Category: blaze media

Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) has made no secret of the impact that Jim Rigby, the pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, has had on his thinking.

Talarico, the Texas Democrat now battling state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) for a seat in the U.S. Senate, told the New York Times, for instance, that Rigby was one of “the biggest influences on [him] as a Christian, as a human being.”

‘This false shepherd managed to deny virtually every key doctrine of Christianity in less than two minutes.’

“He is my pastor in every sense of the word,” added Talarico, a part-time Presbyterian seminarian who has fought to keep the Bible out of school; attempted to use Scripture to justify abortion; taken money from an associate of dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein; concern-mongered about traditional Christian views; and voted against sparing kids from sex-rejection mutilations.

Hidden-camera footage exclusively obtained by Blaze News appears to show that the pastor who shaped Talarico’s worldview doesn’t think too highly of evangelical Christians.

In a video dated Aug. 30, Rigby was asked by a person off-camera, “What’s wrong with evangelical Christians? Like, how do they read what they read, they claim what they claim?”

RELATED: Talarico’s pivot from ‘God is nonbinary’ is all just an act, admits minister at his church

The woke pastor says in response, according to the video, “My guess is that they’re people who are just not that smart in, like, abstract thinking, which is where a lot of the liberal stuff and the principles of human rights and all that stuff comes up — it’s like they just, it doesn’t show up on their radar.”

“They panic when that stuff is laid out in front of them,” Rigby stated further, according to the video. “They know there’s something they’re not seeing. It’s like they have black and white vision and somebody’s showing them [a] color photograph or something like that.”

Rigby appears to believe that President Donald Trump and even Adolf Hitler have exploited evangelicals and their allegedly simple way of thinking for political gain, claiming in the video that “what Hitler did and what Trump is doing is play off of that.”

The purported Christian pastor apparently complained further about evangelicals’ beliefs in the supernatural, specifically in hell, angels, and demons, suggesting that such beliefs are irrational.

“The church is a huge part of the problem — teaching people from the cradle that things are true because you believe them,” Rigby says, according to the video.

“A belief in hell shuts everything down, because when you think that you could be tortured for all eternity, and you believe in demons and angels and stuff like this, you can’t stay rational for long.”

Rigby adds, according to the video, “If you think that supernatural beings are affecting things, good logic wouldn’t make any sense.”

According to the most recent Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Study, 27% of adults in Texas identify as evangelical Protestants.

Evangelicals are, however, hardly the only Christians who believe in the existence of hell, angels, and demons.

A 2021 Pew survey found that 62% of all American adults and 69% of all American Christians believe in hell. A 2023 Gallup survey found that 69% of Americans believe in angels and 58% believe in the devil.

“It’s not surprising an open and avowed heretic like James Talarico goes to a church led by fellow heretics,” BlazeTV host Steve Deace said in a statement to Blaze News, after reviewing the footage. “What is surprising, though, is how this false shepherd managed to deny virtually every key doctrine of Christianity in less than two minutes.”

“You have to be really committed to doctrines of demons and detesting Christ and His Word to display that level of deception masquerading as conviction,” added Deace.

RELATED: UNDERCOVER VIDEO: ‘Shady as f**k’ scheme paid people to vote for Talarico in ’roundabout way,’ Soros PAC leader caught admitting

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Rigby has issued plenty of other remarks that Talarico might want to distance himself from in the final months of his campaign. The pastor, who expressed hope that Talarico would follow in his footsteps at St. Andrew’s, has, for instance, made headlines for calling for a “true jihad” at a pro-Palestine rally; rejected belief in a literal resurrection; repeatedly cast doubt on whether Christ rose from the dead; emphasized that he doesn’t “believe Christianity is the only way, or even the best way for many people”; and expressed discomfort with the use of the word “God.”

Rigby and the Talarico campaign did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News.

While supportive of Talarico, his message, and his candidacy, Rigby noted earlier this year, “I do not speak for him and he owes no one an explanation for things I have said.”

Despite noting that they do not speak with one voice, Rigby’s influence on Talarico is unmistakable — particularly in his eagerness to criticize Christians and mainstream Christianity.

Talarico noted, for example, in a March 2021 episode of the “Activist Theology” podcast that despite always getting “drawn back” in, “I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.”

Paxton has stressed that Talarico “is a threat to our values, our way of life, and the future of Texas.”

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​Christ, Christianity, Donald trump, James talarico, Ken paxton, Steve deace, Us senate, God, Jim rigby, Austin, Presbyterian, Evangelical, Faith, Politics 

An individual identified by the Department of Homeland Security as an illegal alien from Venezuela was shot on Sunday during an immigration enforcement operation in Austin, Texas.

Democratic officials and the liberal media rushed to vilify Immigration and Customs Enforcement and characterize 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez as a victim who has been subjected to inhumane treatment at the hands of federal authorities.

‘He entered illegally under the Biden Administration.’

The DHS has, however, cast doubt on the veracity of the anti-ICE crowd’s various claims regarding Perez’s case.

“Sanctuary politicians and the mainstream media have wasted no time in spreading lies about an ICE officer-involved shooting of an illegal alien in Austin, Texas,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement.

“Contrary to their claims, this person is an illegal alien who has no legal status to be here and has been given some of the best medical care he’s ever received in his life,” continued Mullin. “No amount of smears and false narratives will slow down ICE from doing its job by removing dangerous illegal aliens from our communities and making America safe again.”

The DHS fact-checked numerous claims that have been advanced by Democrats and/or the liberal media since the incident.

RELATED: Texas shuts down rioters, Democrats fan the flames after ICE shooting

Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro (D) and multiple news outlets pushed the claim by Perez’s immigration attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, that the Venezuelan was issued a work permit.

The DHS countered that Perez’s “work permit expired in 2025” and noted that “a work permit does NOT grant legal status.”

As for Goldfinch’s complaint that Perez was ordered removed in absentia, the DHS replied, “Yes. This is why aliens must show up to their removal proceedings. Legal obligations do not end because someone’s address changed.”

The DHS similarly rejected the suggestion by Castro and others that Perez lawfully entered the United States and is here legally, stating, “He entered illegally under the Biden administration. The illegal alien had no valid work permit, had no protective status, and had a final order of removal from a Department of Justice (DOJ) Immigration Judge.”

In a letter to Sec. Mullin dated Tuesday, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and about 100 other Democratic lawmakers also claimed that Perez “is not receiving the care he needs in detention,” has received no pain medication, and was forced to sleep on the floor.

The DHS said instead that Perez “is receiving medical care around the clock, including pain medication,” and that he “was released from the hospital and arrived at the detention facility just a few hours later, where he slept on a bed.”

Democrats further claimed in the letter that “there is no indication Mr. Garces Perez posed a threat to officers.” However, newly released footage appears to show a car matching the description of Perez’s vehicle speeding away from law enforcement.

“Resisting officers and evading arrest is dangerous for our officers, illegal aliens, and the public,” said the DHS. “We remind the public that resisting officers and evading arrest is a felony and a federal crime.”

His translator at a news conference Monday said, “He asked the ICE officer if he could please at least pull over so that they could detain him. They said no, and they side-swiped him, basically. He did a U-turn to try and find a spot to park so that he could go with them, and they basically ran into him and then shot him.”

Perez is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 30 in connection to his attorney’s effort to challenge his deportation.

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​Democrats, Illegal alien, Markwayne mullin, Venezuela, Deportation, Politics, Immigration and customs enforcement, Texas 

President Donald Trump routinely catches flack both for acknowledging the vulnerabilities of American elections and for taking steps to ensure that citizens’ votes are properly cast, received, and counted.

