Category: blaze media

John Reid, the Republican candidate running for Virginia lieutenant governor, ripped into his Democrat opponent for embracing transgender ideology.

Reid called out Democrat state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi for flippantly dismissing the issue of transgenderism among children, according to a video obtained exclusively by Blaze News. In the video, Hashmi brushes off concerns surrounding transgender ideology and even brags about teaching the very LGBTQ books that have been banned from children’s libraries.

‘Any public official who says they ‘don’t really care’ if children are exposed to sexually explicit material in schools is completely out of touch with Virginia parents.’

“One of my concerns is violence. We seem to focus on sexually explicit material,” Hashmi said in the video obtained by Blaze News. “I don’t really care about that.”

“We teach the books that other people try to ban,” Hashmi said another video clip.

RELATED: ‘Trans’ fad is dying out among American youth, and straightness is ascendant: Study

“That’s Ghazala Hashmi. Not protecting kids, but pushing the radical agenda. While parents beg for decency, she laughs it off. While explicit books flood classrooms, she says, ‘I don’t really care about that.'”

“I’m John Reid. I’m running for lieutenant governor because I do care,” Reid said in the video. “It’s time to stand up, clean up our schools, and move Virginia forward.”

Although Hashmi has brazenly supported this radical ideology, she hasn’t mustered the courage to debate it with Reid in a public forum. Because Hashmi refused to participate in a debate with Reid on Tuesday, the Republican candidate took matters into his own hands and instead debated an AI generated stand-in of his Democratic opponent.

In spite of Hashmi’s failure to appear on the debate stage, Reid said her words “speak for themselves.”

RELATED: Democrat senator blocks vote to end shutdown to protest Trump’s ‘authoritarianism’ in drawn-out rant

Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Ghazala Hashmi’s words speak for themselves,” Reid told Blaze News. “Any public official who says they ‘don’t really care’ if children are exposed to sexually explicit material in schools is completely out of touch with Virginia parents.”

“Parents deserve to know what’s in their kids’ classrooms — and when I’m lieutenant governor, they’ll have a voice and a seat at the table.”

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​John reid, Ghazala hashmi, Abigail spanberger, Virginia, Lieutenant governor race, Transgenderism, Transgender ideology, Transgender children, Banned books, Parental rights, Virginia republicans, Virginia democrats, Politics 

President Donald Trump announced late Thursday evening that he was terminating all trade negotiations with Canada on account of a $75 million anti-tariff advertising campaign initiated last week by Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

Trump leaned into his criticism of Canada Friday morning, stating, “CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!” and accused the northern nation of using the ad “to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country.”

The purpose of the ad, which featured excerpts from former President Ronald Reagan’s April 25, 1987, radio address regarding the benefits of free trade and downsides of protectionism, was to make the case against American tariffs on Canada to Republican voters.

Ford evidently figured the ad was not worth the cost.

The premier said in an X post on Friday afternoon that after speaking to Prime Minister Mark Carney, his government “will pause its U.S. advertising campaign effective Monday so that trade talks can resume.”

‘Let’s work together to build Fortress Am-Can and make our two countries stronger.’

“Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses,” Ford wrote. “We’ve achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels.”

While the ad will not run as planned next week, Ford indicated that he has directed his team to “keep putting our message in front of Americans over the weekend so that we can air our commercial during the first two World Series games.”

The Toronto Blue Jays host the L.A. Dodgers for Game 1 on Friday night and Game 2 on Saturday.

RELATED: Trump says he’s killing trade talks with Canada for ‘trying to illegally influence’ SCOTUS with anti-tariff ad

Photo by EVAN VUCCI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

“The people elected our government to protect Ontario — our workers, businesses, families and communities,” Ford continued. “That’s exactly what I’m doing. Like I said earlier today: Canada and the U.S. are neighbors, friends and allies. We’re so much stronger when we work together. Let’s work together to build Fortress Am-Can and make our two countries stronger, more prosperous and more secure.”

While Ontario is backing down, at least one other provincial leader appears eager to poke the bear.

The leftist premier of British Columbia, David Eby, revealed on Friday that his province was similarly making anti-tariff ads, stating, “Our wood faces higher US tariffs than Russia. Absurd. Truth will win!”

The Trump administration’s tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber were recently brought up to a combined 45%.

The Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly later told reporters, “We need to make sure that we reduce our dependency on the U.S. and that we support our businesses.”

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​Doug ford, Ford, Canada, Trade, Tariffs, Reagan, Donald trump, Usmca, Nafta, Tariff, Politics 

New York Attorney General Letitia James charged that she was being unjustly prosecuted by the Trump administration in a rant outside a Virginia courtroom after her first hearing as a bank fraud defendant.

James is accused of lying about the classifications of homes she owns in order to unfairly secure favorable tax and financial benefits. She pleaded not guilty to the charges on Friday.

‘I believe that justice will rain down like water! And righteousness like a mighty stream!’

She led a chant of “No fear!” with a handful of supporters who applauded her speech.

“This is not about me! This is about all of us!” James said. “And about a justice system which has been weaponized!”

The court proceeding under U.S. District Judge Jamar Walker lasted only 35 minutes. He scheduled James’ trial date for Jan. 26.

President Donald Trump has criticized James numerous times and called for her to resign over the allegations.

“Letitia James, a totally corrupt politician, should resign from her position as New York State Attorney General, IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote in April. “Everyone is trying to MAKE NEW YORK GREAT AGAIN, and it can never be done with this wacky crook in office.”

James made an enemy of the president when she filed civil charges in 2022 accusing him and the Trump Organization of exaggerating values of properties in order to obtain favorable financial advantages. Trump was fined over $450 million, but that fine was later tossed out of court and James was scolded by a judge for overestimating the damages.

RELATED: Trump calls on ‘wacky crook’ Letitia James to resign after troubling fraud allegation surfaces

“No fear!” James chanted before stating, “Because I believe that justice will rain down like water! And righteousness like a mighty stream!”

Walker was appointed by former President Joe Biden.

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​Letitia james, Bank fraud allegations, Trump vs james, Mortgage fraud, Politics 

The Department of Justice issued a warning to California after some of the state’s top Democrats said arresting federal agents for perceived violations of state law is on the table as immigration enforcement continues.

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), alongside Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-Calif.), said, “While the president may enjoy absolute immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate under his orders do not. Our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law — and if they are convicted, the president cannot pardon them.”

‘Illegal and futile.’

Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco district attorney, revealed her office has drawn up plans to arrest federal agents should they use force in her city as they have during violent protests and riots in Los Angeles and Chicago. Jenkins explained that the San Francisco Police Department is on board with the idea in cases of “clear, excessive use of force,” according to the New York Times.

The SFPD did not respond to a request for comment from the Times.

In a letter to Pelosi and Jenkins, the DOJ wrote that it views “any arrests of federal agents and officers in the performance of their official duties as both illegal and futile. Numerous federal laws prohibit interfering with and impeding immigration or other law-enforcement operations.”

RELATED: House Democrats’ ICE ‘tracker’ will ‘put our lives in danger’: DHS agent

ICECHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

The DOJ further promised to prosecute any state or local official who violates federal law in the case of any arrests.

— (@)

Violent protesters have already gathered outside a staging area for federal agents in the Bay Area. On Thursday, protesters blocked the bridge that leads to Coast Guard Island Alameda, resulting in clashes and at least two arrests. Later in the evening, Coast Guardsmen had to shoot at a masked suspect who allegedly used a U-Haul in an attempt to ram the checkpoint and refused to listen to verbal commands to stop.

The Department of Homeland Security said no DHS personnel were injured in the incident. The driver was shot in the stomach and taken to the hospital. A bystander was hit with a bullet fragment and released from the hospital. The FBI is leading the investigation into the shooting.

