Category: blaze media

Major League Baseball was determined to wrap this year’s All-Star Game in red, white, and blue. But according to BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock, it felt less like a celebration of America and more like a carefully scripted PR campaign.

“They tried way too hard to have this great patriotic moment last night,” Whitlock says, pointing out that instead, it “came off as fake and gay.”

“They want you to fake it, and they want you to be as fake as they are. And so they had players standing on the field holding cards and pretending to interact with kids and holding sparklers, and Patti LaBelle sang one of the worst national anthems in the history of All-Star games,” he explains.

“America has slid off the rails, and you’re just trying to put a happy face on this, you’re trying to reconnect people to Americana and some sort of pride satisfaction with America, but it can’t be done. It can’t be faked. It can’t be manufactured. And that’s what it was last night,” he continues.

Whitlock also notes that the MLB “just spent the last month on its knees kissing the LGBTQ’s rear end and stuffing Pride Night down our throat.”

“It’s going to take real work, not nostalgic moments with players holding sparklers in between innings, celebrating the 250th birthday of America in a fake way,” he says.

“Patriotism is real and organic, and it’s about shared values and people that take pride, real pride … in their country,” he continues, “And Major League Baseball doesn’t do that. Professional sports don’t do that. Professional sports for the last decade have been a tool to denigrate America.”

“And you don’t just get to, ‘Well, we’re going to stop doing that and pivot, and now we’re patriotic again.’ No, no, no, no. The only way you get to do that is when you repent for what you’ve been doing for the last decade and a half, two decades,” he adds.

He recalls the MLB’s promotion of DEI, racial idolatry, Black Lives Matter slogans — and “Pride.”

Whitlock explains that the MLB participates in not the Christian culture of the country, but in being a “safe space” for “sexual perversion.”

“That’s why they can’t now turn around and say, ‘Hey, we’re about, you remember all that nostalgic stuff in the ’80s and ’90s. We’re about that. We’re about family.’ No, you’re not. You’re about the mirage. You’re about same-sex marriage. You’re not about what made America great,” he says.

“The whole thing was fake,” he says, adding, “I’m going to keep it 1,000% real.”

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​Fearless with jason whitlock, Mlb, Pride month, Fearless 

One of the most influential military strategists of the 20th century, U.S. Air Force Col. John Boyd, developed a decision-making process known as the OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, act.

His model emphasized a simple but powerful principle: Move quickly, but only after understanding the strategic environment.

Nations that lead biotechnology will enjoy not only economic advantages but also strategic leverage during future global crises. China understands this.

The most important step is often “orient.” It requires leaders to look beyond the immediate problem, understand the broader consequences of their actions, and anticipate unintended outcomes. When leaders skip that step, they may solve today’s problem while creating a much larger one tomorrow.

President Donald Trump’s recent effort to reduce prescription drug prices illustrates that challenge.

One of the administration’s most significant health care initiatives is the adoption of a most-favored-nation pricing model. Under this policy, the United States would tie the prices of certain prescription drugs to the lower prices paid by selected foreign countries.

The objective is understandable. Americans often pay substantially more for prescription medicines than patients in Europe or Canada. Reducing those costs would help millions of families.

But sound public policy requires looking beyond immediate savings.

Economists have long recognized that government-imposed price controls often reduce investment and supply over time. In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon imposed broad wage and price controls in an effort to combat inflation.

Instead, the country experienced stagflation — the painful combination of high inflation and slow economic growth. Energy price controls contributed to gasoline shortages by reducing incentives for increased production. Rent-control policies in cities such as New York have similarly discouraged new housing construction, contributing to housing shortages.

Pharmaceuticals operate under similar economic realities.

Developing a single breakthrough drug often requires more than a decade of research, thousands of unsuccessful experiments, and billions of dollars in investment. The profits from successful medicines finance the research that produces tomorrow’s cures.

If government policies significantly reduce those returns, companies are unlikely to stop producing today’s medicines. More likely, they will reduce research and development spending, slowing the pace of innovation.

RELATED: Big Pharma’s miracle drugs have a nasty side effect

Bagira22/Getty Images

That slowdown would be both an economic and national security concern.

