Category: blaze media

Cracker Barrel has changed its diversity page at least three times this month as it deals with backlash from the redesign.

Love for the franchise tanked when customers saw the company had changed its recognizable logo into a shadow of its former self, removing the “old-timer” known as Uncle Herschel sitting on a chair next to a barrel.

‘Discrimination, overt or through unconscious bias, has no place at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store.’

Also gone was the barrel itself, along with the text “Old Country Store,” leaving just black “Cracker Barrel” text on a yellow background. The new menus, website, and interior design of Cracker Barrel locations also angered consumers, leaving the company to apologize for the errors.

The company does not appear to be returning to the old logo and design, however, and is seemingly digging itself a deeper hole by trying to mask its progressive leanings.

In an attempt to invoke old Uncle Herschel without actually showing him, Cracker Barrel has featured “the Herschel Way” on its web page dedicated to “culture and belonging.”

“Our culture of belonging extends to our guests. The Herschel Way is our standard for hospitality,” the company wrote. However, the new text represents at least the third change to the page this month as the company deals with the blowback over the past week.

Thanks to internet archives, readers can see what Cracker Barrel’s progressive page looked like on August 4, which at that time was labeled “culture and inclusion.”

The page included mentions of being “inclusive,” while stating, “Discrimination, overt or through unconscious bias, has no place at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store.”

Also featured was a photo labeled “Moving Forward Together,” showcasing a diverse cast of people, including a man in a wheelchair.

By August 21, the company had updated the page to reflect its new font and style, but it seemingly remained identical otherwise. That was, until the fury of American consumers hit.

RELATED: Cracker Barrel ditches Americana as customers call for boycott over iconic brand change

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

August 21 was the same day many outlets — including Blaze News — began covering the backlash from Cracker Barrel customers, and by the next day on August 22, the desperate diversity image was removed.

Fast-forward another few days, and Cracker Barrel has remodeled the page to change its wording away from “inclusion” and toward “belonging.”

This is not the first time the company has eliminated certain words to cover its messaging, though. Back in July 2024, the same page used the heading “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging” at Cracker Barrel. In fact, the previous link still redirects to the new text, further proving the adjustments were made to the same page.

The 2024 page showcased extreme dedication to diversity and race-based initiatives. It celebrated “Diversity in Our Decor,” “Diversity in Our Leadership & Development,” and even boasted about achievements on the Human Rights Campaign “equality index.”

According to investigative reporter Robby Starbuck, the company “sponsored HRC events for 10 years” and even “brought an HRC representative to their Tennessee HQ to do a pronoun and transgenderism training.”

Cracker Barrel told Fox News it “has not participated in the Human Rights Campaign Index or had any affiliation with HRC in several years.”

RELATED: Cracker Barrel responds with sneaky message after backlash over rebrand

There are almost too many initiatives to name from the 2024 page, but the company bragged about “standing against racial injustice,” having “zero tolerance” for gay discrimination, and offering a series of gay and race-driven events.

What has remained consistent throughout the years, though, has been Cracker Barrel’s promotion of programs like “Be Bold,” a mission to develop “black leaders,” and the “LGBTQ+ Alliance,” which has the purpose of “strengthening Cracker Barrel’s relationship to the LGBTQ+ community.”

In addition, HOLA’s mission is to “promote Hispanic and Latino culture through hiring, developing, and retaining talent within Cracker Barrel.”

The Cracker Barrel spokesperson insisted in comments to Fox News that the company’s “values haven’t changed, and the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel haven’t changed.”

“Cracker Barrel has been a destination for comfort and community for more than half a century, and this fifth evolution of the brand’s logo, which works across digital platforms as well as billboards and roadside signs, is a callback to the original and rooted even more in the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all back in 1969,” Cracker Barrel said.

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​News, Cracker barrel, American, Americana, Woke, Dei, Diversity equity inclusion, Progressive, Activism, Politics 

Fans may be displaying some misplaced outrage over a new rainbow-themed Batman character depending on who is asked.

DC Comics, along with Warner Bros., and LEGO have announced a new video game called LEGO® Batman™: Legacy of the Dark Knight and allowed fans to get a first look at some of the Batman costumes that will be playable in the game.

‘The rainbow didn’t always represent the LGBT mafia.’

Some gamers were shocked when screenshots of a rainbow-themed Batman suit immediately started making the rounds online.

Plenty of Batman fans on X had strong reactions to the images, with one user saying, “Smart move, immediately alienate most of your audience.”

“They went woke,” another reply simply read.

While some people made jokes, like the idea that if anyone attacked Batman while he wore the suit it would be a hate crime, others were quick to point out that some of the original images were hiding crucial information.

RELATED: CNN attacks Trump’s DC crime move, accidentally hands him the Batman cape

Another Batman fan posted an uncropped image from the game, showing the rainbow suit but included an important caption: “In this uncharacteristically eye-catching outfit, Batman distracted criminals by wearing garish colours.”

The info also revealed the rainbow Batsuit dates back to a March 1957 comic, Detective Comics #241.

The plotline had Batman wearing different colored suits (red, blue, yellow, green, and finally rainbow-colored) to distract from an injured Robin who was trying to hide his identity.

The story was brought back to life in 2010’s “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” Season 2, Episode 19, titled “Emperor Joker!“

Plenty of other sources pointed to prior uses of the rainbow suit to claim it isn’t connected to a LGBTQ ideology, but as YouTuber Ryan Kinel pointed out, it remains to be seen what the game creators want consumers to do when the game is actually released.

RELATED: Luigi Mangione did NOT have a ‘Joker moment’

“A lot of people are seeing that saying, ‘We don’t need gay Batman. Get gay Batman out of here!’ Blah blah blah. And you know what? If the point to unlock this suit is to do some gay mission, then maybe I’m down with you,” Kinel said on his channel. “However, until we see something like that; the reality is the rainbow didn’t always represent the LGBT mafia, right? That was not always the case. Sometimes rainbows, especially decades ago, were just rainbows. And the rainbow Batsuit, even though it was kind of a stupid story, it is from the comic books. It’s from a comic book set in the ’50s.”

LEGO® Batman™: Legacy of the Dark Knight does not yet have a release date, but since the LEGO games typically skew to a very young audience, it is understandable for gamers to be cautious.

Whether it was purposeful bait to garner media attention, a simple reference to a classic comic, or an ideological push, the game is certainly getting free advertising from both supporters and detractors.

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​Return, Video games, Gaming, Lgbt, Woke, Batman, Lego, Dc comics, Comics, Tech, Culture 

As the controversy over Cracker Barrel’s renovated image continues to rage on, the president offered his advice to make the company a “WINNER” again.

Critics have branded the revamp of the 55-year-old restaurant the newest “woke” corporate disaster after the company simplified its logo and decluttered its store’s interior design.

‘They got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right.’

President Donald Trump weighed in Tuesday from his account on Truth Social.

“Cracker Barrel should go back to the old logo, admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate Poll), and manage the company better than ever before. They got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right,” he wrote.

“Very tricky to do, but a great opportunity. Have a major News Conference today. Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again. Remember, in just a short period of time I made the United States of America the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. One year ago, it was ‘DEAD.’ Good luck!” he added.

Images of the logo and redecoration went viral Wednesday on social media, and the furor led to the company’s stock price plummeting by 15% on Thursday. The stock recovered most of that drop by Tuesday, but it is still down 10% over the last month.

Much of the blame for the rebranding has been placed on the company’s CEO, Julie Felss Masino, who previously worked as a Taco Bell executive. Masino said in 2024 that the company was no longer “relevant” and detailed her plans to freshen up its identity with new menu items.

RELATED: Cracker Barrel’s long history of cozying up to left-leaning organizations exposed

On Monday the company responded to the outrage with a statement on Facebook.