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​Politics 

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Coast Guard security personnel fired upon a driver who was using a rental truck in what appeared to be a ramming attack at their base in Alameda, California, on Thursday night.

Anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters had gathered outside the base after hearing federal immigration agents were being housed at Coast Guard Island Alameda. The anti-ICE crowd had minor clashes with federal agents during the day, resulting in at least two arrests. A security guard working for a news crew was also reportedly attacked by anti-ICE protesters, leaving him with a gash on his face and a chipped tooth.

‘The vehicle’s actions posed a direct threat to the safety of Coast Guard and security personnel.’

In the late evening after most of the crowd had left, a masked suspect driving a U-Haul was filmed driving backward toward the Coast Guardsmen several times. The security officers can be heard on the footage yelling at the driver to stop. After the driver apparently continued his route into them, the Coast Guardsmen opened fire, video showed.

“Coast Guard personnel issued multiple verbal commands to stop the vehicle, the driver failed to comply and proceeded to put the vehicle in reverse — suddenly accelerating backwards at a high rate of speed directly toward them. When the vehicle’s actions posed a direct threat to the safety of Coast Guard and security personnel, law enforcement officers discharged several rounds of defensive live fire,” DHS said in a statement to Blaze News.

“No Coast Guard personnel were injured during the incident,” DHS continued. “Two civilians were injured and are expected to survive. The truck driver was wounded in the stomach and is being held for mental health evaluation. A bystander was struck by a fragment, treated at a local hospital, and released. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the lead agency for this investigation, and we are coordinating with our law enforcement partners.”

Anti-ICE agitators have increasingly used vehicles to attack DHS agents during operations targeting illegal aliens. Cars have been used to attack federal agents in Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Phoenix metro area.

RELATED: Illegal alien shot after allegedly ramming car into federal vehicle was once honored by Democrat

@USAttyEssayli/X

Carlitos Ricardo Parias, who was shot after allegedly ramming his car into agents’ vehicles after being boxed in, was recently honored by the office of Democratic Los Angeles Councilman Curren Price with a Certificate of Recognition for documenting ICE operations on TikTok. Price characterized Parias as a “fearless citizen journalist.”

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​Politics 

In Ireland, the priest was once as vital to a village as the pub or the post office. He baptized the babies, buried the dead, and kept the farmers from killing each other.

If the neighbors were at war over a hedge, he’d settle it before Mass and still have time for a fry-up. The priest wasn’t just a man of God but also a referee of rural life — part Joe Rogan in a cassock, part St. Patrick with a whistle. The church bell was the town clock. The confessional was the psychiatrist’s couch. And the parish hall was the beating heart of the community.

You can now ‘attend’ Mass online, complete with comment sections and buffering hymns. It’s efficient, yes — but as spiritually satisfying as watching someone else eat your dinner.

That Ireland is disappearing. This year, the entire country produced just 13 new priests — barely enough to fill a choir, let alone a nation. The waves of eager new recruits who poured forth from the seminaries are no more, leaving weary veterans to cover half a dozen parishes, driving from one church to the next like overworked delivery drivers of the divine.

What happened? “This is an immense question, requiring a book-length answer,” Irish journalist John Waters tells Align, after which he kindly attempts a summary anyway:

The explanations include: Ireland’s history of kindergarten Catholicism; the damage done by simplistic moralization; the liberal revolution; the infiltration of the Catholic clergy; the escalating implausibility of transcendent ideas (a contrived not a naturalistic phenomenon); the moral inversion unleashed by the LGBT revolution; the confusion created by the church leadership for the past 12 years and counting; et cetera.

Irish goodbye

The outlook is bleak. The number of priests in the capital is expected to fall by 70% over the next two decades. Since 2020, only two priests have been ordained in Dublin’s archdiocese.

Across Ireland, the average priest is now over 70, long past retirement age. Some say the Church’s only hope is to let priests marry. It would make more sense than flying in bewildered clerics from Africa, men who can quote Scripture but not survive small talk in a Kerry kitchen.

It’s not that people stopped believing in God (though Ireland’s Catholic population has fallen to just 69%, down from nearly 78% less than 10 years ago). They just stopped believing the Church was worth the effort.

The pews that once held families now hold the few who remember when everyone came. Ireland changed faster than the Church could follow. Confession replaced by podcasts, pop psychology, and Pornhub. It’s a lethal mix of heresy and habit — busy souls, distracted minds, and a generation convinced that salvation can be streamed, scheduled, or outsourced.

Flickering faith

At the same time, people like my mother still light candles. They still bless themselves on long drives. They still mutter prayers when the doctor calls with bad news. Faith is still there; it has just learned to keep its head down. Weddings and funerals still draw a crowd, if only because even the most lapsed Irishman can’t stomach the thought of being buried by a stranger in a suit. The flame is still there, but it’s more a pilot light than a blaze.

The fading of show-up-every-Sunday faith has mirrored the fading of everything that once made Ireland feel Irish. The language is vanishing, the music sanitized, the dances replaced by drill rap and dead-eyed TikTok routines.

Even the local watering hole — the unofficial annex of every parish — struggles to stay open. What’s vanishing isn’t just religion; it’s ritual, the sense that life meant something beyond the week’s wages.

Mass exodus

Technology promised connection but delivered solitude. You can now “attend” Mass online, complete with comment sections and buffering hymns. It’s efficient, yes — but as spiritually satisfying as watching someone else eat your dinner.

Once, the whole community walked to church together, children skipping ahead, neighbors chatting along the road. After Mass came tea, gossip, and maybe even a few sneaky pints. These days, the only communion most share is over brunch — order taken by a Filipino, processed by a Nigerian, cooked by a Ukrainian, and blessed by a middle manager named Ahmed.

In rural towns, churches stand like sentinels — beautiful, empty, and slightly ashamed of their own magnificence. Some have become cafés or concert halls, serving flat whites where once they served faithful whites. It’s called progress, though it feels more like repurposed reverence.

RELATED: Church of England investigating vicar for calling a transvestite deacon a ‘bloke’

Photo by DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images

Let us spray

The same could be said across the pond. In Canterbury Cathedral — the cradle of English Christianity — artist Alex Vellis recently staged “HEAR US,” a graffiti-style art project inviting visitors to ask, with spray-can sincerity, “What would you ask God?”

The answers, splattered across medieval stone, came from “marginalized communities” — Punjabi, black and brown Britons, the neurodivergent, and the LGBTQIA+ faithful. A veritable clown car of the aggrieved, somehow granted front-row parking in the house of God. It was meant as inclusion; it landed as intrusion — like stringing jockstraps across the Vatican altar.

When critics like Elon Musk and U.S. Vice President JD Vance rightly accused the project of desecrating beauty in the name of diversity, Vellis fired back not with argument but with anatomy, accusing his detractors of “small d**k energy.”

Virile virtue

The phrase, unserious on the surface, hinted at something deeper: Both sides — the artist and the church that hosted him — seem afflicted by the same crisis of conviction. The Church, once roaring with moral certainty, now offers apologies to everyone and inspiration to no one. Its critics, meanwhile, confuse provocation for courage. Between them lies a vacuum where virtue used to be.

And this isn’t just an English problem. Across the Christian world, churches of every stripe — Catholic, Protestant, evangelical — have lost their fortitude. Too timid to offend, too eager to trend, they’ve traded conviction for comfort. “Small d**k energy” has gone liturgical.

Even in Ireland, where the Church once thundered with certainty, cowardice now calls the homily. The pulpit peddles activism instead of absolution, politics instead of prayer. No wonder so many stay home. And no wonder young men won’t answer the call. Who wants a life devoid of sex, love, and laughter?

If Catholicism is to last, it needs less talk and more testosterone. The next revival won’t come from a press release but from those who still believe life means something. If the Church in Ireland and beyond wants people back in its pews — and its pulpits — it best man up.