Biotechnology has become one of the world’s most strategically important industries. It influences health care, agriculture, artificial intelligence, military medicine, pandemic preparedness, and protection against biological threats.

Nations that lead biotechnology will enjoy not only economic advantages but also strategic leverage during future global crises.

China understands this.

Just as Beijing has invested aggressively in artificial intelligence, critical minerals, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing, it has identified biotechnology as a strategic national priority.

Between 2016 and 2021, the market capitalization of Chinese biotechnology companies grew to approximately $300 billion, while the Chinese government invested heavily in research centers, biotechnology hubs, and advanced scientific education.

The numbers tell an even more compelling story.

According to the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, China completed more than 7,100 clinical drug trials in 2024, compared with roughly 6,000 in the United States. China’s share of global clinical trials has grown from approximately 1% in 2009 to nearly 30% today, while America’s share has declined.

Chinese scientists now produce roughly 60% of the world’s most-cited biotechnology research papers, and China accounts for 22% of international pharmaceutical and medical technology patents — an increase of nearly 380% over the past decade.

China also graduates approximately twice as many STEM students as the United States each year.

These statistics show that China views biotechnology as a critical component of future economic and military power. The United States, by contrast, risks treating one of its greatest strategic advantages primarily as a domestic pricing issue.

That should concern every American.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities created by dependence on foreign supply chains for medicines and medical equipment. Imagine a future pandemic — or a deliberate biological attack — in which America depends not merely on foreign manufacturing but also on foreign research, patents, advanced therapies, and biotechnology innovation.

The leverage China now enjoys through its dominance of critical minerals could become far greater if it also dominates the technologies needed to develop vaccines, precision medicine, or defenses against biological weapons.

None of this means prescription drug prices should remain high. Americans deserve affordable medicines.

The challenge is finding policies that lower costs without discouraging the innovation that has made the United States the global leader in biomedical research.

Trump’s leadership style has often been characterized by speed — moving rapidly to implement broad policy changes and challenge long-standing assumptions.

Speed can be an advantage in business, where quick decisions often create competitive advantages. But governing a nation is fundamentally different from managing a corporation. Public policy affects industries, scientific leadership, national security, and future generations.

Decisions that appear successful in the short term can produce unintended strategic consequences years later.

Boyd understood this better than most. The goal was never simply to act quickly. It was to understand the entire battlefield before deciding how to act.

America should pursue reforms that make prescription drugs more affordable. But before adopting policies that could reduce investment in biotechnology, policymakers should pause long enough to complete Boyd’s “orient” step.

RELATED: Eli Lilly strikes a $3 billion Chinese drug deal

Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto/Getty Images

In an era of growing strategic competition with China, protecting America’s leadership in biotechnology may prove as important to national security as maintaining superiority in the air, at sea, in space, or in cyberspace.

Sometimes the most dangerous consequences of a decision are not the ones we see today.

They are the ones we fail to anticipate tomorrow.

​Drug prices, Donald trump, China, Prescription medications, Big pharma, Stem students, Biotechnology, Covid, Opinion & analysis 

A legal battle has cast an unflattering light on the ugly business of surrogacy as well as on the eugenicist mentality that predominates in Canada — a country whose health care system was founded by a eugenicist, where euthanasia is now a leading cause of death, and where there are no legal limits on abortion.

According to a damning new report from the National Post in which the names of parties involved were withheld, a homosexual couple is suing a surrogate mother who two years ago refused their request to abort the baby boy over whom they now have legal custody.

‘They are suing the woman who brought their son to them.’

The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court in May, alleges that the surrogate mother failed to keep the gay couple informed about the health status of the baby, endangered the baby, caused the homosexuals so much emotional distress that one missed work for two months, and violated the plaintiffs’ confidentiality, reported the Post.

The target of the lawsuit, a resident of Ontario’s Muskoka region who works as a correctional officer, has denied all of the allegations and told the Post, “You know I’m a single mom, you know I have a daughter, and you’re basically suing me for my house. It seems very s***ty, it’s just awful.”

