional expectation regarding how men and women interact was systematically dismantled in favor of complete, unscripted autonomy. But people do not thrive in spaces devoid of rules. When every social interaction requires a fresh, ground-up negotiation over roles, expectations, and intentions, the result is less freedom than total paralysis.

Young men were hit particularly hard by this rather perverse social experiment. For years, they received explicit instructions that traditional masculine initiative was predatory, overbearing, outdated, and dangerously toxic. Then they logged onto mainstream dating apps and found that women still overwhelmingly preferred men who took charge, planned dates, and made their intentions known. The culture demanded passive neutrality, while reality demanded action. By explicitly asking men to step up and pursue with clear purpose, Upward is merely acknowledging a reality that elite institutions spent decades trying to educate out of the population.

Normal is no mystery

The media class often treats traditional marriage as an ancient artifact that survived by accident. They view old-fashioned courtship as something that must be constantly explained away or neutralized with appropriate progressive caveats. What they fail to grasp is that traditional structures survived for centuries because they align perfectly with fundamental human desires. People want permanence. They want clear expectations. They want to build families with partners who consider commitment a virtue rather than a compromise.

When a massive tech company changes its business strategy to cater to old-fashioned rituals, it’s not running an ideological crusade. Silicon Valley responds strictly to consumer demand and revenue metrics. Match Group is shifting strategy because the infinite-choice model has run out of runway. The revolution promised endless novelty, but delivered misery on a massive scale.

Some young Americans are perhaps adopting traditional dating habits out of nostalgia for a time they never lived through. But most are adopting them because the alternative failed. The counterculture in America is no longer found in rejecting traditional norms, but in building a stable household, raising children, and expecting a partner to be there in the good times and the bad. The boardrooms of Big Tech have finally read the room, even if the writers at the Atlantic are still trying to understand why anyone would want a husband who not only books the dinner reservation but doesn’t insist on going Dutch.

​Tech, Dating, Apps, Christians, Chivalry 

Jenn Nizza is an ex-psychic medium who converted to Christianity over a decade ago. Her platform today heavily revolves around warning people against falling prey to mainstream occultism. That includes the obvious — divination, tarot cards, crystals, manifesting, and astrology — but it also includes things like subliminal messaging in Disney movies and Taylor Swift music.

For years, Nizza has warned that she believes the pop icon deliberately infuses her music with “New Age ideologies” and even performs “witchcraft on the stage.”

On this episode of “Relatable,” Nizza joins Allie Beth Stuckey again to warn Swifties that their beloved idol is on a mission to normalize witchcraft.

“[Taylor Swift] is a pop star that’s using her platform for the enemy. … She is being used as a vessel of destruction because she is promoting and glamorizing New Age and occult ideologies and practices like karma and especially numerology,” says Nizza, noting that Swift is “obsessed with the number 13” and even “makes decisions based on this number.”

The spiritual darkness surrounding Swift, she argues, has grown over time — which is precisely the point.

“She appeared as somebody so innocent and Christian-like in the beginning, and I really believe that’s how the enemy does this because then you get your gathering. … You get your platform. You get your followers, right?” says Nizza. “The Swifties came in, and then the darkness starts to come out, and that is to, of course, indoctrinate masses of people.”

She gives the example of Swift’s song “Invisible String” — a folk-pop love ballad about fate quietly tying her to a lover through small coincidences across years, as if an unseen thread had been pulling them together all along.

While perhaps trivial at first glance, Nizza explains that the invisible string theory originates from New Age occultism.

“The invisible string theory is the idea that there is an invisible string around one of your fingers and an invisible string around another person’s finger that is kind of like your twin flame, the person you’re meant to be with,” she says, noting that belief in this concept often leads people to “divorce” and other sins.

“It is a doctrine of demons, meaning a teaching of demons and not the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as an imaginary string around anybody’s finger,” she adds.

The invisible string and other New Age concepts, like zodiac signs and energy readings, Nizza argues, are all demonic because they’re predicated on the idea that “you are your own authority” and that “the universe will assist you in getting things you want.”

She explains that this paradigm is the opposite of Christianity, which puts Christ alone on the throne and calls people to be “accountable for [sin]” and seek “forgiveness.”

“There’s so much freedom in Christ … but in the New Age, what’s good is bad, and what’s bad is good. It’s backwards,” she says.