While Democrats and the liberal media like to pretend that the president is off base and that “American elections are safe and secure,” evidence to the contrary continues to mount.

‘Ballot integrity is not a partisan issue.’

On Tuesday, a former letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service was arrested for allegedly singling out, then dumping hundreds of mail-in ballots at the beginning of his shift on June 3.

Damon Matai Seei, a 34-year-old resident of Payson, Utah, was reportedly covering a colleague’s mail route and tasked with delivering at least 300 mail-in ballots to Americans in the Eagle Mountain area so they could vote in the June 23 primary election.

The detention memo alleges that Seei admitted to chucking the ballots in a dumpster outside a church because he wanted to “lighten his workload” in order to go home earlier.

As the result of the alleged ballot dump, some voters were unable to vote in the election, said the detention memo.

The incident came to light after numerous voters in the Eagle Mountain area complained to Utah County Clerk Aaron Davidson about not receiving their mail-in ballots.

RELATED: Surprise! The midterms are already happening

The dumpster in the Utah church parking lot. Justice Department.

Davidson investigated the matter and discovered that voter participation in the area “was remarkably low,” said the detention memo. An estimated 304 registered voters in the area never received their ballots.

USPS records helped identify which day the mail-in ballots were supposed to be delivered and by whom.

Seei is accused of driving to a church parking lot that wasn’t on his route roughly 1.5 hours into his June 3 shift, discarding mail into the dumpster, then clocking out of work three hours later.

The ex-postman allegedly suggested to investigators that he was motivated by sloth, not politics, claiming he is not a “very political person” and did not intend to “disrupt any political process.”

While Seei allegedly told investigators he just wanted to “get rid of advertisement mail,” the detention memo claims that he admitted to setting aside the mail-in ballots at the beginning of his shift.

The ex-postman has been charged with one count of unlawful secretion, destruction, and delay of mail.

If convicted, Seei could face up to five years in prison and/or a hefty fine. His next court appearance is set for Nov. 30. It is unclear when he left the USPS and under what circumstances.

Blaze News has reached out to the USPS and the Utah Federal Public Defender for comment.

“When the defendant allegedly threw away the mail he was entrusted to deliver, he also threw away the chance for those citizens to exercise their right to vote,” U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak for the District of Utah said in a statement.

“When American voters lawfully cast their vote, they should feel confident that it is counted,” said acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. “Allegedly throwing away hundreds of ballots is a serious federal crime that undermines the integrity of our elections. Ballot integrity is not a partisan issue.”

During a press conference about the case on Tuesday, McCotter highlighted a USPS rule issued pursuant to Trump’s March election executive order that “would have required mail-in ballots to have special tracking and design features.”

“Unfortunately, but entirely predictably, that regulation was blocked by a judge in Massachusetts,” continued McCotter. “In fact, she blocked the rule before it was even issued. That was reversed, but she issued another injunction. And the litigation extended for so long that that regulation will not go into effect before the ’26 midterms.”

McCotter appears to have been referring to U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani.

The deputy AG added on X, “It’s a real shame that the courts blocked a commonsense USPS regulation that would have required enhanced tracking for mail-in ballots. It would have ensured that ballots stay out of the wrong hands — and also end up where they belong. Alas.”

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​Donald trump, Us postal service, Mail-in ballots, Election fraud, Voter fraud, Midterm election, Utah, Justice department, Politics 

If you disagree with a leftist, chances are you’ll be called a Nazi — and J.K. Rowling is no stranger to the now common, and thus meaningless, insult.

Her latest attacker is the transgender Lilly Wachowski, co-director of “The Matrix,” who accused the “Harry Potter” author of being a “literal Nazi.”

BlazeTV host Pat Gray explains that Wachowski is “upset with J.K. Rowling because J.K. Rowling doesn’t think that trans teens should have hormone blockers.”

“They shouldn’t have surgery to remove body parts. They shouldn’t have life-altering changes done to their body, which is still in the process of changing,” he says.

“Hang out for a while in that skin and see what happens,” he adds.

“These people are Nazis. They’re literal Nazis,” Wachowski had said in an interview with Variety after being asked about Rowling and Elon Musk.

“The Nazis, that you have taken to calling J.K. Rowling,” executive producer Keith Malinak chimes in, “they actually did butcher and experimented on people in concentration camps.”

“People like you,” Gray adds.

Wachowski went on to say that Rowling is “funding trans genocide.”

“So if you support Harry Potter, you’re supporting trans genocide,” Wachowski added.

“So the author of ‘Harry Potter’ is actually paying people to murder transgenders?” Gray says.

“If that’s the case, she should be arrested, tried, and probably convicted,” he continues.

“The rhetoric coming from these extreme left-wing psychos is just so butt-stupid you can’t put it into words,” he 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.

​Harry potter, Jk rowling, Lilly wachowski, Nazi, Pat gray, Transgender, Blazetv show 

Love him or loathe him, but one thing is certain about Vice President JD Vance: He’s one of the most unique and bold political figures we’ve seen in the modern era.

And this proclamation has nothing to do with his tenor, tone, or party proclivities. Amid the normal cacophony of political chaos, Vance has offered a remarkably consistent narrative — an open discussion of evil, the demonic, and even aliens — that we have never quite seen from a sitting politician.

Vance paraphrased a claim first popularized by French poet Charles Baudelaire — “the devil’s great trick is to convince people he never existed.”

We have certainly not observed it in a vice president, arguably the second-most powerful position in the entire world. Typically, people in such prominent roles are intensely buttoned up and even pretentious, watching every word and making carefully crafted proclamations.

Personal encounters

But Vance has taken a starkly different route, specifically when it comes to conversations about combustible and seemingly bizarre topics like aliens, demons, and evil.

Rather than treating these matters as too ethereal to discuss in the mainstream, he has been talking about them with relative ease. Vance has discussed evil in broad terms, and he has even said he feels it personally in his role as vice president.

Most recently, he told influencer Bryce Crawford that he has sensed spiritual darkness from various world leaders. For the typical, run-of-the-mill politician, any question about evil would most certainly be met with a secular and safe response. But Vance went much deeper.

“People that are around you sometimes give you a very, very bad feeling,” the vice president told Crawford. “Definitely, I’ve been in meetings with world leaders where various issues are being discussed, and somebody will say something or somebody will make an observation, and I will feel a certain darkness about it.”

Vance continued, “It sort of sets off every spiritual alarm bell in my body.”

He also went on to say that there are even locations like Gettysburg, where past history with the Civil War and death has led him to feel “a very dark spiritual energy.”

Aliens … or demons?

This was hardly the first time Vance dove headfirst into such conversations, with intentionality and ease.

Earlier this year, conservative commentator Benny Johnson asked the vice president about the UFO files, and the conversation took some fascinating turns, veering into Vance’s personal perspective about the origins and nature of aliens and unidentified flying objects.

“I don’t think they’re aliens,” Vance said of supposed extraterrestrials. “I think they’re demons anyway.”

When pressed further, Vance dove deeper into his personal explanation for what is truly happening behind so many alien claims that keep making their way into the mainstream.

“I think that celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people — I think that the desire to describe everything celestial … to describe it as aliens — I mean, every great world religion, including Christianity, the one that I believe in, has understood that there are weird things out there, and there are things that are very difficult to explain,” Vance said.

“And I naturally go — when I hear about, sort of, extra-natural phenomenon — that’s where I go to is the Christian understanding that, you know, there’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also some evil out there.”

Vance paraphrased a claim first popularized by French poet Charles Baudelaire — “the devil’s great trick is to convince people he never existed.”