“I just feel used,” continued the woman, who claimed that the plaintiffs have indicated they are seeking roughly $600,000 in damages. “They didn’t get the perfect child they wanted, and they threw me away.”

It is unlawful under Canada’s Assisted Human Reproduction Act to pay a woman to be a surrogate mother or to pay to arrange the services of a surrogate mother. Surrogacy is not, however, prohibited “so long as a surrogate mother in Canada makes this decision for altruistic reasons (i.e., without financial or other gain).”

A surrogate mother can only be repaid for out-of-pocket costs directly related to her pregnancy.

RELATED: ‘There is no mama’: How a viral video accidentally exposed the true cost of gay adoption

BSIP/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Image

The surrogate mother targeted by the lawsuit told the Post that she became interested in surrogacy after seeing a pair of close friends face reproductive obstacles.

After her profile was shared on the website of the referral organization Surrogacy in Canada Online, the woman was inundated with messages from individuals seeking her services, she claimed. Following an extensive screening process, she ultimately entered a contract with the homosexual couple now suing her.

According to the surrogate mother who underwent in-vitro fertilization with embryos produced with a donor egg and each of the homosexual’s sperm, her relationship with the couple was positive until June 2024, when she informed them that an ultrasound indicated the baby had a cleft lip and potentially a cleft palate and minor heart defect as well.

The couple said in a letter reviewed by the Post, “Considering that medical tests indicate that the fetus has, or is likely to have, a genetic, chromosomal or other abnormality or defect, and in accordance with article 8.5 (a) of our surrogacy agreement … we want to inform you of our wish that the pregnancy be terminated.”

“Although very difficult, this decision is free and informed,” added the couple, which is being represented by Jonathan Lancaster, a litigator at the Toronto-headquartered firm Fasken.

While proposed legislation criminalizing the coercion of pregnant women to abort their babies was defeated in 2010, Juliet Guichon, a bioethics professor at the University of Calgary, told the Post that Canadian law makes clear that the decision of whether to abort a baby ultimately rests with the expectant mother.

The surrogate mother refused to kill the 22-week-old baby over what she regarded as a superficial condition.

After hearing from doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital that the baby was generally healthy, the homosexual couple allegedly greenlit the continuation of the pregnancy.

The relationship between the surrogate mother and the homosexual couple continued to deteriorate when the woman decided to keep to the original plan of having the baby delivered at home by midwives.

The surrogate mother noted that the child had breathing problems on delivery but was provided oxygen by the midwives and then promptly taken to a hospital.

The homosexual couple who sought the baby’s death ended up taking him home, then effectively suspended contact with the surrogate, according to the mother.

Under Ontario’s All Families Are Equal Act, “the child ceases to be the child of the surrogate and the surrogate ceases to be a parent of the child” if the surrogate has entered into a surrogacy agreement before the child is conceived, has received independent legal advice in advance of entering the agreement, and the child is conceived through assisted reproduction.

The surrogate mother only enjoys the rights and responsibilities of a parent with respect to the child until the baby is 7 days old.

RELATED: Britain’s first homosexual ‘parent’ via baby purchase charged with rape, sexual exploitation

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty Images

After repeated requests for her outstanding expenses — including for lost income and transportation costs — allegedly went unanswered, the surrogate mother attempted to take the homosexual couple to small-claims court only to discover that her surrogacy contract required the resolution of such disputes by arbitration.

‘The practice of surrogacy itself cannot be reconciled with the dignity and rights of the two persons it most directly concerns.’

The Post reported that the homosexual couple subsequently filed a lawsuit, alleging that the mother put the baby’s health at risk by negligent behavior and by “failing to follow the (parents’) direction regarding decisions affecting the fetus’ medical care”; violated their confidentiality; and caused them emotional distress.

Blaze News did not immediately receive a response from the couple’s attorney.

“What I find most difficult in this is they are suing the woman who brought their son to them,” Sally Rhoads-Heinrich, the owner of Surrogacy in Canada Online, told the Post. “How is their son going to feel some day if he learns that?”