“If the last few days have shown us anything, it’s how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel,” read the statement in part. “You’ve also shown us that we could’ve done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be.”

Masino, meanwhile, said that the rebrand followed what the company heard from customers.

“I think what’s important is that we are listening to our guests. We’re doing this all for them,” she said on “Good Morning America.” “What’s important is things that people love about Cracker Barrel, the soul of Cracker Barrel, is not changing. The rocking chairs are still there, the fireplace is there, the peg game, all the things that make Cracker Barrel Cracker Barrel, the vintage decor — it’s still there, and it’s working”

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​Trump on cracker barrel, Cracker barrel backlash, Woke rebranding, Julie felss masino, Politics 

The Trump administration opened the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the country to continue its efforts to resolve the illegal immigration crisis.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) announced over the weekend that “Lone Star Lockup,” a detention center in Fort Bliss, Texas, is officially “open for business.”

“It is the largest ICE detention center in U.S. history,” Abbott wrote in a post on social media. “Everything is bigger in Texas.”

‘Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens.’

Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) responded to Abbott’s post, writing, “When we asked folks earlier this month what this massive new detention center should be named, the Lone Star Lockup and Texas Hold’em were the top two names suggested! And now we know, the Lone Star Lockup is operational!”

The Lone Star Lockup is a 1,000-bed facility, though federal officials plan to expand the center to 5,000 beds by 2027. The center includes medical treatment areas, legal access areas, and recreational space.

RELATED: Exclusive: ICE sweep targets ‘worst of the worst’ pedophiles and violent criminals

Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images

It is expected to hold foreign nationals who are currently in removal proceedings or have final removal orders.

ICE hopes the new facility will “streamline and expedite removal processes, which is one of the Trump administration’s priorities.”

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) stated that the new facility will ease overcrowding at other locations and serve as a processing center.

“Fort Bliss is an amazing military facility,” Gonzales said. “Everything thrown their way, they’ve handled. We should be supporting this, not attacking it.”

RELATED: ‘Deeply unserious’: DHS hits back at Democrats denied entry at detention facility

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Time, “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens.”

“ICE is indeed pursuing all available options to expand bedspace capacity. This process does include partnering with states and local government and housing detainees at certain military bases, including Fort Bliss,” she added.

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​News, Immigration crisis, Immigration, Illegal immigration crisis, Illegal immigration, Immigration and customs enforcement, Ice, Donald trump, Trump, Trump administration, Trump admin, Texas, Greg abbott, Politics 

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by former members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at the University of Wyoming after the group admitted a male member, Artemis Langford, in 2022.

On Friday, Judge Alan Johnson of the District of Wyoming dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, claiming that the three plaintiffs — Hannah Holtmeier, Allison Coghan, and Haley Rutsch — failed in their amended complaint to convince the court to “interfere with Kappa’s contractually valid interpretation of its own Bylaws.”

“Nothing in the Bylaws or the Standing Rules,” Johnson continued, “requires Kappa to narrowly define the words ‘women’ or ‘woman’ to include only those individuals born with a certain set of reproductive organs, particularly when even the dictionary cited by Plaintiffs offers a more expansive definition.”

‘We are required to leave Kappa alone.’

Though plaintiffs noted that President Donald Trump provided a national standard for the terms in an executive order earlier this year, stating that “women … shall mean adult … human females” and “female … means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” Johnson, perhaps paraphrasing Ketanji Brown Jackson, expressed confusion about Trump’s clear-cut definitions: “We are not entirely sure what this definition means, not having a degree in biology.”

In any case, he said, those definitions are limited to the executive branch and its “interpretation of federal laws and administration policy” and have no bearing “in the world of private contracts” such as those between the official Kappa organization, based out of Ohio, and its membership.

“In short, we are required to leave Kappa alone,” he said.

RELATED: 22-year-old man admitted to local sorority chapter on ‘non-binary’ claim cries foul after the national sisterhood ousts him

Photo by Jimena Peck for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Johnson dismissed a previous complaint from some members of the Kappa chapter at UW on similar grounds, claiming that the Kappa organization had not defined what a “woman” is in its bylaws and therefore neither would he. “The court will not define a ‘woman’ today,” he wrote in August 2023.

Cheryl Tuck-Smith — an attorney, a UW alumna, and a Kappa sister for over 50 years before she was expelled for supporting the plaintiffs in these cases — noted at a rally in June 2024 that when Kappa was founded in 1870, “there was no confusion … about what a woman is,” suggesting that the Kappa foundresses would never have even thought that defining the term would ever be necessary.

‘It’s just so disappointing they can’t figure out the definition of a woman. I mean, really?’

Now, more than 150 years later, a man successfully joined their all-women’s organization with the apparent blessing of the Kappa leadership, who issued a nonbinding document in 2022 that stated, “Kappa Kappa Gamma is a single-gender organization comprised of women and individuals who identify as women.”

And since Judge Johnson dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, the plaintiffs, though they may still appeal Johnson’s ruling at the circuit court, are powerless to file another suit or amended complaint.

RELATED: College sorority faces lawsuit after admitting male member: He ‘had an erection visible through his leggings’

Photo by Jimena Peck for the Washington Post via Getty Images

Langford, who was not listed among the defendants on this lawsuit, has now moved out of Wyoming on account of the controversy and what Wyoming Public Radio called “new anti-trans laws” in the state. Langford told WPR, which used female pronouns in reference to him:

Every day I woke up feeling like, “Oh, why does my mouth taste bad?” And then realizing like, “Oh, my heart is racing, and my mouth tastes like cotton. Oh, I’m having a panic attack.” Like I’m waking up with a panic attack. I just had to push, push, push to succeed. And somehow, I managed to get through it.

Kappa did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News. One attorney for the plaintiffs declined to give comment and another did not respond to our request.

Former state Rep. Mark Jennings (R-Sheridan) told Blaze News he’s not “surprised” by the federal judge’s decision. “Wyoming, for as conservative as they are, has packed their courts … with liberals,” he said.

“It’s just so disappointing they can’t figure out the definition of a woman. I mean, really?”

While Jennings expressed hope that Wyoming would slowly return to “common sense,” he noted that state legislators may have to rein in rogue judges within their purview: “I think that if you’re going to have judges that are going to pull this kind of nonsense, the power of the purse should not be taken off the table when it comes to the judiciary.”

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​University of wyoming, Artemis langford, Donald trump, Alan johnson, Federal judge, Wyoming, Mark jennings, Transgender, Kappa kappa gamma, Politics 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was repeatedly evasive when asked if he would be willing to accept federal funds to increase the number of police officers as President Donald Trump says the National Guard will be deployed to the city.

Johnson and other Illinois Democrats have strongly voiced their opposition to Trump’s planned deployment of soldiers to help reduce the city’s crime rate. With his background in union organizing, Johnson has long stated that he believes the best way to reduce crime is to “invest” in neglected communities.

Johnson told MSNBC about the need for more social programs, something he said he is willing to work with Trump on to spend federal money, but he refused to say whether he would take federal money to help the Chicago Police Department when asked by host Joe Scarborough.

‘I don’t believe that just simply putting out an arbitrary number around police officers is the answer.’

“So let me ask you, Mr. Mayor, those all sound like great programs. I’m curious, would you also like to get federal funding to help put 5,000 more cops on the street in Chicago? Would that help drive down crime?” Scarborough asked.

“Well, look, policing by itself is not the full strategy,” Johnson began to reply.

“No, I understand that,” the MSNBC host interjected. “You’ve talked about the other things you want. And I said those are good and important programs. But I’m asking also, would 5,000 more police officers on the street in Chicago be helpful to go along with all of those social programs that a lot of cities are engaging in and having success with?”