To hear Allie and Nizza unpack occultism hidden in other areas of culture, including children’s entertainment, watch the episode above.

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, Jenn nizza, Taylor swift, Witchcraft, Blazetv show 

Governments have been handing out public work since men were laying stones on the Appian Way. And wherever government hands out money, people line up to get some.

Abraham Lincoln was said to have faced so many office-seekers and applicants for government favors that he finally complained, in his usual earthy fashion, that “there are too many pigs for the teats.”

The Democratic Socialists of America do not own the word ‘kindness.’

The pigs have multiplied.

During the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt dramatically expanded Washington’s role in the economy. His administration also strengthened organized labor. The Wagner Act of 1935 guaranteed workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, and unions became a central pillar of the Democrat coalition that dominated American politics for decades.

The same political pattern appeared again during the War on Poverty.

Michael Harrington’s 1962 book, “The Other America,” helped force poverty onto the national political agenda. Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty task force later brought Harrington to Washington as a consultant.

The federal government also needed a way to measure poverty. That measure was developed principally by Mollie Orshansky, an economist at the Social Security Administration, whose thresholds became the basis of the official federal poverty measure.

Then came the Great Society: Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance, housing programs, and a vast expansion of Washington’s responsibility over Americans’ lives and livelihoods.

The political argument over those programs has raged ever since. But one fact should not be controversial: Americans have transferred staggering amounts of wealth through government because they believe people in genuine need should be helped.

That is kindness on an industrial scale. And wherever kindness operates on an industrial scale, thieves notice.

The Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion every year to fraud, based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.

That is not “waste” in the loose political sense. The GAO is estimating losses from deliberate fraud.

Look around the country. In Minnesota, the House Oversight Committee says at least $300 million was stolen through the Feeding Our Future child-nutrition scandal. The committee also says federal prosecutors estimate that fraud involving several high-risk Medicaid programs could total billions.

RELATED: The government would like to discuss your allowance

Erhui1979 / Getty Images

In New York, federal prosecutors charged 15 defendants in health care schemes involving more than $10.6 billion in fraudulent billings to Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers.

Arizona’s Medicaid system was hit by another grotesque scheme aimed at programs serving Native Americans struggling with addiction. The state attorney general says losses from the wider scandal reached into the billions. In one recent federal case alone, an addiction-treatment operator was sentenced to 14 years after fraudulently billing Medicaid more than $69 million.

In California, Paul Richard Randall orchestrated a scheme that submitted nearly $270 million in false Medi-Cal claims for expensive medications that were often unnecessary or never provided. Medi-Cal actually paid about $179 million. Randall got 30 years in federal prison.

Across seven Southeastern states, the Justice Department this summer announced 17 cases involving more than $350 million in intended losses involving SNAP, housing benefits, Small Business Administration loans, and tax fraud.

This thieving from American kindness is nationwide.

The Trump administration has now made federal fraud a major target. This month, the government canceled Affordable Care Act policies covering roughly 760,000 people whose enrollments it says were fraudulent or otherwise ineligible. The administration projects about $2.2 billion in savings.

It turns out that industrial-scale redistribution creates industrial-scale opportunities for fraud.

The Biden-era immigration surge adds another political argument. The Congressional Budget Office estimates net immigration at roughly 1.5 million people in 2021, 2.8 million in 2022, 3.3 million in 2023, and 2.7 million in 2024. Much of that increase fell into the CBO’s “other foreign national” category, which includes people who entered without lawful status as well as others admitted under temporary authorities.

But illegal immigrants are generally barred from SNAP, nonemergency Medicaid, SSI, TANF, and most federal housing assistance. States can choose to spend their own taxpayers’ money anyway. California sure does, to the tune of $22 billion a year.

And immigration has a political consequence separate from voting. The census counts residents, not merely citizens, for congressional apportionment. Illegal aliens count in those population totals just like everyone else living in the country.

When Washington spends money on a colossal scale, responsibility becomes diffuse. A federal agency sends money to a state. The state sends it to a provider. The provider bills a program. A nonprofit administers another piece. Somewhere along that chain, the pigs find the teats.

Then everybody expresses shock.

RELATED: Can a $1.2 trillion giveaway become a fiscal bargain?