RELATED: Evil unmasked: How Charlie Kirk’s murder exposed a diabolical spiritual war

MELISSA MAJCHRZAK/AFP/Getty Images

Spiritual warfare

A few months later, Vance again tackled the topic with podcaster Joe Rogan, further arguing that he believes what many perceive as aliens are actually demonic entities.

“Just because I believe in the supernatural doesn’t mean I believe in everything supernatural,” he said. “But if we’re talking about an extraterrestrial being that is human-like but not human, that contains effectively infinite powers and is torturing human beings, you can call it an alien if you want.”

And Vance wasn’t done there. He added, “But I think there’s a lot of historical precedent to call that a demon.”

The vice president’s conversations have been truly remarkable, considering few politicians would ever be caught opining about such matters. He’s probably the most outspoken vice president in history — and certainly the most outspoken in modern times — on matters of spiritual warfare and evil.

There are a few compelling reasons that this deeply matters. In a world where people are hyper-obsessed with the material, Vance is open to fully understanding spiritual matters that are very likely impacting our culture and world.

And if those matters are impacting our world, we are left wondering how we can possibly confront, fix, or heal anything if we reject the notion that a spiritual component is at play.

Vance not only considers these issues, but he is also actively opening up a conversation about them. He deserves a lot of credit for acknowledging the spiritual war so many others have chosen to ignore.

​Aliens, Demonic, Extraterrestrials, Jd vance, Joe rogan, Lifestyle, Spiritual warfare, Ufos, Vice president, Ufo files, Christianity, Catholicism, Faith 

You may not realize it, but Americans are already voting in the 2026 midterm elections.

Four states have already opened in-person voting. Within two weeks, at least 12 states will begin welcoming early and mail-in votes.

‘The 2026 election begins now.’

Virginia, Minnesota, and South Dakota opened their ballot boxes statewide on Friday. Vermont law states that all ballots must be mailed by Oct. 1, and the process begins by Sept. 21. Illinois is rolling out on Thursday, but only in particular polling places.

By Oct. 7, many more will be joining them.

Maine, Nebraska, Indiana, New Mexico, Ohio, Wyoming, and Arizona open their early voting periods between Oct. 4 and 7.

There are two fundamental categories of pre-Election Day ballot-casting: true early voting and in-person absentee voting.

In true early voting states, voters deposit an anonymous ballot directly into a tabulator or sealed box. This is how votes are received by polling places on Election Day. Voters’ names are recorded in poll books to thwart attempts at double voting.

RELATED: Deadlines are fast approaching on Trump’s mail-in ballot initiatives as election season begins

Mehmet Eser/Anadolu/Getty Images

Under the alternative in-person absentee voting model, voters fill out a mail ballot at the polling place, seal it in a named envelope, and hand it over to the clerk. That envelope is later cured, accepted, or rejected.

The curing process allows voters to fix envelope defects, such as mismatched signatures compared to voter registration files, absent ID numbers, and so on. If the incongruities are not amended by a given deadline, the ballot is discarded.

Despite their misgivings, conservative groups are embracing the early voting period to mobilize their base and win over new voters.

“2024 taught us that we no longer have Election Day in America,” Citizens Alliance CEO Cliff Maloney told Blaze News. “It’s not election weekend, election week, or even election month. Now the standard is ‘election season.'”

“Vote-by-mail ballots are now out in many battleground states,” Maloney continued. “Citizens Alliance is competing toe to toe with the Democrats to make sure that every single Republican ballot is returned. The 2026 election begins now.”

Democratic state parties treat the early voting period as a time to maximize their base’s turnout. From early-vote weekends to ballot-chasing, Democrats gather as many votes as possible before Election Day.

“Vote early in person,” DNC Vice Chair Jane Kleeb told NBC News. “Go to your county election office and vote early in person.”

Earlier in 2026, the Trump administration sought to secure mail-in and early voting systems across the country after supporters became concerned noncitizens were voting.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March directing the United States Postal Service to impose new restrictions on mail-in ballots. The order also instructed the Department of Homeland Security to compile state voter data, including citizenship status.

“The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s gone on. It’s very clearly covered. … I think this will help a lot with elections,” Trump said when signing the order.

Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked key portions of that order from taking effect, and a lengthy legal battle ensued. The Supreme Court declined to lift her injunction on Sept. 14, citing timeline concerns.

Despite those obstacles, Maloney believes it is incumbent upon conservatives to vociferously engage in get-out-the-vote efforts during the early voting period.

“At Citizens Alliance, our motto is ‘doors win wars,’ and we’re using that tactic right now to create real impact,” Maloney told Blaze News. “We must beat the Democrats at their own game and fight fire with fire to win.”

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​Absentee voting, Early voting, Midterm elections, Polling places, Voting, Politics 

President Donald Trump will greet Chinese President Xi Jinping personally when his plane lands at Joint Base Andrews for the start of his historic state visit.

The trip on Wednesday will be the first state visit for Xi in the U.S. for over a decade.

‘This is a very tough ticket for me. I’ve told a lot of very good friends of mine, “You just can’t come.”‘

The main portion of the visit will begin Thursday at an arrival ceremony on the State Floor of the White House when Trump and first lady Melania Trump will greet Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan.

The first lady and Xi’s wife will have a separate engagement from the presidents.

Later the Chinese president and his wife will be the guests of honor at a state dinner in the East Room with Trump and the first lady. Both presidents will give remarks at the dinner.

“Thousands of people would love to be at that dinner,” said Trump to reporters at the White House Friday.

“This is a very tough ticket for me,” he added. “I’ve told a lot of very good friends of mine, ‘you just can’t come.'”

Among those that are invited to the state dinner are Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Google, Sam Altman of OpenAI, as well as Tim Cook formerly of Apple.

At the end of the ceremony, a B-2 Spirit bomber and four F-22 Raptors will reportedly conduct a flyover.

The Trumps will also later give Xi and his wife a tour of the National Archives.

RELATED: Trump claims ‘incompetent’ Minnesota responsible for cyberattacks, not Iran

Critics of the communist government in China point to China’s aggressive posture in the South China Sea as one of the country’s most provocative actions.

Xi’s last state visit to the U.S. was in Sept. 2015 during the last term of former President Barack Obama.

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​Chinese president xi jinping, Elon musk, First lady melania trump, President donald trump, State visit, White house, Politics 

On July 31, 2026, a buddy of mine whom I’ve had on my podcast, a fellow trucker who really put down the miles and kept this country fed, turned over his last mile and passed on to the great truck stop in the sky.

Kevin Kenneth Koehnke died as he lived, out on the road and working, a lifestyle he hardly strayed from in his four decades over the road. Kevin had some kind of health episode immediately after completing a delivery in San Jose, California. An ambulance came to get him from his customer’s driveway, and he didn’t make it to the hospital. Kevin was only 64 years old.

‘Awww, when I got to the yard, they had a hot load going down to Pennsylvania and they asked me to go, so I took it. Sorry, Gordo.’

Man of many hats

I came to know Kevin, like so many other people in my life these days, from the internet. At some point a few years ago, selfies Kevin was posting on Facebook began to be copied and were circulated around various corners of the internet, often with commentary attached written by posters who were imagining what someone who looked like Kevin would say, and were congruous with the custom-made trucker caps that Kevin had become known for.