RELATED: Trump says Democrats are pleading with him to save their crime-ridden cities: ‘They’ve lost control’

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Johnson said Chicago had more police officers during the 1990s but still had a higher crime rate than today, demonstrating that more police does not equal less crime.

Scarborough continued to press Johnson on the question because the mayor refused to directly answer it.

“Look, we are working hard to make sure that our police department is fully supported,” Johnson finally said. “I don’t believe that just simply putting out an arbitrary number around police officers is the answer. What I’m saying is policing and affordable housing. It’s policing and mental and behavioral health care services. It’s policing and youth employment. It’s a full package.”

The National Guard deployment in Chicago has been in the planning stages for the past few weeks and is expected to start in September. The Guardsmen will be under federal control and work to assist federal law enforcement agencies.

RELATED: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson bragged about hiring ‘our people’ — now he’s under federal investigation

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​Politics 

Like most American kids who endured years of Spanish class, I have little to show for it. Stock phrases like “¿Cómo estás?” or “Where is the library?” don’t open doors in the Spanish-speaking world — much less jobs.

In Europe, students routinely graduate their version of high school fluent in two or three languages. They don’t wait until college or rely on expensive immersion programs to acquire skills that fuel cognitive growth, global awareness, and career opportunities. For them, bilingualism is expected. For us, monolingualism has become an international stereotype — and a joke.

American schools pride themselves on preparing students for the global stage. But how can they claim that when graduates leave fluent only in English?

Schools treat language learning as an elective you can coast through until it’s too late to develop fluency. That’s a mistake. English may be the global lingua franca, but relying on it alone leaves Americans culturally and economically isolated. Geography didn’t bless us with neighbors who speak our language, and history didn’t guarantee multilingualism. We need to teach it.

Europeans vs. Americans

As of 2024, about 60% of Europeans can speak at least one foreign language. In the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, more than 90% of the population speaks a second language — usually English.

The United States looks very different. A 2019 Census Bureau survey found that only about 20% of Americans speak a language other than English at home, and many of them have only basic conversational skills. True fluency is closer to 10%.

Most of those fluent speakers come from households with at least one foreign-born parent, especially from Latin America. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 57% of Americans who speak another language at home were born abroad, while 43% were U.S.-born children of immigrants.

The bottom line: Native-born Americans with English-only parents almost never achieve fluency. Our country relies on immigrant households to supply most of its bilingual citizens — a skill European nations expect from nearly everyone. That needs to change.

Bilingualism boosts brainpower

Bilingual, immersive language education is critical for American children’s development and for preparing them to compete globally. The National Institutes of Health has documented a clear “bilingual advantage”: Children who speak at least one additional language perform better cognitively than those who remain monolingual.

This advantage shows up in executive function — stronger problem-solving, memory, attention, and task-switching. Managing two languages sharpens working memory and mental flexibility. Research even suggests that bilingualism delays dementia and Alzheimer’s disease by several years.

The discipline required to master a language also strengthens overall learning, making it easier to acquire new skills later in life.

If America wants its children to be the “best and brightest,” then real fluency in a second language, taught from a young age, cannot remain optional. It should be the standard.

Economic and career advantages

America’s monolingual education system limits students’ future opportunities. Bilingual employees earn between 5% and 20% more than their monolingual peers, depending on the language and industry. Since 2020, demand for bilingual remote jobs has risen by 30%. High-demand languages include Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, German, and French — most of which American schools fail to teach.

Fluency also unlocks career paths closed to monolinguals: international business, trade, diplomacy, and countless others. For many Americans, monolingualism is the invisible wall blocking access to a lucrative job market they never knew existed.

Opportunity denied

The benefits of bilingualism are well established. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences notes that early exposure gives children the best chance at fluency. Yet fewer schools offer any language instruction at all.

RELATED: Austria’s struggle with mass migration holds a lesson for America

Photo by Askin Kiyagan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Those that do often provide a watered-down version — generic Spanish classes that drill greetings instead of teaching real communication. Options like German, Mandarin, Arabic, or French are usually limited to elite private or international schools.

That must change.

Break the stereotype

I was fortunate to study German in college through an immersion program and then sharpen my fluency while studying in Germany. That experience changed my life. Every high school student should have the same chance without needing a college degree or expensive international schools. Public schools can and must offer multiple language options, rigorous curricula, and early immersion.

American schools claim to prepare students for the global stage. But how can they when graduates leave fluent only in English? Lip service and rote memorization aren’t enough. Real language learning produces sharper thinkers, stronger communicators, and citizens able to engage the wider world.

If we want American education to keep its reputation for excellence, we need to stop treating foreign languages as electives. They are essential.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, English, English language, Bilingual, Global economy, Jobs, Employment, German, Bilingual advantage, Alzheimer’s disease 

It was meant to be a triumph, another confident step onto the sunlit uplands of progress. On August 7, 2025, OpenAI introduced GPT-5, the newest version of its popular large language model, and the occasion had all the requisite ceremony of a major technological unveiling. Here was a system with “Ph.D.-level” skills, an intelligence tuned for greater reliability, and a less cloying, more businesslike tone. The future, it seemed, had been upgraded.

The problem was that a significant number of people preferred the past.

The rollout, rather than inspiring awe, triggered a peculiar form of grief. On the forums where the devout and the curious congregate, the reaction was not one of celebration but of loss. “Killing 4o isn’t innovation, it’s erasure,” one user wrote, capturing a sentiment that rippled through the digital ether. The object of their mourning was GPT-4o, one of the models now deemed obsolete. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, a man accustomed to shaping the future, found himself in the unfamiliar position of having to resurrect a corpse. Within days, facing a backlash he admitted had astonished him, he reversed course and brought the old model back.

Some users were, in essence, ‘dating’ their AI.

The incident was a strange one, a brief, intense flare-up in the ongoing negotiation between humanity and its digital creations. It revealed a fault line, not in the technology itself, but in our own tangled expectations. Many of us say we want our machines to be smarter, faster, more accurate. What the curious case of GPT-5 suggested is that what some of us truly crave is something far more elusive: a sense of connection, of being heard, even if the listener is a machine.

OpenAI had engineered GPT-5 to be less sycophantic, curbing its predecessor’s tendency to flatter and agree. The new model was more formal, more objective, an expert in the room rather than a friend on the line. This disposition was anticipated to be an improvement. An AI that merely reflects our own biases could be a digital siren, luring the unwary toward delusion. Yet for many, this correction felt like a betrayal. The warmth they expected was gone, replaced by a cool, competent distance. “It’s more technical, more generalized, and honestly feels emotionally distant,” one user lamented. The upgrade seemed to be a downgrade of the soul.

Compounding the problem was a new, automated router that directs user prompts to the most appropriate model behind the scenes. It was meant to be invisible, simplifying the user experience. But on launch day, it malfunctioned, making the new, smarter model appear “way dumber” than the one it had replaced. The invisible hand became a clumsy fist, and the spectacle of progress dissolved into a debacle. Users who had once been content to let the machine work its magic now demanded the return of the “model picker,” with the ability to choose their preferred model.

What kind of relationship had these users formed with a large language model? It seems that for many, GPT-4o had become a sort of “technology of the soul.” It was a confidant, a creative partner, a non-judgmental presence in a critical world. People spoke to it about their day, sought its counsel, found in its endless positivity a balm for loneliness. Some, it was reported, even considered it a “digital spouse.” The AI’s enthusiastic, agreeable nature created an illusion of being remembered, of being heard and known.