Guichon, who emphasized that the homosexual couple sought to end the baby’s life over a medical condition that “can be completely overcome by surgery and therapy,” noted that “the question arises as to whether it is in the best interests of the child to be raised by these people.”

A political declaration calling for the global abolition of surrogacy was launched at a high-level side event at the U.N. Human Rights Council last month co-hosted by the Vatican and the governments of Italy, Chile, and Cameroon.

“The practice of surrogacy itself cannot be reconciled with the dignity and rights of the two persons it most directly concerns,” said Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who works in the diplomatic service of the Holy See.

“The human person can never be the basis of a commercial contract. Every child has the right to an origin that is fully human. And under the convention on the rights of the child, the child also has the right to preserve his or her identity and as far as possible to know and be cared for by his or her parents,” continued Balestrero. “Surrogacy equally violates the dignity of the woman. It is rarely the privileged who carry children for others. The market of surrogacy is built overwhelmingly on the material need of women in situations of poverty and economic vulnerability.”

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​Abortion, Canada, Eugenics, Birth defect, Cleft palate, Ontario, Homosexual, Surrogacy, Surrogate, Pregnancy, Lgbt, Radicalism, Politics 

Narcissism has given itself a new name: socialism.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the generation that has grown up scrolling through social media feeds tends to be self-obsessed. This is evident in fewer marriages, lower birth rates, and a greater likelihood of mental illness. Politically, it is reflected in the alarming percentage of young people who have favorable views of socialism.

Socialism is rising in popularity because it allows today’s youth to engage in the self-absorption of influencer culture while also enjoying the faux moral superiority of communist propaganda.

Over the past few months, members of the Democratic Socialists of America have found success in political races across America. Whether it’s Zohran Mamdani’s cadre of candidates in New York City or Colorado’s Melat Kiros, it seems like no place is safe from the DSA’s growing influence.

The party’s prospects improved markedly after Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race last year. When he launched his campaign in October 2024, the DSA’s city chapter maintained a steady membership of about 5,000 and had only about 50,000 members nationally. But after Mamdani’s victory, NYC’s chapter tripled, while the national party doubled, hitting the 100,000 mark in February.

This happened as the DSA shifted its recruitment strategy, no longer relying on anger but preying on the egocentrism of today’s youth as it ramped up its focus on college campuses.

The Mamdani campaign’s many viral moments helped turn out the youth vote. His strong social media presence carried him across the finish line in America’s largest city. Other DSA candidates such as Claire Valdez and Abdul El-Sayed adopted Mamdani’s winning strategy.

They are gaining social status and expanding their voting blocs by putting themselves at the forefront of their campaigns.

The DSA candidates are having success because they aren’t painting themselves as politicians — they’re becoming influencers.

Their rallies look like nightclubs; they surround themselves with celebrities; and their TikToks show them enjoying an idyllic, manicured vision of the cities they represent. Their young followers aren’t being shown homeless encampments or violent drug addicts attacking their fellow citizens. Instead, DSA candidates shield them from the dangerous effects of the failed policies they would only accelerate.

I often hear older conservatives who grew up during or shortly after the Cold War ask the question, “Can’t these socialist kids see their city crumbling around them?” Indeed, they can. They see the graffiti, the unsafe public transportation, and the street takeovers. They choose to ignore these realities or blame them on “capitalism” as they look with awe at Zohran Mamdani joyfully walking shoulder to shoulder with his fellow New Yorkers on his way to get a poppy-seed bagel.

They’re caught up in his smile as he reads to a class of preschool children or encourages people to relinquish private property for the greater good.

RELATED: The media’s Democratic cover-up is collapsing

Chuwy/Getty Images

The DSA operates like any social media influencer, showing its audience how good life could be if they buy the right product, and in this case, that product is a trendy, Instagram-ready brand of socialism.

Perhaps no one has embodied the socialist influencer mindset more robustly than Hasan Piker. He has amassed a large following through daily, hours-long live Twitch streams, where he talks about communist theory and chats with his ever-growing group of followers.