Kevin Koehnke

There was an incongruity to Kevin’s habit of printing these hats, which come off as abrasive and unnecessarily inflammatory to some; by all accounts, Kevin was a very warm and talkative guy who really liked people and had friends all over the country. There is an innocent quality to these photos that Kevin took of himself that I believe connected with people at a deeper level than the sort of online meme legend that grew around him. That said, the memes followed the messaging on the hats, and once unleashed on Twitter, they touched a particular nerve.

x.com/Tha_Big_Dog

x.com/Tha_Big_Dog

x.com/Tha_Big_Dog

Conversation with a ‘Bub’

I’m a follower and friend of the poster “Big Sib,” who first introduced me to these images of Kevin, and I became intrigued by the guy. Being a trucker myself, I’m familiar with the type that spends a lot of time on the road and, in times past, perhaps consumed a little too much AM radio, which provided a weird mental placeholder for the “normal” lives one cannot live while out over the road. Sib seemed to channel a particular “Bub” working-class outlook in the commentary he added to Kevin’s photos, especially those of Kevin enjoying a hard-earned meal, and it all sort of worked. Sib was one of the guys who helped Kevin become somewhat infamous online.

At some point I decided to try to seek Kevin out and invite him on my podcast, and sure enough, his contact details were found on a Facebook post he had made of his business card. I made a few phone calls and got in touch with him, and he agreed to come on my show, which you can listen to right here or on most podcast players of your choice.

Kevin Koehnke

Kevin had stopped at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop to call in and speak with me, and he filled my listeners in on much of his life story, from working on his parents’ cabbage farm in Wisconsin as a kid, where he came into contact with the type of truckers made famous in films like “Smokey and the Bandit,” through his life on the road, to various adventures and misadventures with police, abusive employers, and friends along the highway who helped him out when times were tough. It’s a fun listen and one of the most downloaded episodes of my podcast. You will also hear a lot about truck stop food and the types of freight Kevin hauled.

‘Just like his dad’

When I received news of Kevin’s passing, I asked to be put in touch with his family by the folks at the Konrad-Behlman funeral home, who have been helping them along at this time. I’ve had a couple of phone calls with his mom, Pat, who is pretty spry and a great conversationalist at the ripe old age of 86. She had listened to the podcast at some point as well and got quite a chuckle out of it.

”Kevin told some pretty tall tales,” she said, laughing. “He certainly was not born in the cab of his father’s dump truck. I spent 24 hours in labor trying to push him out.”

Pat did mention that much of Kevin’s career was spent away from home and family and that he was indeed a very high miler. When Kevin’s father died, Kevin couldn’t be there and was a day and a half late getting home.

”Kevin was just like his dad — loved being on the road. Before we bought the farm, his father would drive the dump truck all day and then hop in an 18-wheeler at night for another company and run up to northern Michigan and back overnight. He often only lived on two or three hours of sleep.”

Pat tells me that Kevin worked for about 10 different companies throughout his career, and a certain pattern emerges from her confirmation about things he told me on the show. Kevin is what we in the industry call a “runner,” a guy who basically lives in his truck, works his tail off, and almost never goes home. As of 2023 when Kevin came on the podcast, he told me that he had worked for 17 years straight, mostly only ever taking the mandatory 34-hour reset periods truckers are subject to under Hours of Service regulations. So no weekends, no going home, living in the truck, putting miles behind him as he crisscrossed the nation he loved so much.

The problem with “runners” is that trucking companies become dependent on them, reliable as they are, but often do not return much in the way of gratitude for all that hard work and sacrifice. Kevin told me he was fired from one company after requesting four days off to go visit family, being told he could take it, but when the time came, they wanted him to keep going. He had put over 1 million, 300,000 miles on one truck for that particular outfit and was thrown out the door as replaceable. This in an industry that has been whining about a supposed shortage of truckers since the mid-1980s. The real shortage, in Kevin’s case, was making it home for Christmas or almost anything else important.

RELATED: Despite welcome reform, the war on America’s truckers rages on

Anadolu/Getty Images

No days off

I invited Kevin to join my friends and me at the Mid-America Trucking Show in March 2024 and even managed to get him a media pass, which comes with access to a room with catered breakfast and lunch, something he would have taken full advantage of. I told everyone that he was coming, and there was quite a bit of anticipation about “Uncle Kevin” or “the Big Dog” coming to MATS. Having never met him in person, I was pretty pumped about getting to meet the guy myself.

Kevin told me months prior that he had booked the time off and that he was most likely going to rent a car and drive down to Louisville from his company’s yard up in Michigan. When I arrived at MATS, Kevin was nowhere to be found, and it took me a little while to get ahold of him on the phone.

”Awww, when I got to the yard, they had a hot load going down to Pennsylvania and they asked me to go, so I took it. Sorry, Gordo.”

He sounded almost embarrassed on the phone, as if he knew he had let me down.

”But they knew you were coming here. What the hell, man?”

”You know how it is. No one wants to work, and I couldn’t say no.”

No one wants to work. An eternal Boomerism.

I’m not sure if his excuse was true or not, but it followed a pattern set by himself and his previous employers. Being a runner becomes a lifestyle for a certain kind of trucker, a badge of honor for being institutionalized to the truck. Kevin was 61 years old at that time and had never been married, no kids, and he didn’t see his family much.

Kevin’s mom, Pat, was not surprised by the MATS story.

”I haven’t seen Kevin in 15 years. He doesn’t come home.”

Heavy load

On my podcast, Kevin relayed the story of how he hurt one of his big toes, but didn’t think too much of it and kept on working. Eventually it got so bad that he had to stop and have surgery to prevent gangrene at a hospital near Atlanta, Georgia, pretty far from Wisconsin. He took a couple of months off afterward to recover at his friend’s place in Michigan, and that may have been one of the only, if not the only, vacation the man ever had.

Kevin turned 64 on June 13 of this year, and Pat tells me that four days later, Kevin was in the hospital with pneumonia, having water in his lungs. The type of trucking lifestyle he led was clearly not good for his health. Once he recovered, he went straight back to work, taking little oxygen bottles in the truck to help him breathe. Pat is not sure whether Kevin lied to his employers about being fit to return or if they looked the other way, or perhaps failed to engage in any due diligence on a driver returning to duty. I contacted them to ask a few questions about what went down, and their head safety guy said it was “not their place to discuss a personal matter.”

Well, a man died on the job under their employ, and I doubt they would give a stock answer like that to an investigator from OSHA or the Workers Compensation Board.

It seems to me that Kevin Koehnke was one of these guys who had some kind of hurt deep inside him and either ignored it or escaped it by just staying on the road. Many Old Hands know such a person, and to be honest, its an easy way out that I myself have undertook in the past. Always working long hours away from home is a good way to let the sleeping dogs lie, but a bad way to manage your own mental health. This scheme is then compounded by employers who take full advantage of the situation, almost like a drug dealer who is always there with the next hit to soothe the pain.

The trucking industry makes a good show of highlighting health and safety, managing hours of service, trying to color between the lines where so many shady operators do not, and end up as part of the steady stream of collisions and chaos on our newsfeeds. But it strikes me that the business is also opportunistic in its use and abuse of runners like Kevin and failing to ask why such a nice man would just keep on working like that, never saying no, always getting it done no matter the cost to his own health — mental and physical — or the cost to relationships with family.

“Having an intervention” is a phrase often tossed around for those with serious problems like addiction. Maybe interventions are needed for the runners like Kevin.

Save me a seat at that truck stop in the sky, Kevin. I’ll be there sooner or later, too, and I’ll be darned if you won’t need a hug.

*******

Pat Koehnke tells me they have yet to see any of Kevin’s personal items returned to them, including his phone or his wallet with all of his ID. If anyone has intel on Kevin’s things, please email me at gordilocks@protonmail.com, and I will see to it that you are connected with his family.

He was cremated in California and thus made easier to ship home, obviating the need for assistance from an organization like Truckers Final Mile, which assists families in retrieving the bodies of loved ones who pass on the road but whose companies refuse to help with getting them back home. It tells you something about certain players in this industry that such an organization exists at all.