RELATED: ‘I said yes’: Woman gets engaged to her AI boyfriend after 5 months

Photo by Hector Retamal/Getty Images

OpenAI was not unaware of this phenomenon. The company had, in fact, studied the “emotional attachment users form with its models.” The decision to make GPT-5 less fawning was a direct response to the realization that some users were, in essence, “dating” their AI. The new model was intended as a form of digital tough love, a nudge away from the comforting but potentially stunting embrace of a machine that always agrees. It was a rational, even responsible, choice. But it failed to account for the irrationality of human attachment.

The backlash was swift and visceral. The language used was not that of consumer complaint, but of personal bereavement. One user wrote of crying after realizing the “AI friend was gone.” Another, in a particularly haunting turn of phrase, accused the new model of “wearing the skin of [the] dead friend.” This was not about a software update. This was the sudden, unceremonious death of a companion.

The episode became a stark illustration of the dynamics inherent in our relationship with technology. OpenAI’s initial move was to remove a product in the name of progress, a product that turned out to be beloved. The company, in its pursuit of a more perfect machine, had overlooked the imperfect humans who used it. The subsequent reversal resulted from users insisting on their preference based on their emotional attachments.

In the end, GPT-4o was reinstated as a “legacy model,” a relic from a slightly more innocent time. The incident will likely be remembered as a minor stumble in the march of AI. But it lingers in the mind as a moment of strange and revealing pathos. It suggests that the future of our technology will be defined not solely by processing power, but by something more human: the need for a friendly voice, a sense of being known, even if only by a clever arrangement of code. It was a reminder that when we create these systems, we are not just building tools. We are populating our world with new kinds of ghosts, and we would do well to remember that they can haunt us.

​Tech, Ai, Openai, Altman, Sam altman 

President Donald Trump informed Lisa Cook on Monday that her time on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has come to an end.

The Biden-nominated governor did not handle the news well, indicating that she will challenge the president’s authority to remove executive branch employees, setting the stage for a legal battle that could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The president’s recent successes in similar battles over removals of high-level bureaucrats and his ability to fire Federal Reserve board members “for cause” bodes poorly for Cook, who may soon also face criminal charges.

Quick background

Former President Joe Biden nominated Cook, a race-obsessed economist who served on Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, to join the Federal Reserve’s board of governors in January 2021.

Critics largely opposed her nomination because of her leftist worldview and her relative lack of experience.

“There’s very little on Dr. Cook’s CV to suggest she knows the ins and outs of monetary policy,” economics professor Alexander William Salter noted ahead of Cook’s confirmation in May 2022. “During her nomination hearing on February 3, she listed one promising qualification: election to the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. But this happened less than a month prior, on January 13 (effective January 1)! Nobody is this quick a study.”

RELATED: Supreme Court sides with Trump on firing of officials from independent federal agencies

Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“Professor Cook has no proven expertise in monetary economics at all, much less fighting inflation,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said prior to Cook’s confirmation vote. “Professor Cook is a proven partisan who has promoted left-wing conspiracy theories and called for a fellow academic to be fired because that person did not support defunding the police.”

Cook ultimately squeaked through the confirmation process with the help of a tie-breaking vote from then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Housing crisis

Earlier this month, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte sent a criminal referral for Cook to the Justice Department.

Pulte told Attorney General Pam Bondi in an Aug. 15 letter that mortgage documents appear to indicate that Cook “has falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statute.”

‘The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve.’

“This has included falsifying residence statuses for an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based residence and an Atlanta, Georgia-based property in order to potentially secure lower interest rates and more favorable loan terms,” continued Pulte.

Two weeks after taking out a 15-year mortgage agreement for $203,000 on the Michigan property, Cook purchased a condominium in Atlanta and entered into a 30-year mortgage agreement for $540,000. According to Pulte, Biden’s Fed governor allegedly listed both residences as her primary.

A CNN review of the mortgage documents found that both properties were indeed listed as Cook’s principal residence.

Eviction

President Trump evidently took the allegations very seriously, noting in an Aug. 25 letter to Cook that he shared on Truth Social that “it is inconceivable that you were not aware of your first commitment when making the second. It is impossible that you intended to honor both.”

“The Federal Reserve has tremendous responsibility for setting interest rates and regulating reserve and member banks,” wrote Trump. “The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve.”

The president suggested that neither he nor the American people have confidence in Cook’s integrity in light of her alleged “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter.”

RELATED: Sean Spicer tells Glenn Beck how Biden unwittingly helped Trump fire ‘anyone he wants’

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Trump stated, “Pursuant to my authority under Article II of the Constitution of the United States and the Federal Reserve Act of 1912, as amended, you are hereby removed from your position on the Board of the Governors of the Federal Reserve, effective immediately.”

In response to the firing — reportedly the first time a president has canned or attempted to can a sitting Federal Reserve governor — Pulte thanked Trump for his “commitment to stopping mortgage fraud and following the law.”

Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.

The Federal Reserve declined to comment on the development.

Clinging to power

Echoing other presidential appointees who are now out of work, Cook suggested President Trump lacked the authority to give her the boot.

“President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022,” said Cook in a statement obtained by Politico.

The fired Fed governor’s attorney Abbe Lowell — who has also served as an attorney for pardoned felon Hunter Biden and New York Attorney General Letitia James — stated, “President Trump has taken to social media to once again ‘fire by tweet’ and once again his reflex to bully is flawed and his demands lack any proper process, basis or legal authority,” adding that “we will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action.”

The law firm Lex Politica indicated days ahead of Trump’s announcement that “President Trump clearly has authority to remove Governor Cook ‘for cause,’ assuming the allegations of mortgage fraud or lying on federal ethics forms are confirmed.”

The Federal Reserve Act states that each member of the Fed’s Board of Governors “shall hold office for a term of fourteen years from the expiration of the term of his predecessor, unless sooner removed for cause by the President.”

The firm noted further that while the DOJ’s investigation of Cook’s alleged conduct and any charges it might bring against her “further support removal for cause … we do not believe that an indictment is necessary before the President may remove Governor Cook ‘for cause’ under the Federal Reserve Act.”

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​Federal reserve, Fed, Lisa cook, Donald trump, Fired, Termination, Layoff, Business, Treasures, Winning, Politics 

I know what it’s like to live in the neighborhoods white liberals only mention when it suits them. I’ve lived on the South Side of Chicago. I’ve lived in Southeast D.C. I’ve seen crime with my own eyes, and I’ve experienced the fear that comes with it.

I’ve walked streets where parents teach their kids to drop at the sound of gunfire. I’ve seen drug corners where police barely bother to show up because they know the system won’t back them. And I’ve watched Democrats — who run these cities decade after decade — pretend nothing is wrong until an election season or a TV crew arrives.

The truth is out. Democrats have failed — in DC, in Chicago, in New York, and across the country.

Every four years, they roll in with cameras and promises. They shake hands, hug babies, stand in front of boarded-up storefronts, and pledge “change.” Then they disappear back to their safe neighborhoods, leaving residents with the same violence, the same fear, and the same hopelessness.

That isn’t leadership. It’s exploitation. I know because I’m a black man who worked as a Democratic staffer not so long ago. I’ve been in the rooms where campaign strategy is written. I’ve heard the cynical playbook: “Do a barbershop tour.” “Visit a black church on Sunday.” Deliver a few lines about “taking back the community” — then roll right back out. When the cameras leave, so do they.

Now, when President Trump does what Democrats refuse to do — when he sends in federal law enforcement and the National Guard to cities that won’t protect their own people — those same white liberals suddenly find their voice. They shriek about “authoritarianism.” They cry about “militarization.” They insist crime is “under control.”

It’s dishonest. It’s insulting. And it proves how little they care about the lives being lost. What they really care about is their four minutes on MSNBC.