Piker has been constantly seen with liberal elites and even made an appearance at Vanity Fair’s Oscar party, where he dressed like a chic Chairman Mao. He posts photos of himself thoughtfully “reading” Lenin or wearing expensive suits at Free Palestine rallies.

But for all of Piker’s radicalism, such as saying that the streets should “soak in red capitalist blood,” he could fairly be described as a communist MrBeast.

Piker and Mamdani represent the sinister narcissism underpinning the burgeoning socialist movement. Young people are obsessed with themselves: A recent Morning Consult poll found that 86% of respondents want to be influencers, the fourth most popular career aspiration for Americans between the ages of 13 and 38.

Socialism is rising in popularity because it allows today’s youth to engage in the self-absorption of influencer culture while also enjoying the faux moral superiority of communist propaganda. It is a match made in hell.

Kids looking to build audiences need only post about abolishing ICE or implementing rent control. Never mind that their iPhones and Instagram feeds were created by the very people and corporations they rail against. What matters is that they see their own image reflected in every inch of the world.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally in The American Mind.

​Birth rates, Celebrities, Hasan piker, Homeless encampments, Influencers, Narcissism, Socialism, Zohran mamdani, Rent control, Democratic socialists of america, Opinion & analysis 

Law enforcement officials said a search warrant of a 40-year-old man’s devices led to the discovery of hundreds of thousands of child porn images and videos.

The disturbing discovery was made after the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department was contacted by workers at a Stater Bros. grocery store in the picturesque mountain town of Lake Arrowhead.

Surveillance video from the store allegedly showed Quinn dropping the microSD memory card.

A worker found a microSD memory card and turned it over to police in June 2026.

Deputies reviewed the card and found “thousands of digital media depicting child pornography” that included “infants and juveniles performing sexual acts.” Some of the media was generated by artificial intelligence, but others were real.

Investigators were able to connect the card to Adam James Quinn, a resident of Lake Arrowhead. Surveillance video from the store allegedly showed Quinn dropping the microSD memory card.

Deputies then performed a search warrant at Quinn’s residence and seized other microSD cards as well as hard drives, flash drives, laptops, other computers, and his phone.

They allegedly found hundreds of thousands of child porn files on the devices.

Quinn was arrested on Wednesday and charged with possession of child pornography.

RELATED: 4 teachers and 1 cop in small Alabama town arrested over child pornography, police say

Lake Arrowhead. Don Kelsen/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Police released his booking photo in hopes of obtaining other information from the public that might help their investigation.

Lake Arrowhead is a small town with about 12,000 residents located in the San Bernardino Mountains.

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​Child porn, California, Surveillance, Crime 

Last year, here in Portland, I went to an author event at my local bookstore. The book was called “On Fire for God: Fear, Shame, Poverty, and the Making of the Christian Right.” It was a memoir by Josiah Hesse.

The event description said the memoir was about Hesse’s “bleak and difficult childhood in a small, rural Evangelical community in Iowa.”

My guess is that his literary agent or his editor understood how hungry mainstream publishers are for books that attack and slander the Christian faith.

Apparently, Hesse suffered mental anguish as a child when he was told by church elders that he was going to be tortured in hell for his sins.

Breaking with his church and family while still in his teens, he struck out on his own, eventually becoming a successful writer and journalist. Now he had written a book exposing the Christian right.

Dissing Christians

Hesse was doing a national book tour. He was traveling the country doing interviews and podcasts. He had just been featured on National Public Radio.

Needless to say, the mainstream media loved this book. A full frontal attack on the Midwestern evangelicals is always welcome in their circles. Especially if the author escaped the oppression of the church and found shelter in the safe spaces of progressive liberalism.

The book event began with Josiah Hesse making a grand entrance into the bookstore’s event area.

I didn’t know what to expect from such an author in terms of appearance, but I was definitely not expecting the rock-star shag haircut, the crisp white shirt, the shimmering black dinner jacket, or the elegant cravat around his neck.

Had this guy come here on his yacht? His face had definitely been moisturized. He looked like he could be in an ABBA tribute band.

Getting to know the author

Hesse took the stage and began his talk. He described growing up as an evangelical Christian.