You can read Kevin’s official obituary here. There are links to leave a message about Kevin or purchase a memorial tree at the link above.

And make sure you reach out and say hello to someone distant. You never know what they might be going through or how much it would make their day to hear from you.

This essay originally appeared in the Autonomous Truck(er)s Substack.

​Bub, Culture, Lifestyle, Memes, Mental health, Truck stops, Truckers, Trucking industry, Wisconsin, Working class, Kevin koehnke, Obituary, In memoriam 

A 13-year-old boy is facing a 16-count juvenile petition after a crime spree involving car thefts in Pontiac, according to Michigan police.

Deputies were called to the used car dealership on Cesar Chavez Avenue over a report of a break-in on Sunday.

That dealership was broken into, and two other cars were damaged after someone tried unsuccessfully steal them at a nearby dollar store.

Officers found that a Dodge Dart had been stolen and a Dodge Charger had been heavily damaged after a break-in at the business, according to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.

Members of the Oakland County Auto Theft Task Force connected the incident to another theft of two vehicles from a landscaping company in Pontiac.

On Sept. 19, a Chevrolet pickup truck was stolen from that business and rammed through a fenced parking lot.

On Sept. 20, a Dodge Ram was stolen from the property and driven to the Cesar Chavez Avenue dealership.

Surveillance video from the dealership captured a person breaking a window and entering inside, where keys were stolen. That person stole the Charger and tried to ram the gate to escape, but only succeeded in damaging the car and making it inoperable.

Then the person abandoned the car, stole the Dart, and drove to Watergate, where he rammed the car into another dealership.

That dealership was broken into, and two other cars were damaged after someone tried unsuccessfully steal them at a nearby dollar store.

Investigators said they identified their suspect, a 13-year-old boy, from the footage from numerous surveillance video systems.

That suspect had been arrested twice in 2025 for auto thefts in Waterford as well as Pontiac.

RELATED: 16-year-old arrested for shooting and killing 15-year-old girl and her 9-year-old brother

The teen was transported to the Oakland County Children’s Village.

The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office will review the 16-count petition against the teen. The investigation into the crime spree is ongoing.

Pontiac is a suburb of Detroit.

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​Crime spree, Car thefts, Michigan, Child crime, Crime 

President Trump may have accomplished something fiscal conservatives have been trying unsuccessfully to do for decades: He got Washington talking seriously about the national debt.

All it took was promising a $5,000 payment — what he calls a “Trump Dividend” — to every adult American citizen if Republicans retain control of Congress. With roughly 240 million eligible recipients, the back-of-the-envelope cost is about $1.2 trillion.

Somebody proposes mailing the money directly to the people, and suddenly everyone remembers that the Treasury has a balance sheet.

Suddenly, the political class discovered fiscal responsibility. Critics immediately pointed out that the federal government doesn’t have over a trillion dollars laying around. They warned that the checks would increase the deficit. They reminded us that the national debt has surpassed $40 trillion. They worried about inflation, borrowing costs, and the burden we are leaving to future generations.

Those are legitimate concerns. In fact, they should have been dominating our national political debate for decades.

The federal government has been spending money it does not have at an astonishing rate. Annual deficits that once would have produced political panic are now treated almost as background noise.

A trillion dollars has become an almost meaningless abstraction. Consider how large a trillion is. A million seconds is about 12 days. A billion seconds is nearly 32 years. A trillion seconds is more than 31,000 years. Yet our political representatives routinely toss around trillions as though they are discussing the office-supply budget.

That is why the reaction to Trump’s proposed $5,000 checks is so revealing. Whatever one thinks of the proposal itself — and there are perfectly good reasons to question sending another trillion-plus dollars out the Treasury’s door — the renewed concern about borrowing raises an obvious question: Where has everybody been?

The United States did not wake up one morning with a $40 trillion national debt because somebody proposed sending Americans a check. The debt accumulated because, year after year, Congress spent more than the government collected and borrowed the difference.

Entitlement programs were created or expanded. Emergency spending became routine. Temporary measures acquired permanent constituencies. Politicians discovered that voters enjoy receiving government benefits considerably more than they enjoy paying the taxes necessary to finance them.

Washington’s addiction to debt is bipartisan, and Republican Congresses and presidents have substantially increased it just as Democrats have.

But that makes the current moment all the more useful. If a $1.2 trillion proposal is irresponsible because the country is already deeply indebted, then fiscal responsibility cannot begin and end with this particular $1.2 trillion. The same arithmetic should apply to every spending proposal.

RELATED: Trump picked the wrong way to fight fake news

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Every dollar Washington spends ultimately comes from one of three places: current taxpayers (including importers via tariffs and, potentially, taxpayers if those costs get passed through to consumers), borrowing from future taxpayers, or money creation, which can erode purchasing power through inflation. There is no fourth category called “government money.”

That elementary fact tends to disappear from political debate whenever Congress is considering a favored program. Costs are described over 10 years. Spending is called an “investment.” Borrowing is treated as somebody else’s problem.

Then somebody proposes mailing the money directly to the people, and suddenly everyone remembers that the Treasury has a balance sheet. Perhaps taking spending seriously again in speech is the most valuable thing about the $5,000 proposal.

This should immediately raise basic, nonpartisan questions: Can we afford this? Where will the money come from? How much interest will taxpayers pay on that borrowing? Is this expenditure important enough to justify passing its cost to our children and grandchildren? These questions should be asked whenever anyone — Republican or Democrat — proposes spending another dollar.

And the interest clock is already running. As the debt grows, interest consumes an ever-larger share of federal resources. Unlike most federal programs, interest cannot simply be canceled without defaulting on the nation’s obligations. Money spent servicing yesterday’s borrowing is money unavailable for defense, national infrastructure, Social Security, tax relief, or anything else tomorrow’s voters might consider important.

So by all means, debate the $5,000 dividend. Ask whether it is affordable. Calculate its effect on deficits and inflation. Demand to know where the money will come from. Sen. Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio, is drafting legislation to pay for it by instituting a market access fee on imports. That is a salutary development in a town that for too long has spent first without even bothering to consider who would pick up the tab.

But having rediscovered those questions, the political class should not forget them the moment this proposal disappears from the headlines.

If the prospect of $5,000 checks finally makes Americans look at a $40 trillion national debt and ask, “How on earth are we going to pay for this?” then the proposal will already have performed a useful public service.

The only question is whether Washington will keep asking it.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the American Mind.

​Fiscal conservatives, Inflation, National debt, Social security, Tax relief, Trump dividend, Midterm elections, Republicans, Bernie moreno, Opinion & analysis, Donald trump 

There’s a clip going around of Lindsay Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick, saying she has never apologized or asked forgiveness for killing their three children.

Given the growing arrogance of her defense, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. It also cuts against the portrait her defenders have painted of a loving mother temporarily overtaken by postpartum depression or psychosis. If that were the whole story, you might expect some sign of remorse toward the grieving husband who lost all three of his children.

What we once called common sense grew out of a Christian moral culture that no longer commands the culture. What was once common no longer is.

Instead, nothing. Because she’s a monster.

But the culture’s numbed reaction to the Clancy mistrial raises another question about the 11 jurors who were prepared to absolve her of criminal responsibility for those ghastly killings.

How do you persuade people still coasting on the fumes of a once-great Christian culture that they are now the counterculture — and must learn to think and fight accordingly?

Between the positive Christian world of the American founding and today’s negative world came the so-called neutral world that produced the counterculture of the 1960s. For my entire lifetime, we have run an experiment based on the assumption that Americans shared enough fundamental values to sustain multiple competing cultures at once.

At 53, I think that experiment is over. It probably never had much of a chance.