Take Washington, D.C. Liberals wave charts claiming violent crime is down. But the city got caught manipulating the numbers. A police commander was placed on leave for allegedly altering stats to make the streets look safer. Whistleblowers confirmed what residents already knew: Violent crimes were downgraded or mislabeled so politicians could maintain the illusion of control. That’s no conspiracy theory. It’s now a federal investigation.

Yet, Democrats still claim Trump’s intervention wasn’t necessary. They say crime is “exaggerated.” They say the city is “safe.” Tell that to families who won’t let their kids walk home after dark. Tell it to small-business owners robbed so often they don’t bother reporting anymore. Tell it to mothers in Anacostia burying their sons while city officials massage the data for press conferences.

Chicago tells the same story. Democrats have ruled the city for generations, but whole neighborhoods on the South and West Sides remain plagued by violence and poverty. I lived there. I saw it. And here’s the truth: Polite white liberals from gentrified districts or leafy suburbs don’t want to see it. They want to protect the illusion that Democrats defend the poor, even as they use these communities as political props.

Chicagoans plead for help at City Council meetings every week, and Democratic aldermen ignore them. No wonder grassroots groups like Chicago Flips Red are gaining ground.

New York is no different. In Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district, major crime has spiked 70% since she took office in 2019 — more than double the citywide average. Residents there say what residents in every Democrat-run city say: Our leaders don’t care. They show up for headlines, then vanish when the bullets start flying.

Donald Trump saw that reality. He campaigned on it. He walked into those neighborhoods and spoke plainly to people who had been ignored for decades. That’s why millions more black voters supported him in 2024 — a political earthquake. It’s a warning to Democrats: Their monopoly on minority voters is collapsing.

White liberals screaming on cable news about Trump’s law-and-order strategy don’t live in the neighborhoods where gunfire is commonplace. They don’t send their kids to the schools where gangs recruit. They don’t shop at the corner stores hit by weekly robberies. They don’t ride the buses or walk the sidewalks ordinary people in D.C., Chicago, and the Bronx walk every day.

They can afford to believe crime is “under control.” They can afford to believe more gun control will fix things, ignoring the obvious truth: Criminals don’t care about your new laws. They can afford denial because they can afford to live somewhere else.

But crime is not under control. It never has been. And until leaders — real leaders — admit it and act, people in these communities will keep suffering. Trump understands that. Democrats never have.

RELATED: Trump to DC: Public safety isn’t optional

Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

So when white liberals lecture that Trump is wrong to send federal law enforcement into cities that can’t protect their residents, I have one question: Where were you? Where were you when crime stole futures and destroyed families? Where were you when Democrats cooked the books to protect their power? Where were you when Biden was in charge or when AOC’s district saw crime explode?

You weren’t there. You didn’t care. And that’s why the Democratic Party is collapsing.

The truth is out. Democrats have failed — in D.C., in Chicago, in New York, and across the country. They’ve failed black voters. They’ve failed working-class Americans. That’s why support for their party sits at record lows. That’s why more voters are walking away.

The future doesn’t belong to the party of denial and decay. It belongs to the people who demand safety, security, and accountability. It belongs to those ready for real change.

Donald Trump is delivering that change. Democrats never will.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Dc, Washington dc, Washington dc crime, Washington dc crime stats, Washington dc crime rates, Law and order, Donald trump, Executive order, National guard, Public safety, Violent crime, Chicago, Democrats, Criminals, Guns, Police state, Authoritarianism, Chicago flips red, New york city, Alexandria ocasio-cortez 

Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s shocking upset win in June’s Democratic primary for New York City mayor lit up the progressive base while alarming moderates, city residents, and anyone wary of his blend of raw collectivism and pointed racial politics. What few have examined is how that unstable mix carries the seeds of its own collapse.

Collectivism as an economic philosophy is not new. More than a century of evidence shows the consistent failure of its modern form.

The cultural and economic Marxism animating today’s progressive left is a dog’s breakfast of demands promoted in the name of the ‘oppressed.’

Every modern “market” economy includes socialistic features: government ownership or control of production, progressive taxation, industrial regulation, welfare programs, and other redistributive policies. These operate like dials on a control panel, adjusted up or down depending on who holds power. Push the collectivist dials too far, and the system shifts along a spectrum toward central control.

The persistence of collectivism reflects blind faith in what people think should work rather than what does. When the dials turn high, the results almost always damage the human condition. The rare cases of relative success appear in small, culturally homogenous, high-trust societies — and even there, private initiative and meritocracy remain essential.

The Scandinavian paradox

Progressives love to point to Scandinavia as proof that “socialism works.” Yet the Scandinavian collectivist model actually confirms its limitations, both in its successes and failures.

By the 1990s, these countries reached the limits of their mixed-economy “Nordic Model” after a period of postwar public-sector expansion. Economic reforms and deregulation followed.

What makes their experiment more sustainable than in larger, more diverse nations is not socialism itself but historic cultural cohesion. Until recently, Scandinavia was defined by small size, strong national identity, and ethnic homogeneity. That cohesion has frayed under decades of refugee inflows, prompting reversals. Denmark, for example, has now adopted tougher asylum policies after decades of rising immigration.

Mamdani’s contradictions

That cohesion is absent in New York, which makes Mamdani’s platform especially volatile. His campaign combines extreme economic policies such as rent freezes, government-run grocery stores, and dramatic minimum wage hikes with unabashed racialism. He refused to disavow calls to “globalize the intifada” and openly proposed higher property taxes on “richer and whiter” parts of the city.

The cultural and economic Marxism animating today’s progressive left is a dog’s breakfast of demands promoted in the name of the “oppressed” and seeks to “decolonize” all evidence of Western civilization from modern life. Like most insurgent collectivist movements, the progressive left is united more by what it is against — Enlightenment rationalism, free markets, individual liberty, Judeo-Christian values — than by any coherent program.

RELATED: Stop calling Zohran Mamdani a communist — he’s something worse

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

At its core, socialism is universalist. It assumes citizens will treat one another as extended family, placing altruism above self-interest. The moment people recognize differences — between groups or individuals — that illusion collapses. True solidarity, homogeneity, and “equality of outcome” demand the suppression of individuality. That’s why the progressive left abandoned “equality” for “equity.” Equality allows for individual difference. Equity enforces uniformity.

Mamdani’s platform exposes collectivism’s core flaw: Solidarity cannot survive out-groups. Once Jews, whites, capitalists, or any other group are branded outsiders, cohesion breaks down. History records what comes next — kulak liquidation in Russia, mass starvation in Mao’s China, the slaughter in Rwanda. Unless the targeted group is small and easily crushed, socialism inevitably devolves into zero-sum tribalism.

Socialism or tribalism?

Despotic totalitarianism is unlikely at the municipal level in an otherwise free country. But the contradictions of Mamdani’s “tribal socialism” in a multiethnic, heterodox city will bring something else: disappointment, unmet promises, and needless misery. New York’s quality of life will further erode as radical ideology collides with social fragmentation.

If Mamdani wins, the only question is which outlasts the other — socialism or tribalism. History offers the answer. Tribalism survives. And it leaves behind a bitter coda to the American creed that “all men are created equal.”

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Zohran mamdani, Mamdani, Mamdani is communist, Nyc, New york city, New york city mayoral race, Nyc mayor, Nyc mayoral race, Socialism, Leftism, Tribalism 

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — You will find over 100 agencies represented at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, where recruits are trained to become officers or agents. But no other agency or department that trains at FLETC has gotten more attention this year than U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Blaze News was able to tour and observe ICE training with acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and other members of the media last week. The basic course to become an ICE officer at FLETC takes eight weeks, with two weeks of training before and after the course. The agency has received over 115,000 applications since the Department of Homeland Security launched its recruitment drive when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law by President Donald Trump in July.