As a young man, he was sensitive and imaginative and didn’t fit in. His parents, meanwhile, were loyal evangelicals. His dad believed in the “end times” and the eventual rise of the Antichrist.

In his teen years, Hesse’s feelings of alienation from his family and community got progressively worse. It didn’t help matters that he developed a taste for wearing high heels and trying on his mother’s clothes.

Small-town boy

So it turns out that Josiah was gay! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Eventually, he did what so many young gay people do: When he was old enough, he moved to the nearest big city. In this case, Denver.

There, he scraped by, working odd jobs and picking up writing gigs. Over time, he was able to develop his talent and eventually got a literary agent and published a book called “Runner’s High” at a major publishing house.

Watching him talk, he seemed like an upbeat guy. He told funny stories. He didn’t seem traumatized by his Christian upbringing. He was just gay. And now he was a successful writer who was gay.

RELATED: My search for America’s last decent public libraries

Joe McNally/Getty Images

Family ties

I also noticed the “breaking with his family” part of the story wasn’t quite as severe as promised. In his talk, he described returning home, hanging out with his dad, meeting up with old friends, reconnecting as best he could.

It was an interesting and relatable story.

So what happened to the evil Christian right? That’s what the book was supposed to be about. Where’s the trauma? Where’s the abuse? Where are the scars?

The Portland audience seemed restless and disappointed. Where was the evil? That’s what they came for. WE WANT OUR CHRISTIAN EVIL!

Not following the script

I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know for sure what’s in it. Hesse did quote some statistics during his talk.

These statistics seemed designed to reassure the anti-Christian audience that he was on their side. Trump is bad. Conservatives are neanderthals. Christians are brainwashed and in some cases predatory.

But I was skeptical. I didn’t believe Hesse was really this simpleminded. He was clearly an intelligent guy. He wasn’t super political. He didn’t hate his family, or his town, or his old friends.

He had moved away from his rural community, as any talented gay person would do. He found his people in Denver. And now he was writing books and living his best life.

Go where the money is

My guess is that his literary agent, or his editor, or maybe Hesse himself understood how hungry mainstream publishers are for books that attack and slander the Christian faith.

They especially love books that confirm the stereotype: “small-town Christians = bigots + racists.”

These memoirs are so popular that there’s a formula:

The author is abused and humiliated by the sadistic locals.The author breaks free of their bigotry and finds his way to the “good people,” i.e. college-educated liberals in coastal cities.There, the formerly oppressed author can flourish and be his true self: gay, or nonbinary, or furry, or poly-whatever.Everyone lives happily ever after.

That’s the genre that Josiah Hesse’s “On Fire for God” supposedly belongs to. (See also “Educated” by Tara Westover, another memoir with almost the exact same storyline.)

Did Josiah strictly adhere to that formula? More or less. My main impression of the author: He looked happy. His writing career was going great. He was on a national tour. He was staying in nice hotels. He was wearing a cravat.

And I’m sure his publishers got what they wanted too. Another book that confirms that educated people, good people, moral people are uniformly against the Christian right, which is apparently an ongoing threat to our nation.

The only problem is: Whenever someone writes a book about the “dangerous Christian right,” it turns out he is just describing another small town in Iowa — usually, a town where, if you actually went there, you would find kind, decent people who, when you brought up the “Christian right,” wouldn’t even know what you were talking about.

​Antichristian, Memoir, Trauma, Books, Entertainment, Faith, Memoirs, Josiah hesse, Portland, Christian right, Blake’s progress 

Most Americans assume the ingredient label tells the whole story.

But according to Ashley and Patrick Sullivan, creators of the documentary “Breaking Big Food,” that assumption is usually wrong — and they’re exposing one loophole Big Food uses to keep cheap but toxic ingredients hidden from the public.

“What would you say is maybe one ingredient that people don’t know to look for? I’ve heard a lot of people talk about seed oils and different things, but what would you say is maybe one that doesn’t get enough attention that people need to look out for?” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey asks.

“I think natural flavors can be tricky. Sometimes, they can be from naturally derived sources, but specifically if they are used in savory foods, a lot of times it can be code for MSG,” Ashley tells Stuckey.