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Perhaps the 50 states should shoulder far more responsibility for caring for their own poor. Perhaps Washington should stop pretending that every human problem requires another federal funding stream.

The alternative is industrial-scale socialism accompanied by industrial-scale fraud.

Something else eventually gets stolen, too: trust. Every dollar stolen from Medicaid makes taxpayers more suspicious of Medicaid. Every fake food-benefit claim makes it harder to defend assistance for the family who actually needs groceries. Every crooked nonprofit feeds the suspicion that “compassion” has become a business model.

That may be the most destructive theft of all.

The Democratic Socialists of America do not own the word “kindness.” Neither does any political party. Americans who work, pay taxes, and agree to help their neighbors have every right to demand that their money reach the people it was intended to help.

And they have every right to be furious with the pigs at the teats who steal it.

​Arizona, California, Democratic socialists, Franklin roosevelt, Fraud, Government accountability office, Lyndon johnson, Medicaid, Medicare, Minnesota, Money, New deal, New york, Snap, Trump administration, Washington, Wellfare, Opinion & analysis 

Cabaña Mexican Grill in Garden City, Kansas, temporarily closed last week as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted operations across the southwestern part of the state.

In a bilingual Facebook post featuring a Mexican flag, the restaurant said, “ICE is in our community, and fear is spreading through the families who work hard every day to keep businesses like ours running.”

Establishment Republicans, always preferring business interests over their voters, may not get the message by midterms. They may not ever get it. But the voters certainly do.

The post urged other businesses to stand with their employees: “People before profit. Community before business. Together.”

Kansas Republican U.S. Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran responded by stressing coordination between federal agents and local law enforcement.

“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement,” Marshall posted to X. “Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”

Marshall said he was closely following events and had been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and local authorities “as ICE executes warrants in order to keep Kansans safe.”

Moran added that he had spoken with Mullin and stressed “the importance of DHS working with our local law enforcement to safely execute these warrants.”

He also relayed an assurance from Mullin that the warrants were “only for the purpose of arresting individuals who have been charged with criminal activities.”

Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton struck much the same note. He said immigration agents should focus on serious criminals, coordinate with local officials, and avoid leaving Kansas families afraid.

How strange that the Republicans and the Democrat should sound so similar, especially to voters who expect Republicans to offer an unapologetic defense of immigration enforcement.

Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on carrying out what he called “the largest deportation operation in American history.” More than 77 million Americans voted for him, and he carried Kansas by 16 points.

RELATED: Sanctuary cities’ get-out-of-jail fail

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

Yet when federal immigration agents arrived in Southwest Kansas, the state’s two Republican senators did not lead with a defense of the administration’s enforcement authority. They led with concerns about coordination, local knowledge, and public safety — language strikingly similar to Hamilton’s.

That distinction is worth getting right.

ICE routinely works with state and local law enforcement, including through its 287(g) partnerships. Asking federal agents to communicate with sheriffs and police is not, by itself, a sanctuary policy, nor does local government possess a veto over federal immigration enforcement.

The real question is what Moran and Marshall believe ICE should be enforcing.

ICE is not merely a federal version of a local police department. Immigration enforcement is itself at the core of its mission. Removal does not depend in every case on a separate violent-crime conviction.

When Moran and Marshall say that ICE should be focusing on public safety or illegal aliens charged with criminal activity, what they seem to mean is that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens should receive enforcement amnesty. That’s madness.

I don’t think it is even worth pointing out to either Republican senator that it is illegal for illegal aliens to work under the table in the United States, and usually that implicates other crimes, including identity theft and document fraud.

Logic cannot prevail when we are hearing Democratic talking points from the mouths of Republicans. This is particularly troubling at a time when some Democrats, including Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), are openly calling to abolish the Department of Homeland Security.

RELATED: The mass-deportation promise is disappearing

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty Images

Establishment Republicans, always preferring business interests over their voters, may not get the message by midterms. They may not ever get it. But the voters certainly do, particularly in areas that have been transformed by mass immigration, both legal and illegal.

Comments responding to a KSN story included blunt reactions: “The businesses hiring them should be fined and arrested,” “Sounds like they need to stay closed if they can’t hire Americans,” and from one Western Kansas resident, “I voted for this!!!”