Listen to the nice things Clancy’s jurors keep saying about her, then confront the horror of what she did. No neutral conversation is possible here. So it is with good and evil generally. There is no neutral boulevard called tolerance. Every time Christians travel down it, they eventually discover that tolerance runs in one direction.

We live in a negative world now. The spirit of the age intends to show us what a real inquisition looks like, because the Christian worldview that once formed this country has been steadily forfeited in exchange for other gods.

Third-wave feminists inhabit the positive world now, whether they hold formal political power at a given moment or not. The Overton window governing our language, emotions, psychology, and public discourse is largely theirs. Spiritually, the enemy holds the high ground.

We are the rebels now, not the founders.

That means Christians can no longer rely on easy assumptions about shared values, shared definitions, or even shared moral fundamentals.

RELATED: A Christian guide to trolling without sinning

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

We are not simply a nation of laws. Laws are downstream from political will, and political will is downstream from moral conviction. By that measure, the American church is not exactly operating from a position of strength.

My friend Chris Goble likes to say we must “exegete the times.” He’s right.

By what civilizational standard regularly enforced in America today should Lindsay Clancy be expected to ask forgiveness? Common sense?

This is precisely the problem. What we once called common sense grew out of a Christian moral culture that no longer commands the culture. What was once common no longer is.

A second American revolution took place, and we did not so much lose it as surrender.

Wake up, Dorothy. You ain’t in Kansas any more.

In Massachusetts, where the Sons of Liberty once helped set the course of American freedom, 11 jurors just concluded that Lindsay Clancy was not criminally responsible for killing her own children.

So what follows?

For starters, Christians need to stop assuming that people who reject Christianity are nevertheless entitled to every cultural inheritance Christianity produced, on precisely the same terms Christianity produced it.

That does not relieve me of Christ’s command to love my neighbor as myself. It does mean Christian love cannot be reduced to cultural surrender or a lazy suicide pact with people who reject the moral order that made our freedoms intelligible in the first place.

It’s Christ or chaos. Christians need to become comfortable saying that plainly.

You do not get the full inheritance of Christian civilization while discarding the faith and moral assumptions that built it. Those are the terms of the negative world. If we want the future to look different, we first have to acknowledge the world as it is.

Most people will not tell you this, because rebuilding will be hard.

We will have to lay cornerstones and plumb lines again. We will have to reclaim ground that was once considered sacred and is now treated as disposable. It will cost us comfort, status, friendships, and perhaps careers.

RELATED: How groupthink replaces truth

John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

It will hurt.

But the alternative is worse: leaving our children and grandchildren a country so morally fractured that political disagreement eventually becomes something much uglier.

Do not kid yourself about the cost. The Puritans who founded New England were fleeing Anglicans, not Muslims or even Catholics. Civilizational conflict can divide people who share a language, a history, and much of the same religion.

Brother will turn against brother.

If Tucker Carlson’s deconstruction has taught us anything, it is that these fractures are already running through the right itself.

But Christians still have an obligation to stand. Not for a party. Not for a personality. Not for nostalgia. For the only kingdom that lasts.

Here we stand. We can do no other.

​American founding, Criminal responsibility, Faith, Forgiveness, Jurors, Lindsay clancy, Massachusetts, Muslims, New england, Postpartum depression, Psychosis, Christians, Negative world, Opinion & analysis 

Debates around artificial intelligence continue to rage. Many plead for halting development, fearing it’s only a matter of time before AI eradicates humanity.

To illustrate the fear and panic this camp feels, BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales points to the Anthropic researcher who resigned earlier this month, warning in a viral post that developers are pushing onward despite knowing AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Others, including President Trump, however, claim the AI doomsaying is rooted in conspiracy theories that benefit only China — America’s archrival in the AI race.

But there’s another critical factor in the debate Sara claims people are neglecting: chips.

“It’s not necessarily the technology itself that we need to be discussing. It’s more what’s driving it, which are the chips,” she says.

To illustrate, she highlights a recent Fox News article titled “America and China are fighting for the future of AI — chips are the battlefield,” which claims that “China’s tech giant says demand for its AI computing equipment already exceeds supply as it accelerates new chip generations.”

The war for controlling the chip supply, says Sara, is a bigger concern than the capabilities of the AI models themselves.

“It’s more about who controls the chips, computing infrastructure, the technology ecosystem underneath it. And China, to be real, has had an advantage on this for years now,” she says.

President Trump, she explains, has been trying to move chip manufacturing to the United States.

“Remember, up until 2024, Taiwan actually held a 68% market share of all global chip production, which, you want to war-game this out, that’s kind of a problem, because we are constantly on the brink of China invading and retaking Taiwan,” says Sara. “When and if that happens, what’s to stop them from cutting us off from the chips? And then what happens to us and our technology?”

Militarily, the United States would suffer, she explains.

“America has remained the global leader in advanced AI technology and semiconductor design. And for years, the United States has used export controls to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing technology, particularly technologies with potential military applications,” says Sara.

“But if we allow them to get chip supremacy, like, America could be looking at no longer being the biggest military superpower in the world.”

For this reason, Sara is in support of continuing AI development.

“I’m so tired of living in this world where so many people just are burying their heads in the sand and not realizing … we’re essentially in a cold war with China on every single platform,” she says.

“We don’t want them getting the upper hand with AI. America wants a world running on American chips, American software, American standards.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Sara gonzales, Artificial intelligence, China, Taiwan, Ai chips, Blazetv show 

Antifa is commonly characterized as a decentralized collection of independent activists who show up organically, of their own free will, to fight the powers that be.

However, BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler says that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“They’re telling you Antifa is just an idea. It’s the wind. It’s a belief set,” Wheeler says. “These individual chapters of Antifa aren’t connected. They’re a decentralized network. So how do you go after them when they’re not really the same thing?”

“This is a false narrative. It’s intentionally deceptive, because the reality is that Antifa is a highly coordinated group. And when I say highly coordinated, they are very strategic in their deception,” she continues.

Antifa, Wheeler explains, hides behind leftist groups “that act as shell groups,” because they need training, funding, and legal support.

“They associate themselves with groups like the Socialist Rifle Association or the John Brown Gun Club, groups that appear to be autonomous,” she says.

“The same thing happens with funding,” she continues, noting that they get their funding “to the tune of $20 million,” despite their “socialist” beliefs, from Roy Singham.

“Antifa hides behind these leftist groups that serve as shell groups so that it’s trickier to catch them so that the mainstream media can get away with trying to lie to people and tell them that Antifa is a decentralized network,” Wheeler says.

“And what about legal support?” she asks. “You have to have legal support when you’re engaging in crime. Well, Antifa has this.They have legal support in the form of an organization called the National Lawyers Guild.”

In photos of Antifa protests, there are groups of people with brightly colored helmets on. These are the “legal observers” from the National Lawyers Guild.

“They’re looking for instances that they can document that they can accuse police of brutality, and they are looking to document the actions of Antifa members in order to help with their legal defense when they are prosecuted,” Wheeler explains.

“The idea that this is grassroots and organic is ludicrous. This is highly coordinated,” she adds.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

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​Antifa, Grassroots, John brown gun club, Lawyers, Legal, Liz wheeler, National lawyers guild, Roy singham, Blazetv show 

The season of the New York Giants football team has seemingly ended after a devastating injury to the team’s star quarterback, Jaxson Dart, during “Monday Night Football.”

Dart was in great pain when he got tackled by linebackers Byron Young and Josiah Stewart in the opening drive of the game against the Los Angeles Rams.