​Lifestyle, Culture, Christianity, Catholicism, Ireland, Uk, Canterbury cathedral, Immigration, Mass, Priesthood, Faith 

Certain decisions are best not left to machines, the Army has revealed.

A United States Army general made headlines last week when he told reporters at a media roundtable he had been using an AI chatbot to “build models to help all of us.”

‘He is helping the Army explore how artificial intelligence can strengthen decision-making.’

Major General William “Hank” Taylor told media at the annual Association of the United States Army conference that “Chat and I” have become “really close lately,” prompting more questions than answers about the Army’s use of AI.

Williams is the top United States Army commander in South Korea and makes decisions for thousands of troops. He explained to reporters that he is indeed using the technology to make decisions that affect those under his command, but to what end was unknown.

Now, the Eighth Army office has revealed to Return what exactly the high-ranking officer meant. The office said that Taylor’s remarks were actually regarding the Army’s “ongoing modernization efforts,” which specifically relate to how technology can assist leaders in making timely and informed decisions.

At the same time, the spokesperson said that the Army does not plan on replacing human decision-makers, especially in key areas.

RELATED: From West Point to Woke Point: The long march through the ranks

Photo by KIM Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

“All operational and personnel decisions remain the sole responsibility of commanders and their staff, guided by Army policy, regulation, and professional judgment,” media relations chief Jungwon Choi told Return.

He added that while Eighth Army recognizes the opportunities and risks associated with AI, it is only looking at how to integrate “trusted, secure, and compliant systems that enhance — not replace — human decision-making.”

The Army reiterated that point, stating that Taylor does not use any AI-assisted tools to make personnel, operational, or command decisions, and his remarks were only referring to using “AI-assisted tools in a learning and exploratory capacity.”

The Army is not looking at “delegating command authority to an algorithm or chatbot,” either, Choi reinforced.

The Department of War is tinkering with AI chatbots for its forces on the ground, however. As Return previously reported, training scenarios have already included experimentation with an offline battle-ready chatbot.

The technology, called EdgeRunner AI, allows soldiers to get instant information about mission objectives, coordinates, and other details instantaneously in an offline environment.

EdgeRunner recently wrapped up military exercises in Fort Carson, Colorado, and Fort Riley, Kansas.

RELATED: Democrats once undermined the Army. Now they undermine the nation.

Photo by JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images

At the same time, Choi said that like many leaders, Major General Taylor has “experimented with publicly available AI-assisted tools to understand how generative AI functions, its potential uses, and the safeguards required for responsible employment.”

Taylor has also explored HQDA-approved large language models to “assess how secure, compliant AI systems” can support leadership development or improve operational efficiency, for example.

The spokesman said Taylor does not endorse any specific commercial platform, and the Army did not answer as to whether he was referring to using ChatGPT when speaking to reporters, which tech outlet Futurism claimed last week.

“MG Taylor’s engagement with HQDA-approved AI platforms reflects a forward-thinking approach to leadership and modernization,” the army representative concluded. “By responsibly experimenting with these emerging tools, he is helping the Army explore how artificial intelligence can strengthen decision-making, improve efficiency, and prepare leaders for the evolving demands of the modern battlefield.”

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​Return, Us army, Armed forces, Chatbot, Ai, Ai chatbot, Artificial intelligence, Chatgpt, Army general, South korea, Tech 

Actor Jeff Daniels, angered by Trump’s AI video response to the No Kings protests — which featured a left-wing activist being covered in feces that dropped from the sky — took out his frustration in a song he performed live on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” this week.

Daniels’ song is titled “Crazy World,” and he explained that it is how he copes with the current political situation.

“I’ve seen a young girl smiling at something he just said. / I watched him fall into her pretty green eyes, his cheeks turned Valentine red. / I’ve seen an old man walking with his wife by his side. / I watched him reach down, take her hand, damned if I didn’t cry,” Daniels sang as he played his guitar.

“This crazy world’s gone crazy. Who am I to judge? / It’s nice to know in a world full of hate, there’s someone out there still making love,” he continued.

Before taking the stage, Daniels lamented the lack of “decency” from President Trump for the AI meme he posted where he was “spewing excrement all over the people down below.”

“Would Lincoln have done that?” Daniels asked host Nicolle Wallace.

“I don’t think Nixon would have done that,” Wallace answered.

“Nixon wouldn’t have done it. Reagan wouldn’t have done it. Bush wouldn’t have done it — either Bush. I think people in the Midwest, where I am … we value our decency and our civility,” Daniels said.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray notes that former presidents like Nixon, Reagan, Bush, or Lincoln couldn’t have done what President Trump did, as artificial intelligence did not exist in their time.

“This is the ‘Dumb and Dumber’ actor who sat on a toilet and took a loud crap for two minutes. But he can’t take the potty humor of President Trump,” executive producer Keith Malinak adds.

Want more from Pat Gray?

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

​Upload, Camera phone, Free, Sharing, Video phone, Video, Youtube.com, Pat gray unleashed, Pat gray, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, President trump ai meme, President trump, Jeff daniels, Jeff daniels msnbc, Nicolle wallace, Trump administration, No kings protests 

The star of “Dumb and Dumber” got … even dumber?

Veteran actor Jeff Daniels has a regular side hustle as a cringeworthy MSNBC guest. He played a newsman on TV once, and now Daniels fancies himself a political wonk. Yeah, he’s the same guy who starred as James Comey in “The Comey Rule,” one of the most fact-free Hollywood productions ever.

‘The real revolution going on in this country now is the Christian nationalist revolution — an attempt to upend the American dream and replace it with a theocracy.’

And that’s saying plenty.

This week, Daniels broke out his guitar on MSNBC to serenade the channel’s dwindling audience. The song in question? A ditty that helps him cope with President Donald Trump’s second term.

“Crazy World” features lyrics like this: “It’s nice to know in a world full of hate, there’s someone out there still making love.”

Groovy, man!

Everybody was kung fu fighting

“Sweep the leg! Sweep the leeeeeeeeg!”

Everything old is newish again, which means a “Karate Kid” musical is on the way. The production is getting its feet wet overseas with a spring 2026 tour in the U.K. before later arriving on Broadway’s West End.

Robert Mark Kamen, who wrote the original “Karate Kid” all the way back in 1984, also penned the musical update.

The four-film saga remained dormant for years before getting a new lease on life from both the 2010 remake featuring Jackie Chan and the celebrated Netflix series “Cobra Kai.” That second wind couldn’t keep this summer’s “Karate Kid: Legends” from conking out in theaters. Guess fans weren’t interested in uniting Chan with original franchise star Ralph Macchio.

Somewhere, Sensei Kreese is smiling …

‘Witch’ way, modern star?

“The Scarlet Witch” is casting a hex on streamers.

Elizabeth Olsen, who brought that MCU character to life in multiple films as well as Disney+’s “WandaVision,” is taking a stand for the theatrical experience. Olsen says she refuses to appear in any studio films bound for streaming-only venues.

“If a movie is made independently and only sells to a streamer, then fine. But I don’t want to make something where [streaming is] the end-all. … I think it’s important for people to gather as a community, to see other humans, be together in a space.”

That’s noble, but she may be fighting a losing battle. We’ve recently seen a flood of studio films flop in theaters, including “Roofman,” “Good Fortune,” and “Tron: Ares.” The theatrical model is still struggling post-pandemic, and the allure of “Netflix and chill” can be irresistible.

Plus, major stars like Robert De Niro, Dwayne Johnson, and Gal Gadot routinely appear in major streaming films without a second thought. If Daniel Day Lewis can memory hole his retirement plans, here’s betting Olsen may have a backpedal of her own coming soon …

‘Battle’ babble

Say what you want about Leonardo DiCaprio’s “One Battle After Another,” a film glorifying radical violence against a corrupt U.S. government. It’s a perfect fit for that cousin who spends days getting his No Kings poster art just right.