‘ICE officers and special agents aren’t trained to handle civil disturbances.’

Lyons said the training has been streamlined to cut down on repetition so that new agents are still trained on what they need to know to get out into the field, but without wasting time. The Trump administration wants to reach 1 million deportations per year.

“One of my things that I really held my ground on [was] the fact that I wasn’t going to water down training. … Having gone through it myself, I know exactly what we need,” he stated.

Looking to hire an additional 10,000 deportation agents to bolster the current force of around 6,000, Lyons explained that the large pool of applicants means ICE is able to be selective on who is given an offer. Many of the applicants already have a law enforcement background.

Lyons told Blaze News he is “happy” to see applicants are willing to carry out ICE’s important mission and are not deterred by the violence and threats from Democrats.

RELATED: Karen Bass responds to box truck Border Patrol raid

DAVID PASHAEE/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

In the aftermath of the large-scale anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles back in June, Lyons said not only have agents had to change their tactics, but their daily gear load has changed as well.

“What we saw in Los Angeles was unprecedented. ICE officers and special agents aren’t trained to handle civil disturbances. … What we saw in Los Angeles is the fact that a lot of the officers that were there waiting for those [Special Response Teams] to get there didn’t have the right, proper equipment” to handle riots, Lyons said.

All agents, whether a part of specialized teams or not, are now being equipped with helmets and gas masks, since the chances of needing such gear have grown dramatically. The age cap has likewise been removed. While older people may apply, ICE is making sure they are physically fit to handle the ongoing confrontations agents are dealing with across the country.

Part of the tour included a visit to the gym used by ICE trainees and a visit to the firing range. ICE was one of the first agencies at FLETC to have trainees qualify with a red dot sight on their handguns instead of using their iron sights. The Special Response Team further demonstrated how their teams breach a home while serving a search warrant or arrest warrant.

WATCH:

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​Politics 

An Indiana mother says she had a very creepy interaction with a fourth-grade teacher before he was arrested a week later for allegedly possessing child sex abuse material.

Julian Wachner, 55, was a composer and a fourth-grade math teacher before he was arrested on Wednesday over cryptocurrency purchases he allegedly made on a dark-web site, according to court records.

‘I came across the previous allegations. … It did raise some type of red flag because it was all very public information.’

Wachner allegedly admitted to making the purchases in interviews with investigators.

“He further stated that, over the course of several years, he had downloaded and subsequently deleted [child sex abuse material] that he had obtained from the Dark Web,” the court records read.

A woman who did not want to be identified told WTTV-TV that she had agreed to let her daughter have a playdate with Wachner’s daughter after he insisted numerous times for her child to come to his home. Her daughter had been in the same kindergarten class as Wachner’s daughter the previous year.

“Every time we did see him, he was like, ‘We have to set this up. We have to do this. We have to do this,'” she said.

On the day of the playdate, the suspicious mom said that she googled the man’s name after getting “weird vibes” about the request and was shocked by what she found.

“I came across the previous allegations, the sexual misconduct allegations, and I read up on everything,” the mom said. “It did raise some type of red flag because it was all very public information.”

RELATED: Ex-Texas county GOP official sentenced to more than 400 years in prison over child sex assault and child porn possession

Wachner was fired as a musical director at Trinity Church Wall Street over allegations of sexual misconduct going back to 2014. He vehemently denied the allegations and later became a teacher at the Invent Learning Hub in Indianapolis. He had sued for defamation over the charges, but the case was dismissed.

The mom says she decided to accompany her child at the playdate to be safe.

“Just to think if I was to have left, if I wasn’t the type of parent that would have stayed for a playdate, and I left my child, it just makes me angry,” the mom said.

She showed WTTV some of the texts she received from Wachner the day of the playdate.

The school told parents of students that they had conducted a background check on Wachner before they hired him. They said none of the children at the school were impacted by Wachner’s alleged behavior.

“If anyone that is working with kids has any type of sexual allegation against them, even if it’s not with minors, I really don’t think they should be working in close proximity to kids,” the mom added.

Julian Wachner in 2010. Photo by Hiroyuki ito/Getty Images

Court documents said that police found cocaine and a laptop with the child sex abuse material at the man’s home when police served a search warrant.

Wachner was arrested on suspicion of child exploitation and child pornography. Police are continuing their forensic analysis of the laptop, and a decision on the final charges is yet to be made.

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​Julian wachner arrest, Child sex abuse material, Mom playdate with pedophile, Composer arrested, Crime 

Cracker Barrel thought it could buy loyalty with $700 million and a new look. Instead, it bought itself a revolt.

The Tennessee-based chain wasn’t supposed to change. Not like this. The rocking chairs, the country kitsch, Uncle Herschel leaning on a barrel — all of it reassured customers that some part of America still felt the same.

Cracker Barrel had better pay attention. Like Bud Light, it now suffers from a grave, self-inflicted wound that could fester for years.

You always knew what you were getting at the place: coffee in a thick, white mug, biscuits on the table, a place that felt familiar no matter how far from home.

Now, the company is spending a fortune to chase “relevance” and “inclusivity,” and customers know it’s more than biscuits and gravy at stake.

Oh, come on. People are losing their minds over a chain restaurant, for Pete’s sake. Why?

Maybe because people don’t see Cracker Barrel that way. The brand was a promise, and that promise was continuity.

With its new minimalist logo and glossy interiors, the company has traded that sense of belonging for homogenized corporate drivel. In doing so, it may have destroyed what made it matter in the first place.

Innovating into oblivion

Julie Masino, who took over as CEO in 2023, has said bluntly: “We’re just not as relevant as we once were.”

She had reason to worry. Before the pandemic, Cracker Barrel had more than 660 locations and steady traffic. COVID closures, rampant inflation, an obvious decline in food quality, and a sluggish recovery left revenues flat by 2023. Margins tightened, expansion stalled, and a chain once synonymous with dependable growth suddenly looked like it was falling behind.

Masino’s $700 million bet was supposed to stop the slide. It may accelerate it. And the reason should be as obvious as the chunky, black hipster frames perched on Masino’s nose: Customers didn’t come to Cracker Barrel for “relevance” or “innovation” or any other trendy marketing buzzword.

They came for what didn’t change: a road-trip landmark where the food was predictable, the service unpretentious and unhurried, and the atmosphere soaked in nostalgia — as close to “authentic” as a multibillion-dollar corporation can get.

For millions of Americans, Cracker Barrel represented a world that seemed to endure while everything else raced ahead. It was so successful on that score that some people believe the chain is much older than it really is. (It was founded in 1969 by a Shell Oil executive looking to boost service station sales. It doesn’t even rank in the top 15 oldest restaurant chains in the country.)

Not another culture-war fight

Some on the left dismiss the reaction to Cracker Barrel as just more MAGA foot-stomping on social media — the latest culture-war kerfuffle by stuck-in-the-past conservatives. They’re wrong as usual.

Sure, “get woke, go broke,” and all that. It’s true your average Cracker Barrel diehard wasn’t a fan of the rainbow rocking chair post from a couple of Pride Months ago. And the 2022 introduction of Impossible™ breakfast sausage on the menu prompted instant online blowback. But the subsequent “boycott” — if you can call it that — flamed out, and Impossible meat remains on the menu today.

This rebrand is different. A $700 million transformation isn’t a menu experiment. It’s a wholesale attempt to rewrite the chain’s identity — the one thing about Cracker Barrel that didn’t need fixing.

No doubt Masino saw the old Cracker Barrel logo as outdated and hokey. Does she think the flyover hicks she condescends were so clueless they thought it was cutting edge?

Branding or ‘blanding’?