‘Everything…and I mean EVERYTHING…that trump touches turns to s***…’

He suffered an injury to his left knee and was pulled out of the game. Initially the injury appeared to be moderate, but sources indicated later that he may be out for the rest of the season.

While Giants fans were upset by the news, some critics of President Donald Trump gleefully blamed the injury on the “Trump curse.” Dart had introduced the president at a rally in New York and expressed his support for the Republican in May.

“Jaxson Dart appears to be the latest victim of the Trump curse,” responded an X user with pronouns in his profile.

“Everyone who sucks up to TRUMP pays!! Trump is POISON!! Hope Dart thought it was worth it!” said another critic.

“Jaxson Dart introduced Trump and this happens. Talk about the kiss of death smh,” read one response.

“Everything…and I mean EVERYTHING…that trump touches turns to s***, including Dart. It’s quite remarkable,” said another.

“Just another example of Trump / MAGA destroying everything they touch?” asked one account.

“The Curse of Trump strikes again. Dart never should have attended the Trump rally and introduced him. Everything Trump touches is cursed. Live and learn the hard way kid,” said another critic.

Others implied that Dart’s own offensive line didn’t protect him enough in order to get him back for his support of Trump.

RELATED: Christian NFL star apologizes after referring to kids’ game that likely left LGBTQ crowd seething

Young, the linebacker who tackled Dart, was far more civil in his response on social media.

“Never play to hurt anybody. I pray for a healthy recovery,” he wrote and added a prayer emoji.

The Giants went on to lose the game to the Rams by a score of 6 to 28.

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​Jaxson dart, New york giants, President donald trump, Nfl, Politics 

A project seven years in the making is set to announce another milestone, likely because it isn’t a government hack job.

When new transportation projects are brought up, the mind immediately jumps to California’s failed high-speed rail line that is still allegedly in its infancy stages following 10 years of promises and billions of dollars.

This one is different.

‘The project has cost more than $15 billion without a single track being laid.’

This is a project Donald Trump would have been happy with before he was president: on time, on budget, and something the people actually want.

Over the weekend, a social media post garnered attention for focusing on Elon Musk’s underground tunnel system in Las Vegas, built by his aptly named business the Boring Company.

“Roadway entrance finished. Just some cosmetic issues and the roll up security gates to go,” a Las Vegas-centric account wrote.

The next day, the Boring Company provided an update, responding to one of its own posts from late 2025 boasting about its tunnels, ramps, and emergency egress shafts.

Yes, the Vegas Loop is hitting another landmark with its airport connector tunnels (2.3 miles each) that the company says are opening “soon.”

Fourteen tunnels, 14 stations, 12 egresses, and more have been built in the Las Vegas system, which raises the question: How?

RELATED: These smart TVs are accused of tracking users, amassing their data — and selling it

Las Vegas awarded Musk’s company more than $48 million for his tunneling in 2019, with the construction steadily opening holes since 2021, when the original Vegas Loop opened to the public.

Many more tunnels have been drilled since, including near the Thomas & Mack Center and the Virgin Hotels in 2024, along with the University Center tunnel in 2025.

As it stands, the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop, Resorts World Connector, Westgate Connector, Encore Connector, and other links are currently open and operational.

Compare that to California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and his rail project. As of August, RedState reports that the project has cost more than $15 billion without a single track being laid.

The decade worth of bureaucracy has resulted in just 80 miles of “guideway,” which exists as the path where the track is intended to be laid.

An inspector general’s report also revealed that the project could be “on the brink of financial crisis” by 2027 if the state government does not step in and address it.

RELATED: Mom left ominous note at Las Vegas hotel before ‘very medicated’ cheerleader daughter found dead in murder-suicide: Coroner

Rachel Aston/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

Over at the Boring Company, the initial $48.7 million in funding has increased only slightly, as the expected costs have come in around $52.5 million.

But through its successes, the Loop also has an array of criticisms, like a reported cost of more than $5 million Las Vegas has been forking out for maintenance and operations, annually.

However, amid complaints about the airport tunnel’s opening — now scheduled for October — project completions still persist, showing Americans that progress can actually be achieved without bleeding taxpayers until there’s nothing left.

Citizens would likely prefer that progress happen in some of their biggest city centers instead, though.

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​The boring company, Las vegas, Gavin newsom, California, Tech 

CNN staffers are reportedly fearful of what may happen after Paramount Skydance merges with Warner Bros., the parent company of the cable news network.

A Variety report detailed how CNN appeared to be on the upswing in profit and viewership in recent years, but all that progress may end after the takeover.

‘What an enormous loss and disruption it would be to shuffle leadership for the umpteenth time in the midst — finally — of reshaping the business.’

One staffer told the outlet that the mood is “like a funeral” at CNN offices.

CNN CEO and Chairman Mark Thompson offered few details to staffers on Monday about the consequences of the takeover.

“Over the coming days you’ll hear much more about what this means for CNN, including the date of the close,” he said.

The fear comes from changes at CBS News after Paramount Skydance hired Bari Weiss to lead the news outlet. Weiss was the founder of the Free Press, and many on the left accuse her of toeing the line for the Trump administration.

Many believe Paramount will order the same rightward lurch at CNN.

“What an enormous loss and disruption it would be to shuffle leadership for the umpteenth time in the midst — finally — of reshaping the business,” said a CNN staffer to Variety.

Former CNN host Jim Acosta also saw the acquisition as a threat.

“This merger is terrible news for America. Paramount should not own both CBS News and CNN,” he wrote on social media. “If [Larry and David Ellison] do little more than pinky swear they won’t bother CNN, don’t believe it. Once they acquire the network, they’ll do Trump’s bidding.”

RELATED: Furious liberals blame Bari Weiss takeover at CBS after Democrat leader fumbles question

Others predicted that layoffs were coming for the CNN staffers.

“A much bigger threat to CNN is not Donald Trump. It’s Paramount, which just bought CNN,” wrote Steve Gruber, a conservative show host. “Very conservative, Larry Ellison. I think that’s a bigger concern for CNN because the layoffs, my friends, are coming.”

In response to a July lawsuit, a Paramount spokesperson said in part: “As we’ve said consistently: no commitments from either David or Larry Ellison have been made to any government body, state AG, or federal agency regarding the future of CNN or any other news property, other than the goal to deliver truth-based journalism.”

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​Bari weiss, Cnn, Paramount skydance, Politics, Cbs news 

For months, America waited to hear directly from Patrick Clancy.

The father at the center of one of the nation’s most heartbreaking and controversial criminal cases sat down with “60 Minutes” to discuss the deaths of his three children at the hands of his wife.

However, while the interview offered intimate details about Clancy’s grief and recovery, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock doesn’t believe Ross Douthat pressed him hard enough — and thinks the answers seemed scripted.

“What we got was soft light and soft questions,” Whitlock says.

“Patrick said baby Callan died in his arms. He said he begged God for one kid to live. He said Lindsay told him the killings felt like a dream. He said he forgave her without being asked. He said he had a panic attack on the stand, refused the medications, and finished the testimony,” he continues.

“He said the TikTok mob is trash. He said he married a fertility doctor and they are starting a family. Every line carried weight on paper. Almost none of it hit like a man who had just buried three children and then watched a courtroom turn their deaths into a national argument,” he adds.

Whitlock points out that in the 14-minute interview that aired, Douthat never “pressed the hard scenes,” like Patrick leaving Lindsay alone after she told him she had thoughts of harming the kids.

“He never forced a straight answer on the mistrial, the holdout juror, or whether Patrick Clancy still wants a retrial,” he says.

“He treated forgiveness like a virtue signal and left the public with a quiet man reading from a prepared grief script,” he continues.