The film follows a group of pro-immigration activists who use any means necessary to free “undocumented immigrants.” Viva the revolution!

Just don’t call “OBAA” a “left-wing” film, argues Variety’s Owen Gleiberman:

“The real revolution going on in this country now is the Christian nationalist revolution — an attempt to upend the American dream and replace it with a theocracy.”

Yeah, that’s the tone of this fever-dream screed, so you can imagine the rest. Once the scribe takes a long, hot bath, he’s going to get to work on his next think piece: how Antifa is just an “anti-fascist” MeetUp group.

RELATED: Hollywood’s newest star isn’t human — and why that’s ‘disturbing’

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Kevin O’Leary is saying the quiet part out loud.

The “Shark Tank” honcho makes an appearance in “Marty Supreme,” an Oscar-bait movie coming this Christmas. Timothee Chalamet stars as a ping-pong prodigy trying to win the sport’s biggest prize. O’Leary, who knows the value of a dollar, said the project could have saved “millions” had it fallen back on AI extras instead of using actual people:

Almost every scene had as many as 150 extras. Now, those people have to stay awake for 18 hours, be completely dressed in the background. [They’re] not necessarily in the movie, but they’re necessary to be there moving around. And yet, it costs millions of dollars to do that. Why couldn’t you simply put AI agents in their place?

It’s sacrilege in Hollywood circles to say that, but he’s probably not wrong. Hollywood is wrestling with the looming AI threat, including attacks on AI “actress” Tilly Norwood.

Let’s hope AI can’t train Tilly to scream, “Free Palestine!” at award shows. Then we’ll know Hollywood stars are really on the endangered species list.

​Entertainment, Hollywood, Trump derangement syndrome, Donald trump, One battle after another, Movies, Culture, Jeff daniels, Ai, Tilly norwood, Shark tank, Kevin o’leary, Toto recall 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) attempted in an interview on Thursday to once again gaslight Americans about the bloodletting in his state’s most populous city. Evidently immune to the Democrat’s latest deception, Fox News host Bret Baier shut down Pritzker’s attempt and confronted him with the facts about Chicago’s obscenely high murder rate.

“Why does Chicago have the highest murder rate of all the big cities?” asked Baier.

‘JB Pritzker just flat out lied about an obvious fact.’

Pritzker, whom President Donald Trump recently suggested should be jailed, responded, “Well, we are not in the top 30 in terms of our murder rate. … Our murder rate has been cut in half over the last four years, and every year it’s gone down by double digits, and if you look at all of the violent crime over the last four years, they’ve all gone down.”

Baier then pulled up a map highlighting the apparent murder rates for America’s biggest cities. The graphic indicated that Chicago led the way in blood with a murder rate of 17.47 homicides per 100,000 people.

By way of comparison, the reported murder rate for: Philadelphia was 16.91; Dallas was 13.62; Houston was 13.8; San Antonio was 8.39; Phoenix was 8.36; Los Angeles was 6.95; and New York City was 4.5.

RELATED: Trump urges SCOTUS to unleash National Guard in Chicago amid protests, increase in violence against ICE

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

According to the Illinois-focused research nonprofit Wirepoints, Chicago ranked first last year for total murders out of the nation’s 75 biggest cities, with 573 homicides. It also reportedly experienced the most homicides per capita among the nation’s 20 biggest cities last year.

Chicago Police Department statistics indicate that as of Oct. 19, the city has seen 347 known homicides so far this year.

After Baier noted that “Chicago is number one over Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York, and San Diego,” Pritzker said, “Look, you can pull statistics up. I can too.”

“No, no, no,” said Baier. “These are murders.”

“I’m explaining to you that our murder rate has been cut in half, and very importantly, Bret, and you gotta hear this, very importantly we’ve been doing the things that are necessary to bring crime down, right?” added the Democratic governor.

Critics had a field day with Pritzker’s attempt to put a positive spin on Chicago’s murder rate.

“JB Pritzker just flat out lied about an obvious fact,” wrote Elon Musk.

Former National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch wrote, “Cut in half and still number one. Great job, @GovPritzker.”

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​Illinois, Chicago, Murder, Violence, Crime, Brand johnson, Jb pritzker, Donald trump, Bret baier, Lying, Gaslighting, Politics 

Despite having an uncountable number of consumer goods available at the click of a button at prices our grandparents would have found astonishing, our homes are full of junk that isn’t worth the wholesale cost.

New washing machines last a year or three at best, according to Americans who buy them. Worse, they don’t even wash clothes well, reined in as they are by government diktats about water and power consumption.

I spent $15 for a beautiful, indestructible lifetime blender. Yes, the pitcher is glass.

The same is true of almost every other appliance and machine in the contemporary American home. But it didn’t used to be this way. First, I’m going to tell you a story. Then I’m going to come back to the present and show you how to live like a king or queen on a budget with yesterday’s consumer durables.

Merit-ocracy

My mother was standing over the dishwasher in our kitchen in 1986. It was a model from the 1950s, one of the wheeled, portable ones you brought over and hooked to the sink tap with a hose. The top-loading machine’s lid had what you might call formica “inlay” in 50s colors with random sparkles embedded. It was meant to be used as a countertop so that the bulky machine wasn’t merely a space-taker in a small kitchen.

My mother was holding a broken clock radio. The digital display had “zeroed out,” showing only 00:00 no matter what time it was.

“Damn it,” she said, exhaling from her Merit Ultra Light 100. “I just bought this a few months ago. There was a time when ‘made in America’ meant something. We used to make the best-quality goods in the world. Whatever you bought you could depend on for a long time. What the hell happened?”

The dishwasher’s faithful service proved her point. The “outdated” 1950s dishwasher still cleaned dishes trouble-free. That was probably the first time I contemplated what it meant to call an appliance “outdated.” Within a few years, it was evident that “outdated” only meant “not in colors the people on TV think are modern.”

The new clock radio made in 1986 couldn’t even give us three months’ service before going kaput. But the 1956 wash-o-matic was whirring its way to clean dishes in May 1986 as well as it did for its first owner during the Eisenhower administration.

New phone, why dis?

How many of your devices or appliances offer such simple, consistent performance? Are you satisfied with your new low-water front-loader and its Byzantine maze of touch-screen “options,” none of which are “wash my clothes in 25 minutes”? How about the repair bill for the chipset when the “smart” computer inside it fails, leaving the perfectly good mechanics idle?

Do you like buying a new phone every few years? Think about that. Do you remember getting a “new phone” all the time 30 years ago? The very idea is absurd. Sure, our telephones in those days were simply and only telephones, not dating machines, compasses, and navigation systems. But are we sure that planned obsolescence in our every-device-in-one-wearable-computer is a lifestyle upgrade?

You can get a new microwave, blender, or vacuum cleaner at Walmart for astoundingly low prices adjusted for inflation. In fact, you can get each of these in multiple versions and colors. But what, specifically and actually, are you getting? Cheap plastic that looks good on a display shelf but that scuffs, cracks, and loses tension-holding shape after a few uses.

And do you need a new microwave? A new vacuum? If you said “yes” to that, are you sure? What is it that you “need” from a new appliance that you’re not getting from the old one? Assuming it’s not broken — and a lot of appliance purchases are made simply to “upgrade” — what’s wrong with your old vacuum?

Be honest. You know that you don’t “need” most of these things. You’re buying them because of free-floating anxiety about keeping up with the Joneses. You want a new microwave and a new vacuum and new stainless-steel-fronted appliances because everyone else’s kitchen looks like this. Despite their inflated claims, the “updated” versions of almost all of these simple mechanicals do nothing different than their ancestors from 50 years ago.

But now they’re ugly and short-lived.

RELATED: Ode to an Electrolux model L

Matt Himes

Sucks to be new

You don’t have to do any of this. In fact, you can live like royalty for almost no money, with all your mechanical and appliance needs met at the contemporary level of convenience and comfort you want.