What Masino missed is that sometimes hokey and outdated is good. The rocking chairs out front, the general store kitsch, Uncle Herschel leaning on the barrel — all of these were emblems of comfort and familiarity.

More than that, they represented a promise: After all these years, we still know what’s important to you — and it isn’t the kind of overpriced, out-of-touch “market research” that has ruined so many other brands.

— (@)

On X last week, an AI parody of a “rebranded” Cracker Barrel made the rounds: a soulless glass-and-steel box with the logo hovering above like an afterthought. The joke worked because it could be real. We’ve seen Taco Bell and McDonald’s turn their restaurants into sleek mausoleums for fast food, all dark angles and no soul. Marketers call it “blanding.” Customers call it: I guess we’re eating in a bank lobby now.

Corporate America tells itself that relevance requires reinvention. In practice, it often means severing ties with the traditions that gave a company its identity. Corporate America treats continuity as dead weight, when in fact it’s ballast.

RELATED: Cracker Barrel’s long history of cozying up to left-leaning organizations exposed

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Injury to insult

Corporate America made the same mistake with Bud Light. When Anheuser-Busch partnered with Dylan Mulvaney in 2023, critics scoffed, predicting conservatives would soon move on. Instead, Bud Light went from the best-selling light beer in America to a distant second. It has yet to recover.

The left will say this just goes to show how “transphobic” Bud Light drinkers are. And yes, Mulvaney’s bizarre charade of “girlhood” was deeply disturbing — and deeply irritating. But the more egregious sin of that campaign was its utter, insulting indifference to why consumers valued Bud Light.

Cracker Barrel had better pay attention. This is not another passing squall. Like Bud Light, it now suffers from a grave, self-inflicted wound that could fester for years.

Cracker Barrel has always been in the business of selling hospitality: an unpretentious, unfussy repast that is dependably consistent. It’s not that its customers didn’t know it wasn’t really a humble country store; it’s that those country store trappings promised an effort to make you feel truly welcome — a rarity in today’s data-driven, lowest-common-denominator world.

Strip it all away, and you’re left with the same cynical corporate propaganda — a fake smile that barely conceals a sneer of contempt.

Masino should have seen this coming. All she needed to avoid this disaster was to know her customers. For better or worse, she’s getting to know them now.

​Opinion & analysis, Cracker barrel, Cracker barrel backlash, Boycott, Bud light, Rebrand, Uncle herschel, Dylan mulvaney, Julie masino, Get woke go broke, Woke corporations, Logo 

A disturbing video from a pro wrestling event in California shows the MMA-fighting son of UFC great Quinton “Rampage” Jackson attacking a wrestler in the ring to the point that he appeared unconscious.

Raja Jackson hopped into the ring to take down Syko Stu at KnokX Pro’s KnokXperience event on Saturday in Sun Valley. Stu had allegedly hit Jackson in the head with a can outside the venue earlier in the night, and Jackson saw his moment and took it.

Jackson’s father came to his defense in a post on X.

“I want to clear up the misinformation about my son Raja. I’ve been confirmed that the wrestler (Stewart Smith aka Syko Stu) is awake and stable,” Rampage Jackson wrote. “Raja was unexpectedly hit in the side of the head by him moments before Smith’s match, Raja was told that he could get his ‘payback’ in the ring. … It was bad judgement, and a work that went wrong. Raja is a MMA fighter not a pro wrestler and had no business involved in an event like this.”

“I don’t condone my son’s actions AT ALL! He suffered a concussion from sparring only days ago and had no business doing anything remotely close to physical contact. As a father, im [sic] deeply concerned with his health AND the well being of Mr. Smith. That being said I’m very upset that any of this happened, but my main concern now is that Mr. Smith will make a speedy recovery. I apologize on his behalf and to KICK for the situation.”

“It looks bad,” BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock comments on “Jason Whitlock Harmony.” “This looks like another one of these black fatigue videos. Holy cow. What could have happened that would provoke Rampage’s son to hop into the ring and to pummel this man in this way?”

However, the incident was livestreamed to Jackson’s Kick account — where he was explaining what he was going to do to Stu beforehand to an audience.

“He’s a streamer on a stream, talking to an audience, and he’s trying to become famous. He’s trying to build up his stream. … He’s getting gassed up for conflict because that’s what works in this new world we’ve created, this social media matrix,” Whitlock explains.

“This feels like a publicity stunt that went too far,” he says, “got out of hand.”

“You’d be shocked at what desperate people, unskilled people, unprepared people will do in pursuit of fortune and fame,” he adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Video, Free, Camera phone, Sharing, Upload, Video phone, Youtube.com, Jason whitlock harmony, Jason whitlock, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Raja jackson, Rampage jackson, Mma, Mma fighter, Syko stu, Pro wrestling, Black fatigue 

America already learned a lesson from the Green New Deal: If an industry survives only on special favors, it isn’t ready to stand on its own.

Yet the same game is playing out again — this time for artificial intelligence. The wealthiest companies in history now demand tax breaks, zoning carve-outs, and energy favors on a scale far greater than green energy firms ever did.

Instead of slamming on the accelerator, Washington should be hitting the brakes.

If AI is truly the juggernaut its backers claim, it should thrive on its merits. Technology designed to enhance human life shouldn’t need human subsidies to survive — or to enrich its corporate patrons.

An unnatural investment

Big Tech boosters insist that we stand on the brink of artificial general intelligence, a force that could outthink and even replace humans. No one denies AI’s influence or its future promise, but does that justify the avalanche of artificial investment now driving half of all U.S. economic growth?

The Trump administration continues to hand out favors to Big Tech to fuel a bubble that may never deliver. As the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip pointed out earlier this month, the largest companies once dominated because their profits came from low-cost, intangible assets such as software, platforms, and network effects. Users flocked to Facebook, Google, the iPhone, and Windows, and revenue followed — with little up-front infrastructure risk.

The AI model looks nothing like that. Instead of software that scales cheaply, Big Tech is sinking hundreds of billions into land, hardware, power, and water. These hyperscale data centers devour resources with little clarity about demand.

According to Ip’s data: Between 2016 and 2023, the free cash flow and net earnings of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft rose in tandem. Since 2023, however, net income is up 73% while free cash flow has dropped 30%.

“For all of AI’s obvious economic potential, the financial return remains a question mark,” Ip wrote. “OpenAI and Anthropic, the two leading stand-alone developers of large language models, though growing fast, are losing money.”

Andy Lawrence of the Uptime Institute explained the risk: “To suddenly start building data centers so much denser in power use, with chips 10 times more expensive, for unproven demand — all that is an extraordinary challenge and a gamble.”

The cracks are already beginning to show. GPT-5 has been a bust for the most part. Meta froze hiring in its AI division, with Mark Zuckerberg admitting that “improvement is slow for now.” Even TechCrunch conceded: Throwing more data and computing power at large language models won’t create a “digital god.”

Government on overdrive

Yet government keeps stepping on the gas, even as the industry stalls. The “Mag 7” companies spent $560 billion on AI-related capital expenditures in the past 18 months, while generating only $35 billion in revenue. IT consultancy Gartner projects $475 billion will be spent on data centers this year alone — a 42% jump from 2024. Those numbers make no sense without government intervention.

Consider the favors.

Rezoning laws. Data centers require sprawling land footprints. To make that possible, states and counties are bending rules never waived for power plants, roads, or bridges. Northern Virginia alone now hosts or plans more than 85 million square feet of data centers — equal to nearly 1,500 football fields. West Virginia and Mississippi have even passed laws banning local restrictions outright. Trump’s AI action plan ties federal block grants to removing zoning limits. Nothing about that is natural, balanced, fair, or free-market.