Those comments are not a scientific sample of Kansas opinion, obviously. They are, however, a reminder of the constituency Republican politicians helped create when they spent years promising tougher immigration enforcement and failed to deliver.

Now that enforcement has arrived in Southwest Kansas, voters can see clearly how their elected officials respond.

​Ice, Kansas, Republicans, Midterms, Markwayne mullin, Democrats, Illegal immigrants, Mass migration, Delia ramirez, Dhs, Rinos, Opinion & analysis 

The woke intelligentsia has identified yet another seemingly innocuous instrument of white supremacist oppression that literally emanates from your fingertips.

A bizarre article published by the BBC claims that a trending practice in which women’s nails are left unpainted is actually a racist plot against minorities.

‘When I do get a manicure now, it’s no polish. Why? Because I’m old and tired. Not because I joined the KKK.’

The article cites Kristina Rodulfo, a beauty journalist, who links the bare-nail trend to racism.

“That trend really promotes blankness and this kind of sameness and erasure of culture and identity that is so important to black and brown communities,” she said.

“They are often called elegant or tasteful, and these are often usually euphemisms that perpetuate white supremacist standards of beauty,” Rodulfo added.

The article goes on to enumerate far less extremist reasons for the trend.

“It’s just really chic. And I love less is more, I love minimalism … less consumerism and just self-care things that you could probably do at home,” said one woman who chose the unpolished look.

Critics latched onto the white supremacist comment to mock the BBC and the author.

“This is the most absurd story ever and it demeans the BBC to be reporting as ‘news’ that going without nail varnish is (apparently) classist and racist,” said arts writer Alexandra Wilson.

“I got manicures for short to mid length red nails, every two weeks for decades. Decades!” responded one woman. “I simply got tired of doing it. And that is why I have bare nails. When I do get a manicure now, it’s no polish. Why? Because I’m old and tired. Not because I joined the KKK.”

“So if you actually can’t keep a manicure bc you spend your days doing laundry and dishes, or can’t afford one, or are too busy working and taking care of kids to do your own, you are a white supremacist. Yes, that totally makes sense,” said another sarcastically.

“I cant believe my bare nails are a political statement. I dont get em done because I dont want to sit in a badly ventilated chop shop full of carcinogens every 4 weeks risking blood and skin infections due to poor hygiene,” replied another critic.

RELATED: ‘Pure evil’: Gay couple raped adopted baby boy before brutally killing him

“According to BBC breathing is racist, eating is racist, sleeping is racist, not polishing your nails is racist,” read another response.

The national broadcaster is reportedly in financial straits and has been forced to cut shows, lay off workers, and threaten cutting off services.

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​Bbc, Racism, White supremacy, Politics 

A South Carolina mother apparently said she was hallucinating when she was arrested on Saturday for allegedly stabbing her two young children.

Officers were called to a residence on Bud Arthur Bridge Road for a welfare check when the children were found, according to the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office.

‘Some of the lacerations were so deep they cut to the bone.’

The children, ages 3 and 6 years old, had dozens of injuries, according to police.

“Between the two children, we’re estimating that there were approximately 50 stab wounds,” said Lt. Graham McLellan of the sheriff’s office.

“Some of the lacerations were so deep they cut to the bone,” said the solicitor’s office.

Police arrested the children’s 35-year-old mother, Taylor Gosnell, after she arrived at the home. She was acting erratically and was sent for a mental evaluation.

The home was also described as covered in blood and with broken debris and shattered glass throughout the home. Televisions and mirrors were found destroyed inside.

The children were transported to the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center for treatment and are said to be in stable condition. But the injuries to the 6-year-old are disturbing.

“He’s currently facing the possibility of amputation of fingers and possibly an arm due to the severity of the injury sustained,” said the solicitor’s office.

McLellan also said the deputies were disturbed by what they experienced.

“There is no preparation that our deputies can have to see something like that,” he added.

“We’re going to do our job,” McLellan continued. “Our deputies are going to go out there and do what they have to do to make sure that there’s justice delivered for these children.”

Gosnell was charged with two counts of attempted murder.

RELATED: Woman attacked her 10-year-old son with a machete while they were in the shower, cops say

The suspect has previous charges pending of child endangerment from 2024, according to the sheriff’s office.

She’s being held without bond.

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​Attempted murder, South carolina, Stabbing, Crime