You can have yesterday’s quality today by buying old, solidly built appliances for a fraction of their price when new. This is how I live. For at least two decades, the only brand-new things that have come into my home are computers and consumables. My furniture, my lighting, my appliances — all of it came from secondhand stores or online auctions.

I made a mistake recently in deviating from that path. When I sold my first house two years ago, I left my late 1970s all-mechanical-dial Kenmore washer and dryer behind. More fool me; as soon as I can use this brand-new modern junk-box General Electric calls a washing machine for shotgun target practice, the better.

Observe. This was my mother’s Electrolux vacuum from the early 1980s:

Josh Slocum

Power everything. Has never broken. If it does, a repair shop makes quick, cheap work of any repair I can’t do. Yes, parts and bags are still made. This machine cost the equivalent of $600 to $1,000 in today’s money when it was new.

This is my working blender. It’s a 1961 Waring “Blendor,” one of the most durable ever made:

Josh Slocum/smartstock/Getty Images

And do admit, it’s got art deco beauty even though it bears the scuff marks of age. Yes, it’s as solid and heavy as it looks. It has all it needs: two speeds and off. The colorful fabric cord is a replacement I put on, as the old one was frayed; all that took was a $5 cord and a Phillips-head screwdriver. $10 at the flea market, $5 for a cord. I spent $15 for a beautiful, indestructible lifetime blender. Yes, the pitcher is glass.

If you’re willing to expand your thinking and put away silly modern fears, you can also have beautiful, practical lighting that gives your home real warmth.

Josh Slocum/elleran/Getty Images

This kerosene lamp would have been found in your home in the late 1880s. It was as common as any electric gooseneck from Ikea today. This model, the New Juno, is now 140 years old and it works as well as the day it left the factory. I paid about $95 for it.

Antique kerosene lighting is my hobby, and I light and heat my home with three to five out of my collection of several dozen throughout the winter. This lamp alone is enough to heat my medium-size living room during a Vermont winter. It’s bright enough to read and work by, and in a pinch, you can cook over it during a power outage if you rig up a trivet. There are no solar panels or cussed digital panels to go wrong. Yes, replacement parts like glass chimneys and wicks are still made.

RELATED: Cold plunge: How I survive winters in the sticks

Mladen Antonov/Getty Images

Seek the antique

My guess is that readers find this pretty appealing even if it’s the first time they’ve considered stocking their homes this way. Once you get over the marketing-inculcated idea that you’re weird or missing out by not having the latest model of this or that, you realize that you can live like a king or queen for almost no money. You can have the same work-saving devices you’re used to. But these will work better for longer.

Aren’t they more charming to look at? When I share pictures of my working home goods on social media, people seem to love it. A common response: “Your house looks like my great-grandma’s!” They mean it as a compliment, and I mean my house to look and feel that way. I think we’re all getting tired of waking up to “updated” homes in Millennial Mortuary Gray and Bare Bones Joanna Gaines Shiplap bulls**t. The sterile field look wears better at the dentist’s office than it does in the den.

I haven’t given anything up. I have all the mod cons that do the same work as any new equipment, but I got them cheaper, they will last longer, and they please the eye. Try it — you may fall in love.

​Appliances, Lifestyle, Planned obsolescence, Smartphones, Electrolux, Home goods, Intervention 

A high school cheerleader who dreamed of becoming a nurse was shot during a party in a wooded area of Alabama. The 18-year-old died after being taken off life support because her gunshot wounds were so severe.

Kimber Mills was a senior at Cleveland High School, where she also ran track.

‘We shouldn’t be burying our little sister.’

Mills was attending a bonfire party over the weekend in a wooded area known as “The Pit,” according to AL.com.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that deputies responded to a report of a shooting in the town of Pinson just before 12:30 a.m. Sunday

“Upon arrival, deputies discovered three victims suffering from apparent gunshot wounds: a 21-year-old male, an 18-year-old male, and an 18-year-old female,” the sheriff’s office stated, adding that all three were taken to area hospitals.

Trussville Police Chief Eric Rush said Mills was shot in the head and the leg.

The sheriff’s office later learned that a fourth shooting victim, a 20-year-old female, had been transported to a hospital in a personal vehicle.

The three surviving victims have non-life-threatening injuries.

Police said the preliminary investigation indicated that a “verbal and physical altercation escalated and resulted in gunfire.”

Kimber’s sister, Ashley Mills, told AL.com that the alleged shooter was trying to talk to one of Kimber’s friends, offering her drinks, and trying to get close to her.

“The girl told her boyfriend, a fight involving multiple people ensued, and shots were fired,” AL.com reported.

Ashley Mills said, “Kimber was caught in the crossfire.”

The sheriff’s office named 27-year-old Steven Tyler Whitehead as the shooter. The suspect remains in custody at the Jefferson County Jail. Whitehead is being held without bond.

Whitehead initially was charged with three counts of attempted murder. However, an additional charge of murder was filed against Whitehead on Wednesday after Mills died.

Image source: Jefferson County (Ala.) Sheriff’s Office

Mills was taken to the University of Alabama Hospital in critical condition, but Ashley Mills said there was “too much trauma to her brain,” and Kimber was placed on a breathing machine.

“There is no surgery that would give her a life worth living,” Ashley said.

But Kimber had already decided to be an organ donor — to give others a chance at life.

“We’ve already got it set up for her to be an organ donor because that’s what she wanted,” Ashley said.

Ashley Mills told WBRC that Kimber’s heart and lungs have already been matched with recipients.

On Tuesday, the hospital staff joined Mills’ family and friends for an Honor Walk — a ceremony during which medical staff line the hallway to honor a patient before being transported to the Legacy of Hope organ center roughly two blocks away.

Kimber’s brother, Michael Mills, led a prayer in the hallway.

“Heavenly Father, thank you Lord for this young woman, my sister, I love her so much Lord,” Michael prayed. “I pray for swift hands of the surgeons, Lord, that we do what needs to be done to save other lives Lord.”

Michael continued. “I pray no fear, no sadness Lord, no hatred. Thank you, Lord, for Kimber. Please protect us in these uncertain times.”

A Legacy of Hope representative told AL.com, “Today we stand in awe of a true hero, giving of themselves so that others may live.”

“May the recipients enjoy restored health and recognize the magnitude of such a rare and remarkable gift,” the spokesperson stated. “Thank you, Kimber, for the life-saving legacy you are leaving behind. We honor you today and always.”

RELATED: Minnesota trooper charged in ‘full throttle’ crash that killed high school cheerleader weeks before graduation

Mills died Tuesday when she was taken off life support, WBRC reported.

“We shouldn’t be burying our little sister. It should be the other way around,” Ashley Mills said. “It’s supposed to go from oldest to youngest not youngest first.”

According to WBRC-TV, Rodney Green, superintendent of Blount County Schools, released the following statement:

Our school district is deeply saddened today to learn of the passing of one of our students, Ms. Kimber Mills. Kimber was a bright, outgoing senior cheerleader for Cleveland High School. Kimber’s smile and infectious personality will certainly be missed, but she will always be remembered. Our heart is burdened for her family and for the impact this will have on the students, faculty, and staff at Cleveland High School. Please keep our Cleveland Family in your thoughts and prayers! I do want to thank everyone that has reached out to this family and supported them during this tragedy.

AL.com reported that Kimber was planning to attend the University of Alabama next year with a dream of becoming a nurse.

A GoFundMe campaign was launched to help support Mills’ family, which cited Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Blaze News.

Anyone with information related to the shooting is urged to contact the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at 205-325-1450 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.

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​Cheerleader, Cheerleader killed, Cheerleader murder, Kimber mills, Murder, Shooting, Crime, Alabama, High school senior, Fatal shooting, Arrest, Organ donation 

President Donald Trump announced late Thursday evening that he was terminating all trade negotiations with Canada.