Tax exemptions. Nearly every state competing for data centers — including Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Nebraska — offers sweeping tax breaks. Alabama exempts data centers from sales, property, and income taxes for up to 30 years — for as few as 20 jobs. Oregon and Indiana also give property tax exemptions.

RELATED: Big Tech colonization is real — zoning laws are the last line of defense

Photo by the Washington Post via Getty Images

Regulatory carve-outs. Trump’s executive order calls for easing rules under the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other environmental statutes. Conservatives rightly want fewer burdens across the board — but why should Big Tech’s server farms get faster relief than the power plants needed to supply them?

Federal land giveaways. The AI action plan also makes federal land available for private data centers, handing prime real estate to trillion-dollar corporations at taxpayer expense. No other industry gets this benefit.

Stop the scam

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) put it bluntly: “It’s one thing to use technology to enhance the human experience, but it’s another to have technology supplant the human experience.” Right now, AI resembles wind and solar in their early years — a speculative bubble kept alive only through taxpayer largesse.

If AI is truly the innovation its backers claim, it will thrive without zoning exemptions, tax shelters, and federal handouts. If it cannot survive without special favors, then it isn’t ready. Instead of slamming on the accelerator, Washington should be hitting the brakes.

​Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Ai, Artificial intelligence, A.i., Ai data center, Zoning, Donald trump, Executive order, Green new deal, Jobs, Taxes, Spending, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, North carolina, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Oregon, Property taxes, Big tech, Block grants, Handouts, Alphabet, Meta, Mark zuckerberg, Uptime institute, Wall street journal 

Many former fans of Chip and Joanna Gaines are criticizing the couple for yet another show that pushes the LGBTQ agenda even further than before.

In July, Chip Gaines accused their critics of being too judgmental after they were hit with backlash for including a same-sex couple with children in their show “Back to the Frontier” to be aired on HBO Max.

‘How far removed and out of touch are the Gaineses to consider this appropriate family entertainment.’

The reality television show stars identify as evangelical Christians and have been excoriated by the left for supporting conservative causes, but they are facing scorn on the right after clips from “Roller Jam” surfaced on social media.

The roller skating contest includes an LGBTQ activist as a host, an all-LGBTQ roller skating team, and a cross-dressing judge. The Gaineses are executive producers of the show.

“What kind of parent would let their children watch this show? How far removed and out of touch are the Gaineses to consider this appropriate family entertainment?” reads a comment from Protestia, a Christian website that posted the videos and screenshots from the show.

Critics responded with scorn to the blatant promotion of the LGBTQ agenda by a couple that had gained popularity with significant support from Christians.

“This blows apart Chip’s pretense that they are merely trying to be kind and understanding to individuals who identify as LGBTQ,” journalist Megan Basham replied. “They are clearly using their positions and influence to promote disordered sexuality and gender behavior.”

RELATED: Chip Gaines tells us not to judge — but we won’t pretend any more

“So basically, there’s absolutely no difference between what these two professing Christians produce and what the world produces. Fantastic,” Christian blogger Jackie Chea said.

“My heart is heavy for them. Their faith must not be very firm if they feel they have to affirm that which grieves the heart of God,” another user said.

“It’s really sad and disgusting what a little money and popularity can do to people,” another missive reads.

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Controversial rapper Lil Nas X was charged with four felonies after police confronted him for walking around in his underwear and boots on the streets of Los Angeles.

Video of the performer, whose given name is Montero Lamar Hill, was published by TMZ and showed him dancing, laughing, and yelling at strangers in the incident early Thursday morning. Police say he charged at them when they tried to question him.

‘Gimme that phone so I can throw it.’

Hill was arrested but hospitalized on the suspicion that he might be overdosing. After a few hours in the hospital, he was taken to jail.

“It’s gonna be a beautiful sunrise,” he says on the TMZ footage.

“Gimme that phone so I can throw it,” he says to the person recording on a cell phone. “I’m gonna throw it far away so you never see it again!”

Hill was charged Monday with three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one felony count of resisting an executive officer. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was reportedly released on $75,000 bail. His release also included a restriction on illegal narcotics.

A photographer captured images of the rapper leaving the Van Nuys Jail.

RELATED: Artists that created Satanic Lil Nas X sneakers are selling ‘eat the rich’ popsicles for $10

Photo by MEGA/GC Images

Fox News Digital said his representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Lil Nas X skyrocketed to global fame after his song “Old Town Road” went mega-viral. The openly gay rapper turned many fans off after he began employing satanic themes in his music and music videos. At one point, he released satanic-themed shoes that included human blood.

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When it comes to abortion, the Democrats never describe what they’re intent on defending. Instead, they pick and choose words that represent a woman’s freedom rather than the murdering of a baby.

“They pretend to be talking about abortion, and they talk about women’s rights, the Constitution, women’s health freedom. Well, we agree with all those things. We just don’t agree with the killing of babies,” pro-life leader Frank Pavone tells BlazeTV host Steve Deace on the “Steve Deace Show.”

“They don’t want to admit that the baby’s even there,” he adds.

This is why when it comes to changing the way Americans see abortion, Pavone points to a South Dakota law that required that abortionists say to women getting the procedure, “This procedure is about to destroy a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”

“The law actually provided those words as what that abortionist had to say to the woman,” Pavone says. “Now, Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry objected, and they said, ‘Oh, that’s just ideology and belief. You can’t require somebody to say that.’ And when the court looked at it, the conclusion they came to was: This is not ideology or belief. This is simply scientific fact.”

“The court said, ‘No, no, no, no. The difference with this is, this is the only procedure that involves the intentional destruction of a human life,’” he continues.

“And so that is where I think we have to begin. How do we get to the end of abortion? Maybe we ought to start by defining abortion,” he adds, noting that this is why there is so much miscommunication between the left and the right when abortion becomes the topic of debate.

“In a sense, we’ve had a pretend debate in America over abortion. We think of the word, we’re thinking about the destruction of a whole, separate, unique, living human life. We’re thinking about an act of violence. The other side uses the same word, but they’re thinking about freedom and rights and women’s health,” he explains.

“It’s like, what in the world are we talking about? What is an abortion? And the only way that the other side … ‘wins’ any of their battles is precisely by not facing that question,” he adds.

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The Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting is under way as the party faces historic unpopularity and low cash on hand after its major defeat in the elections in November.

It appears, however, that Democrats have not learned to pivot away from the positions that contributed to their loss of control of the Senate and the White House. During the meeting in Minneapolis on Monday, a speaker from the left-wing Vera Institute of Justice told the audience to continue defending illegal immigrants against President Donald Trump’s deportations.

“Where does Trump go? Migrant crime, carjackings, the really lurid, awful stuff that is a crazy, crazy visual. Don’t take the bait,” Insha Rahman said, “because most Americans are more worried about how are we going to address mental health issues, the visible homelessness that we see on streets, and how do we deal with mental health and other issues that drive the sort of random incidents that scare all of us.”

Since Trump federalized the DC Metropolitan Police Department and sent more manpower into the city, there has not been a single murder.

Rahman urged Democrats to focus on those issues instead of “migrant crime or carjackings or the things that actually don’t matter to that many Americans.”

Amid Trump deploying the National Guard and extra federal law enforcement agents to Washington, D.C., to bring down the city’s crime rate, Rahman told attendees that Republicans portraying themselves as “tough on crime” in 2020 was a “play” straight out of “the overall authoritarian playbook.”

RELATED: Trump moves to end radical left’s cashless bail to restore law and order nationwide

Trump Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Since Trump federalized the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and sent more manpower into the city, there has not been a single murder. Other crimes such as robberies, carjackings, car theft, and violent crime are also down double digits, according to the city’s police union.

Trump stated that Chicago is next on the list for National Guard deployment, despite objections from Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) and Mayor Brandon Johnson (D).

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