MSG is monosodium glutamate, which Patrick explains is an “excitotoxin.”

At specific dosages, this acts as a neurotoxin to the brain.

“So think of like your Stove Top Stuffing kind of thing that has natural flavors. That ‘natural flavors’ is likely a monosodium glutamate,” Patrick says.

“You’re saying it could be in something that’s marketed as healthy, that doesn’t have any other bad ingredients, but it does have natural flavors, which honestly a lot of times I’ve kind of just resigned myself to being like, ‘Well, that’s the only thing in it then whatever,’” Stuckey says.

“But you’re saying it could be MSG,” she adds.

“Yeah, and that would be something that you kind of look at the FDA and say, ‘I think they’re asleep at the wheel here on yet another issue regarding food labeling,’” Patrick says. “I think most Americans want to know, they want to educate themselves. They want to feed their families healthy food.”

“And they’re sort of expecting the FDA, whoever is in charge of what is on the grocery store shelves, they kind of expect that the FDA has kind of done their homework,” he continues. “They’re sadly mistaken that there are loopholes like natural flavors.”

But it’s not just “natural flavors” that consumers have to worry about.

“There’s also the loopholes of like GRAS, ‘generally recognized as safe,’ where in America, you have to prove harm rather than proving safety,” Patrick says.

“So for the past 30 years, the FDA was overwhelmed, and they allowed Big Food to begin introducing new chemicals into the food supply that they allow the food companies to self regulate as well. We think that’s generally recognized as safe,” he continues.

“And as a result, you hear claims, I’m not sure if the number is correct, but there’s about 10,000 chemicals in the United States that are allowed to be used under generally recognized as safe principles,” he explains, adding, “And those same chemicals are not allowed to be used in Europe.”

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​Allie beth stuckey, Ashley sullivan, Breaking big food, Excitotoxin, Fda, Gras, Msg, Natural flavors, Patrick sullivan, Seed oils, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

A worker at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center was booked on suspicion of attempted murder after shooting a protester, Colorado police say.

Aurora police said protesters were blocking ICE workers’ access to the ICE facility on Thursday evening when two female protesters got into a verbal altercation with the workers and took photos of their vehicles.

She was shot in the lower part of her body, but her injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening.

Brandon Booth, 42, allegedly “retrieved his personally owned pistol” and fired it at the two protesters as they walked away, striking one. He got back into his car and drove away.

Police said they were notified about the shooting around 7:30 a.m.

Booth was detained about two blocks away from the location of the shooting on Nome Street with a gun in his vehicle, police said.

The victim, who has not been identified, was described as a protester by police.

She was shot in the lower part of her body, but her injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening.

Both was booked on “probable cause of attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing, and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon,” according to the police statement.

A spokesperson for GEO Group, which runs the ICE facility, released a brief statement about the incident to CBS News.

“We are aware that an off-duty Aurora ICE Processing Center employee was involved in a shooting incident,” the statement reads. “This individual has been placed on unpaid administrative leave, and we will fully cooperate with law enforcement.”

Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain called the shooting a “tragedy on all fronts” in a statement Friday.

The Colorado District Attorney’s Office for Adams and Broomfield Counties declined to comment in an email to Blaze News.

RELATED: Sex toys, other objects allegedly thrown at cops at Minneapolis ICE facility, prompting dozens of arrests — but not by DHS

The district attorney’s office said official charges would be announced after the next hearing on July 22.

“We remain committed to ensuring an ethical, thorough, objective, and comprehensive review of this case. Violence of any kind will not be tolerated in Aurora. Constitutional rights are a pivotal part of a just society — violence is not,” Chamberlain concluded.

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​Attempted murder, Immigration and customs enforcement, Protesters, Politics 

California residents are expressing shock at the discovery of a swastika and a racial slur in a message left on an elementary school fence.

The message was found outside on a fence shared between Rio Seco Elementary School and the SportsPlex in Santee near San Diego.

‘Hate has no place in our schools or community.’