The president — who struck a positive tone about the northern nation during his meeting earlier this month with Prime Minister Mark Carney and signaled a desire to make a deal on steel, aluminum, and energy — indicated that the decision to nix trade talks was in response to “egregious behavior,” namely the decision by a provincial government to run TV ads critiquing tariffs south of the border.

‘CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!’

“The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs,” wrote Trump. “The ad was for $75,000,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments next month regarding the legality of the tariffs imposed by Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Trump apparently saw the ad earlier in the week, telling reporters on Tuesday, “If I was Canada, I’d take that same ad also. They’re actually on television taking ads.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s office indicated last week that it was spending $75 million on an anti-tariff ad that would air on ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNBC, ESPN, Fox News, NBC, Newsmax, and other networks.

Ford noted on Oct. 16, “It’s official: Ontario’s new advertising campaign in the U.S. has launched. Using every tool we have, we’ll never stop making the case against American tariffs on Canada. The way to prosperity is by working together.”

RELATED: After years of woke land acknowledgments, some Canadian homeowners may soon be evicted

Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Photographer: David Kawai/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The premier, a staunch critic of the raft of high tariffs Trump has imposed on imports from Canada, reportedly suggested to a crowd of Toronto businessmen last week that he was hoping the ad, which contains audio from former President Ronald Reagan’s April 25, 1987, radio address regarding protectionism, would resonate with Republicans.

In his address to the Toronto crowd, Ford cited new research from Yale University’s Budget Lab indicating that “consumers face an overall average effective tariff rate of 18.0%, the highest since 1934,” and that U.S. tariffs and foreign retaliation would cost American families roughly $1,800 a year in lost income.

“That ad — it’s not a nasty ad. It’s actually just very factual,” said Ford. “Coming from a person like Ronald Reagan, every Republican is going to identify that voice.”

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute issued a statement on Thursday, claiming that the ad “misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address, and the Government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks.”

A spokesperson for Ford’s office denied wrongdoing, telling Canadian state media, “The commercial uses an unedited excerpt from one of President Reagan’s public addresses, which is available through public domain.”

Reagan’s remarks in Ford’s ad all hail from the same five-minute speech in which the former president discussed both America’s commitment to free trade and why he felt compelled to impose duties on select Japanese products. Contrary to the suggestion by Ford’s spokesperson, the excerpt of the speech that appears in the 60-second ad has been substantially edited with the apparent intent to drive Ford’s anti-tariff theme. For example:

multiple sentences were cut; one sentence was lifted from its original spot at the outset of the speech and inserted midway through the ad with a “that” apparently swapped out for a “but”;another portion, which originally appeared just before the opening remarks heard in the speech, now appears toward the end of the voice-over; andthe second-last last line of the original speech — “America’s jobs and growth are at stake” — has been moved to serve as a conclusion for the ad.

Below is a transcript of the Reagan voice-over for the ad. The ellipses signal where content was dropped, and those segments lifted from their original context elsewhere in the speech appear in bold:

When someone says, “Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,” it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works — but only for a short time. [But] over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. … High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. … Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world, there’s a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. America’s jobs and growth are at stake.

The foundation indicated it was “reviewing its legal options in this matter” and provided a link to the full speech on YouTube, which is labeled as “unrestricted” for both access and use restrictions.

Trump leaned in to his criticism of Canada and the province’s ad on Friday morning, writing, “CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!! They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY.”

“Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country,” continued Trump. “Canada has long cheated on Tariffs, charging our farmers as much as 400%. Now they, and other countries, can’t take advantage of the U.S. any longer.”

Blaze News has reached out to Premier Ford’s office for comment.

Canadian state media indicated that Carney’s office did not immediately respond to its request for comment.

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​Tariffs, Tariff, Trade, Foreign, Canada, Donald trump, Supreme court, Scotus, Ads, Doug ford, Mark carney, Canadian, Trading, Reagan, Politics 

Not long ago, nearly everyone — Democrats included — agreed that Andrew Cuomo was finished, a despicable scoundrel unfit for public office. As governor of New York, he presided over the deaths of thousands of seniors by forcing nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients. He pushed bail “reform” laws that unleashed violent criminals on the public. And after years of lecturing others about sexism, he resigned in disgrace for allegedly groping female subordinates.

That should have been the end of his political career. It wasn’t.

The conservative establishment’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo exposes what it has become: a protection racket for failed elites.

Now Cuomo is back, running for mayor of New York City, and astonishingly, he’s doing so with the blessing of the so-called conservative establishment. The Murdoch media, Republican megadonor John Catsimatidis, and a parade of Fox News personalities are all urging New Yorkers to cast their ballot for him on Nov. 4. Their justification: Cuomo’s opponent, Zohran Mamdani, is a hundred times worse.

The establishment’s favorite ‘lesser evil’

Mamdani, a self-described socialist and Hamas sympathizer, is undeniably radical. But the hysteria surrounding him has become an all-purpose excuse for elites to rehabilitate Cuomo. We’re told by pundits that electing this pro-Hamas, pro-LGBTQ Marxist from Uganda would unleash terrorists on the city’s Jewish population.

On Fox News this week, Democrat donor Bill Acker and Manhattan rabbi Elliot Cosgrove — who still insists, falsely, that Donald Trump praised Nazis — pleaded with viewers to vote for Cuomo. Moments later, Catsimatidis commanded Republicans to follow Trump’s “endorsement” and support the disgraced ex-governor.

The spectacle would be farcical if it weren’t so cynical: lifelong Democrats and media barons treating Cuomo as the savior of civilization because the alternative offends them more.

The New York Post’s moral collapse

The lowest point came with a New York Post editorial on October 20, which offered Cuomo a backhanded endorsement while smearing his rival Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder who has spent decades fighting crime in New York’s subways.

The Post dismissed Sliwa as an “oddball with a sometimes-shady past and zero experience relevant to running the behemoth that is city government.” The same editorial mocked his animal-welfare activism as proof of eccentricity.

Contemptible doesn’t begin to describe the awfulness of the Post’s inept editorial. What “shady past” is the Post’s editorial board talking about? The editorial didn’t say — perhaps because nothing in Sliwa’s record compares to Cuomo’s documented abuses of office. The paper that once condemned Cuomo as unfit for power now cheers his comeback, pretending that the only alternatives are socialism or sleaze.

Rejecting the real alternative

The irony is that New York had a credible choice all along. Sliwa, a Reagan Republican with a populist streak, ran close behind Cuomo in the primary. He could have united voters across party lines, much as Fiorello La Guardia did in the 1930s, by campaigning on a single theme: restoring safety to a city in decline.

Instead, the city’s plutocrats and media elite sided with the insider they knew. Cuomo belonged to their cocktail circuit; the “oddball” Sliwa didn’t. He talked about crime too much. He didn’t chant “anti-Semite” often enough for their tastes. He simply refused to play their game.

Now, with Mamdani leading in the polls, the same establishment that once excoriated Cuomo has gone into panic mode, insisting that he’s the only bulwark against chaos. The New York Post, in particular, has worked overtime to rebrand him as the city’s last line of defense — conveniently forgetting its own editorials from two years ago calling him corrupt and dangerous.

RELATED: Why Zohran Mamdani will be ‘one of the most catastrophic mayors ever’

Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

What the election reveals

Mamdani’s rhetoric on Israel is reckless, and his support for Hamas is morally obscene. But none of that would give him the power to conduct foreign policy. His real danger lies in domestic policy: dismantling what remains of New York’s police protection, completing the work Cuomo started when he ended cash bail.

If Mamdani wins, the result will be anarchy. But if Cuomo wins, it will be something worse — vindication for a ruling class that believes corruption is preferable to conviction, provided it keeps the right people in power.