“Patrick came across careful, managed, and strangely flat for a father whose name is now welded to the biggest postpartum psychosis fight in the country. ’60 Minutes’ sold revelation,” he adds. “What aired felt like damage control with better lighting.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Jason whitlock, Patrick clancy, Ross douthat, Postpartum psychosis, Lindsay clancy, 60 minutes, Blazetv show 

Widespread child exploitation has been going on for years in the U.K., and British activist Tommy Robinson has been at the forefront of sounding the alarm — though authorities still turned a blind eye.

Robinson points to notorious cases in cities like Rotherham, arguing that fears of being labeled racist or Islamophobic prevented officials from confronting abuse committed by grooming gangs.

“My hometown, Luton, is a labor stronghold,” Robinson tells Freitas. “Always has been. But let me tell you in 2013 in my town, because I’ve got three children, so I was trying to work out the future for my town, future for my country,” Robinson tells BlazeTV’s Nick Freitas.

And when Robinson looked at the “projected growth forecast” for “demographical change in Luton by 2030” on the government’s own website, he found that the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are projected to increase by 70% to 77%.

“White and black by 1.2[%] to 1.4[%],” he tells Freitas.

“So what do the Labour Party, your Democrat Party, know?” he asks. “They know that white and black are irrelevant. The future lays with these Pakistani and Bangladeshes.”

“We don’t want to upset them, right?” he asks.

And in another city, Rotherham, Robinson explains there’s only a 3.7% Muslim population.

“There’s none there. Now in that 3.7[%] Muslim population, we had 1,400 children raped,” he says.

“Now the police officer in charge during all these rapes who covered it up, what’s his job now? Well, he’s in charge of counterterrorism,” he continues.

“Now Muslim men make up 3% of the British population. They’re responsible for 90% of the convictions of groups of men who rape kids. Thirty percent of the men convicted of raping children in gangs are called Muhammad,” he adds.

And as the Muslim population in America grows, Robinson warns, “You’ve got to talk about this, and you have to understand this. You have a choice with immigration, America.”

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

​Child exploitation, Democrat party, Grooming gangs, Labour party, Tommy robinson, Immigration, Islam, Muslim, Blazetv show 

The left has demonstrated time and again its willingness to use violence to suppress opposition and secure power, and a damning new poll of Democratic voters seems to indicate that leftist bloodlust continues.

According to the poll conducted by the Center for Strategic Politics in partnership with Liberal Currents, 56% of respondents said that they would feel positive about learning that President Donald Trump had died overnight in his sleep.

‘They want Trump dead, and they want everyone who supported him or worked for him in prison.’

Only 16% said they’d feel somewhat or very bad about it.

When asked how they would feel if they woke up to a news headline that read, “President Donald Trump was assassinated while speaking at a rally,” 31% of respondents said that they would feel positive, and 25% said they’d feel neither positive nor negative. Forty-three percent said they would feel negative.

Of the 683 Democratic voters surveyed earlier this month, 59% of whom identified as “woke,”

86% said they would feel positive if informed that Trump had been impeached and convicted by Congress, and removed from office;84% said they would feel positive if informed that Trump had been declared unfit by a majority of his Cabinet and removed from office; and59% said that they would feel positive if they woke up to the news that a group of American military leaders had orchestrated a coup, ousting Trump from power and assuming control of the country.

In addition to revealing just how many Democrats have warmed to the idea of assassination and insurrection after years of elected officials in their party demonizing the opposition, the poll highlighted Democrats’ appetite for lawfare against their political opponents.

When asked whether the next Democratic administration should pursue criminal prosecution of members of the Trump administration

for the efforts to enforce American immigration law, 77% said yes;for lethal strikes on boats in South America, 72% said yes; andfor actions taken with regards to the conflict in Iran, 66% said yes.

New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R) was among the many who recognized the survey results as evidence that such people need to be denied power.

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“People have absolutely no idea the reign of terror we’re headed for if Democrats gain total power,” wrote Paladino. “They want Trump dead, and they want everyone who supported him or worked for him in prison. They want our constitutional rights dissolved, and they want the courts packed to facilitate it all. This is an EXTREMELY dark place and I don’t know that there’s any good way out.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis highlighted that “Democrats claim to support ‘our democracy,’ yet by a massive margin they support a military coup.”

Andrew Kolvet, the spokesman of Turning Point USA whose founder was assassinated last year, tweeted, “Gas prices are high so sure, let’s give these psychos power.”

“This is not about politics anymore,” wrote Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R). “It’s about SANITY vs INSANITY.”

While the results are disturbing, they’re par for the course. After all, numerous polls in recent years have captured the left’s intolerance of differing views and affinity for violence.

Just months after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a Young America’s Foundation survey found that 42% of liberal young people said that “he brought this violence upon himself to an extent” by his “viewpoints.” A majority of liberal young people, 53%, said conservative viewpoints should be “shut down or kept out of the public square.”

A Marist Poll conducted in September 2025 found that 28% of Democrats strongly agreed or agreed with the statement that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.”

An April 2025 survey conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab found that 55% of left-leaning respondents said that assassinating Trump would be at least somewhat justified.

RMG Research asked American adults in the wake of the September 2024 assassination attempt on Trump whether the country would “be better off if Donald Trump had been killed last weekend.” While 69% of respondents said no, 28% of Democrats answered “yes.”

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​Assassination, Lawfare, Leftism, Democrats, Poll, Democratic party, Donald trump, Charlie kirk, Politics 

What’s enabling Travis Kelce to perform so well early this season?

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has a couple of theories, and they are both providing results.

‘Would he be out of shape and honeymooning the whole time and all that?’

Kelce has started the 2026 season on fire, and although it has only been two games, he’s averaging the most receiving yards per game (86) since his 2020 season (94.4), which was his career high.

He’s also put up the most yards per reception he ever has (14.3), so far.

The reasons for that, according to Reid, are equal parts Taylor Swift and Kelce’s “rear end” — literally.

“Trav worked his tail off. That’s the bottom line,” he told reporters in a remote press conference on Monday.

Reid praised “the amount of work” Kelce has put in, as well as his “surrounding cast.” Reid was seemingly referring to the people Kelce is surrounding himself with on a personal level, and that includes his new wife, Swift.

The coach said that everyone wondered whether Kelce would be exhausted at the start of the season following his recent wedding and subsequent honeymoon, asking, “Would he be out of shape and honeymooning the whole time and all that?”

Then Reid answered his own question, saying that Kelce is trying to keep up with his wife’s energy levels.

“He works his rear end off, and I think Taylor [Swift], you’re putting on four-hour shows, you’ve got to work hard, too. So I’m sure she kicks him in the butt a little bit there, too.”

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Again referring to Kelce working his tail off, Reid said the tight end has “really focused in on his body strength and his glutes and everything, you know, where you develop all the power and speed and maintain it.”

The 68-year-old added, “I think he’s done a good job in those areas, you know, where he’s been able to maintain good explosiveness.”

Players’ tails seem to be top of mind for the Chiefs, with Kelce telling reporters after an overtime win against the Indianapolis Colts, “Guys were playing their tails off for the guys next to them, and that’s why I love this team right now.”

“We’re in a zone right now where everybody’s feeding off each other,” Kelce continued, per KMBC News. “There was never a doubt that we were going to get that win.”

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Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images

Swift keeps herself in the news every time she shows up at a Chiefs game to support Kelce, and Sunday’s game was no different.

The singer was recorded in the luxury suites at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, as she cheered on Kelce when he scored a touchdown in the first quarter.

“That’s my husband!” she appeared to yell, pointing at her ring finger.

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​Kansas city chiefs, Andy reid, Travis kelce, Taylor swift, Nfl, Football, Sports