The conservative establishment’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo exposes what it has become: a protection racket for failed elites. In the name of “stopping the left,” it now rewards the very figures who wrecked the state in the first place.

New Yorkers don’t have to choose between a Marxist and a predator. They could have chosen the man who actually rides the subway and fights for the normal people who live in the city. They chose not to. And the city will keep getting what its establishment demands — chaos, decay, and the return of the despicable scoundrel they once swore they’d never defend.

​Opinion & analysis, New york city mayoral race, Elliot cosgrove, Bill acker, Andrew cuomo, John catsimatidis, Republicans, Democrats, Marxist, Intifada, Zohran mamdani, Donald trump, Law and order, Curtis sliwa, New york post, Crime, Socialism 

Pick up the “latest” kids’ book these days, and chances are you’ll be met with one or all of the following: a feeble storyline, flat illustrations, and little to no moral value.

Not so, however, when you choose a children’s book by Dr. Matthew Mehan.

‘I want the American family to have something beautiful and lasting. I want their witty-wise love of God, country, and family to be helped along, so to speak, by this book.’

In addition to his career as associate dean and associate professor of government at Hillsdale in D.C., Dr. Mehan has built a remarkable reputation as a children’s author. Each of his books is years in the making, and it shows. The finished products are lasting works of art that resonate deeply with readers.

With this in mind, it came as no surprise when Dr. Mehan was awarded one of just five 2025 Innovation Prizes from the Heritage Foundation this summer. The awards are designed to support “innovative projects … that prepare the American public to celebrate our nation’s Semiquincentennial by elevating our founding principles, educating our citizens, and inspiring patriotism.”

Dr. Mehan is putting his prize — as well as a recently awarded NEH grant — toward a collection of fables, tentatively titled “The American Family’s Book of Fables.” The book is for all ages, not just kids, and will work through the Declaration of Independence phrase by phrase, supporting and expounding the founding document with an assortment of fables, dialogues, and poems touching on American history, culture, and wildlife.

This week, Dr. Mehan was kind enough to sit down with me to discuss his forthcoming book as well as the history of children’s literature in America.

Faye Root: Could you start by telling me a bit about your background and what inspired you to write children’s and family literature?

Matthew Mehan: I’ve always been interested in creative writing since I was a child. I wrote poetry and short stories, doodled and drew. After college, I published some poems and short stories in a few places.

But I also studied a lot of the great writers, and I noticed they were always practicing the rhetorical arts so that they could be good communicators — be of service. Guys like Cicero, Seneca, Thomas More, Chaucer, Madison, Adams. I started practicing different kinds of writing every night after work, and I started writing these poems about different sorts of imaginary beasts — fables in imitation of Socrates from Plato’s “Phaedo.” At the very end of his life, Socrates was turning Aesop’s Fables into poetic verse.

And that became the seed of my first kids’ book, “Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals.” I went back for a master’s in English and a Ph.D. in literature. I realized I probably needed to find a genre that doesn’t expect this kind of literary public service. Children’s literature seemed like a really great place to do this. And then I started having kids as well, and I didn’t like what we were doing in the kid lit space.

RELATED: In memory of Charlie Kirk

Leigh Brown

FR: Couldn’t agree more. My congratulations on your Heritage Foundation Innovation Prize. Your book will be a collection of fables — could you tell me about it?

MM: The book is a direct attempt to celebrate the Semiquincentennial and to teach and reteach the Western tradition and the American principles and people. It’s folk stories and traditions: “Here’s what it means to be an American. Here’s what you should love about America. Here — get to know America.”

It’s divided into 13 parts and works sentence by sentence through the entire Declaration of Independence. Inside each of the 13 sections are three subsections: one for littles, one for middles, and one for bigs. Each of these are tied to an explanation of what that related portion of the Declaration means. The third engine of each of the 13 sections takes you to a different ecological region of the country.

So it’s not just the principles of the Semiquincentennial and the Declaration. It’s also the people and the stories and the wildlife, the beautiful countryside, and all the animals and creatures God gave us.

The whole book follows one particular funny fellow, Hugh Manatee, who starts in the Everglades, and he transports his heavy bulk by all various manners of technological, very American developments around the entire country.

I wanted a book that a family can engage with no matter their level. And it’s designed to be a big heirloom book for the American family to last a long time — 250 years until the 500th anniversary.

FR: Could you talk a bit more about the importance of fables in American history and how the founding generation viewed and used them?

MM: The answer is, they used them just constantly. The fable tradition goes as far back as Solomon, who uses it in the Old Testament. It’s part of our Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman Western tradition. In fact, kind of a theme of the book is bringing back Roman Republicanism. The beast-fable tradition is very much a part of that self-governing Republican spirit. The founders knew this.

And then you have the fables of the medieval Bestiary, the early moderns, and all the way up to the last major attempt: L’Estrange, whose works were in the library of all the founding fathers. A lot of them also had Caxton. We’re talking 1490s and 1700s. So they’re definitely due for an American upgrade.

A page from “Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals.” mythicalmammals.com

FR: Your book “Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals” is an abecedarian. Could you explain what an abecedarian is?

MM: An abecedarian is basically just a fancy word for an ABC book where the structure is not complicated. There’s an A-word, and then some kind of poem or story, a B-word, and then a poem or story, etc.

I did it as a kind of nod to Chaucer, whose first published work of all time was an abecedarian. It was a good, simple structure. I could do the letter blocks for the little people, and each one of the letter blocks had funny alliterative tricks. These and the illustrations were very fun for littles. But then there was higher matter happening, both in some of the poems and the glossary for the adults. So there was sort of deeper matter for adults to seize on to.

For this new book, I’ve broken it out. I’m being more American, more candid, so it’s clear: This part’s for littles, that part’s for middles, that other part’s for bigs.

FR: In your article “Restoring America’s Founding Imagination,” you mention that “children’s imaginations were not coddled in our founders’ time.” Could you speak more about that?

MM: Think, for instance, of “Grimms’ Fairy Tales.” In these fables, a stepmother might cut off the hands of a child and put stone hands in place, right? “Fancy Nancy” books can’t handle that level of violence. But children had to deal with really rough things then. Rough times called them out of their doldrums to attention.

Now, I’m not going to go quite full Brothers Grimm-level gruesome with this book. But there are things, especially in the “Bigs” sections, that go wrong, that are serious. Explorers get burned at the stake. Someone takes an arrow in the sternum. People get shot and killed at Bunker Hill. If you read the school books of the founding period, they’re just not messing around. People die because they’re foolish, and yes, even kids can die.

Illustration from “The Handsome Little Cygnet.” John Folley

You’ve got to be gentle, careful, thoughtful. I try to be measured. But there’s got to be ways of introducing these themes to help children be adults. I think a lot of what happens in modern kid lit — why it’s not deep, why it’s not serious, or rich, or lasting — is because it’s so saccharine. It’s not written to call children up to something more.

And you can do that in a very fun, wacky, hilarious, enjoyable way. I try to do that. But I’m trying to mix in that there’s a moral here. It’s a different mentality than most of children’s books today, but it’s much more in keeping with our founding generation and the kind of moral seriousness combined with levity that sustains a witty-wise Republican citizenry. And I think the American audience is really starving for this kind of very moral, witty-wise book.

FR: You emphasize the importance of wit and wisdom in your work. Specifically, why does wit matter, and what role did it play in shaping America’s early identity?

MM: In a certain sense, wit is a virtue. To be witty is to have a certain kind of pleasant humor that can manipulate language, situations — turn them on their head, get people to see something different. And that makes people laugh because mental surprises are actually the source of laughter. Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” talks about wittiness this way — as playfulness.

Wit also means being “quick” in that sense of being adroit. Adroitness is actually a constituent part of the virtue of prudence — that sort of ability to take a problem and think about it in an adroit or adept way and quickly. That’s actually required for prudence.

In fact, the word “wit” in Latin means genius — to grasp something and see: “That’s what we should do.” It’s that sort of clever ability to take care of your business, to be able to say, “No, I can handle this. I can think this through. I can puzzle it out. I can come up with a solution. I can invent a new idea.” Think American invention, flight, jazz, computers.

Wit is a creative energy of the imagination and the mind that helps one to rise in this world. Obviously, that has to be wed to principle, to piety, and to the higher things that cannot be compromised, the unchanging things. That marriage of wit and wisdom was something that our founding fathers knew must be done and must be done in each of us.

FR: Finally, could you talk about the illustrations in your upcoming book?

MM: Yes, my dear friend John Folley is a realist impressionist — a classically trained artist. His work mirrors both the realist classical style with some new techniques in Impressionism — particularly playing with light and the heft and weight that light creates.

John Folley at work. Mythicalmammals.com

He makes beautiful oil paintings, which he did for “Mehan’s Mammals.” But he also uses a lot of the same principles in watercolor.

For this book, he’s going to do a combination of all of the types of art we’ve done before. We’ll have 13 major oils that introduce the animals and themes and the ecological areas of the country for each of the 13 parts. And probably one other oil: an American image of wit and wisdom and how Americans ought to pursue it.

And then we’ll have all kinds of pen and ink, computer color, watercolor, a lot of different little images basically populating the rest of the book. It’s going to be a very beautiful, hardback heirloom book. I want the American family to have something beautiful and lasting. I want their witty-wise love of God, country, and family to be helped along, so to speak, by this book.

—

“The American Family’s Book of Fables” is planned for release in May 2026 and will be available everywhere books are sold. Dr. Mehan will follow publication with a national book tour, culminating with the July 4 Semiquincentennial celebrations. For more information, keep an eye on his website.

Also be sure to check out two of Dr. Mehan’s other beloved children’s books: “Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals” and “The Handsome Little Cygnet.”

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

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New York police say they are investigating the bizarre death of a Long Island woman by chemical burn as a homicide.

Nassau County police said they were called on a welfare check on Friday to the woman’s residence on Larch Drive in Herricks at about 3:52 p.m. on Friday.

‘It is bizarre. It’s heartbreaking. I feel so sorry for the woman, even though I don’t know her.’

Police said they found Aleena Asif unconscious and not breathing. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The 46-year-old was found with burns to her face that were determined to be chemical in nature.

A medical examiner determined that she died from asphyxiation from the chemical.

Residents from the neighborhood in Nassau County told WABC-TV that the area is very quiet and they were shocked by the incident.

“It is bizarre. It’s heartbreaking,” said Danielle Palermo, a resident in the neighborhood. “I feel so sorry for the woman, even though I don’t know her.”

Neighbors said they rarely saw Asif outside the home, but they believe she had children.

RELATED: Body of 6-year-old girl found stuffed in a 10-gallon bucket on her mother’s lawn. Police arrest girlfriend of the child’s father.

“Why? Who killed her?” Barbara Capone asked. “Why? There’s gotta be a story behind it.”

Police said the medical examiner will conduct further testing in the investigation.

The investigation is ongoing, and police are asking the public for any information they might have about the woman’s death.

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​Chemical burns death, Asphyxiation death, Aleena asif, Long island crime, Crime 

The Oak Lawn United Methodist Church sits in a neighborhood deemed the “gayborhood” in Dallas, Texas — and after Governor Greg Abbott’s recent order demanding that Texas cities remove political symbols from the roadway, the church decided to take a stand.

The church now features a freshly painted rainbow cascading down the church’s front steps, a public display of support for the large LGBTQ community.

“We see this as a bold statement,” senior pastor Rachel Griffin-Allison said.

The governor declared in a press release earlier this month that the Texas Department of Transportation would be removing all symbols, flags, or other markings that promote social, political, or ideological messages — emphasizing that taxpayer dollars should never be used to promote them.

The governor went on to say that any city that refuses to comply with the federal road standards will face consequences, including the withholding or denial of state and federal road funding.

“That word, ‘gayborhood,’” “Pat Gray Unleashed” executive producer Keith Malinak comments, “if someone on the right had coined that, it would have been a slur.”

“The word ‘queer’ used to be a problem, and now it’s totally accepted,” Pat Gray says.

“I’m glad they’re welcoming and inclusive; that’s terrific,” he adds.

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Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

RELATED: Antifa is what you get when cowards run civilization

Photo by Julia Beverly/Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

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​Opinion & analysis, Media bias, Donald trump, Melania trump, East wing, Ballroom, White house, History, Preservation, Restoration, Destruction, Desecration, Jackie kennedy, Harry truman, Franklin delano roosevelt, Nancy reagan, Outrage 

President Donald Trump’s plan to build a grand new White House ballroom is underway, and the media and celebrity class have melted down into unhinged hysterics, per usual.

In a segment on “The View,” former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre resurfaced to join the madness, telling the always-rational panel that “the people’s house is basically being sold to the highest bidder.”

“It is corruption at its core. And I heard someone say this when I was backstage. It could not be, there’s no greater metaphor right now than what’s happening right now in this country than watching Donald Trump take a wrecking ball to the White House,” she added.

“But why do they let him get away with it? He has all of these people who just let him get away with whatever he wants to do,” Joy Behar chimed in.

“That’s what he’s been doing for the nine, ten months, like the powers that are in the D.C. are not standing up. They’re acting as if they’re powerless … like no, you all have power. You all have power. Do something with it,” Jean-Pierre added.

“I will note,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere says on “Stu Does America,” “for a woman who constantly read every single answer she gave while she was in the White House and was the press secretary, you have to love her saying that she heard her point that she made on ‘The View’ from someone backstage, proving she’s never had an original thought in her entire life.”

Maria Shriver also weighed in on Trump’s renovation, writing in a post on X: “This breaks my heart and it infuriates me. Hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new ballroom. Good god.”

“Someone who just knows frugality,” Burguiere jokes.

However, the bill for the renovations is not being laid at the taxpayers feet, rather, it’s all privately donated — which is why the construction has continued despite the government shutdown.

“All the reporters that normally would be complaining about the shutdown because Republicans were responsible for it now have nothing to do because they can’t complain about the Democratic shutdown. So they’re just going to take pictures of the White House and complain about that,” Stu says.

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According to the DHS Privacy Office report, the Federal Emergency Management Agency under the Biden administration did not just mishandle a few cases — they secretly blacklisted conservatives and lowered their priority when it came to assistance.

“They tracked Americans, their political and religious beliefs, during disasters — not in theory, in black and white,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck says on “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“When these people were flooded, they were homeless, they were desperate, and asked for help from the same government that preaches compassion and equity, they got something entirely different. They got silence, delay, and sometimes nothing at all,” he continues.

According to the DHS report, “FEMA violated the Privacy Act of 1974 by collecting and storing data tied to protected speech.”

“They were checking bumper stickers and writing you down in a book. They logged gun signage 72 times, Trump 15 times, firearms 5 times, Biden twice,” Glenn says.

“Now it has been proven. FEMA workers skipped homes if you had a MAGA flag or a yard sign. And then they left notes,” he continues, quoting one of the workers’ notes: “‘There was a political flyer … so I didn’t leave a FEMA brochure.’”

Another quote from their notes reads: “‘We don’t recommend anyone visit this location.’”

“That’s not a clerical error here. That’s a blacklist. This is the same agency that airlifts people off of rooftops after hurricanes, that distributes food and shelter when nothing else works. And they were told to avoid Americans because of who they voted for. Not terrorists, not criminals, citizens,” Glenn says.

“I will tell you,” he continues, “I have been in disaster after disaster. … I have shown up at the hurricanes and the floods and the tornadoes with help. And not once did it even occur to me to ask you, ‘What’s your political affiliation?'”

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