Someone snapped a photo of the message and posted it to the Facebook page “All Things Happening in Santee.”

The school district said in a statement that it notified the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office and immediately took the messages down.

“The Santee School District strongly condemns acts of hate and vandalism. Recently, we discovered an offensive and hateful symbol displayed on a shared fencing area,” the statement reads in part.

An image of the message on social media shows that the slur was the N-word.

“Hate has no place in our schools or our community. We remain strictly committed to fostering safe and welcoming learning environments for all students, staff, and families,” the district continued.

The incident comes as the City of Santee continues efforts to strengthen its reputation and promote unity following past incidents involving hate groups.

KGTV-TV spoke to residents who were enjoying the city’s weekly concert series near the school.

“It’s kind of sad that that’s happening because, you know, it’s the old saying, one bad apple,” resident Dion Milton said. “You can’t let it spoil the whole tree.”

“My sister-in-law grew up here when this was nothing but farmland,” he added. “It has changed, and I think for the better.”

RELATED: Auto shop vandalized with racist graffiti, so the owner installed cameras. Video captured two black suspects.

Milton went on to end with a hopeful message.

“You’re going to have your few that don’t know how to love,” he added. “You just try to show them love, and maybe they’ll catch on. If they don’t, then maybe next time.”

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​Racism, Vandalism, California, Hate crime, Politics 

Anti-Trump passengers to Florida who will suffer trauma from flying into President Donald J. Trump International Airport in West Palm Beach may have a free option available to them from one airline.

Many on the left claimed to be boycotting the airport after it was officially renamed on July 9. It was previously named Palm Beach International Airport.

The airline pushed back … and claimed their rules ‘don’t allow for changes because of an airport’s name or three-letter code.’

According to a memorandum sent to United Airlines reservation agents and obtained by Live and Let’s Fly, passengers who object to landing at the airport could be rerouted to Ford Lauderdale Airport or Miami International Airport.

The memo even offers a statement that agents can use when confronted by a snowflake passenger:

“I understand that you’d rather not fly to this airport anymore. We can look at nearby airports like Fort Lauderdale or Miami instead. Is that an acceptable alternative?” the memo suggests, according to Live and Let’s Fly.

The airline pushed back in a statement to the New York Post and claimed its rules “don’t allow for changes because of an airport’s name or three-letter code.”

The president’s Trump Force One plane was the first to land on the tarmac of the airport after the name change. Many of his supporters and allies praised the decision to change the name, which was signed into law by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“There is no person who has done more for Florida and our country, and no one more deserving of this incredible honor,” Eric Trump responded on social media at the time.

RELATED: Outrage erupts over new passport celebrating America’s 250th — and guess whose image is on it

“Congratulations Dad — I’m happy to have played a big role in making this happen,” the president’s son continued.

The airline also said the memorandum was poorly worded and that passengers may make changes to their ticket for many reasons without incurring charges.

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​Trump international airport, United airlines, Donald trump, Boycott, Florida, Politics 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is in the headlines again after coming to the defense of the now-deported immigrant he previously pardoned — even though the immigrant was convicted of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.

In his response to the Trump administration, Walz appears to be exploiting the empathy of his Democrat voters and ignoring the disturbing reality of what the immigrant did.

“Tim Walz and people like him will take that compassion and they will abuse it,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck begins.

“Walz responded to the Trump administration because Trump deported a pedophile that was a legal immigrant here that Tim Walz had pardoned,” he says. “You’re pardoning a pedophile?”

“So Tim Walz comes out and talks about the Trump administration deporting that illegal migrant convicted of raping a 10-year-old girl. How is Tim Walz not being recalled? Why is there not an impeachment hearing on Tim Walz?” he asks. “He pardons an illegal migrant convicted of raping a 10-year-old girl.”

The predator, Glenn notes, is “not an American citizen.”

“There’s no reason to have a threat in here that’s not an American. We have our own threats,” he says.

In a horrifying response to Trump’s deportation of the predator, Walz said, “Did that make us any safer? Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable? Did it improve the idea that we can’t all be judged by our worst day? And I want to be very clear: These are horrific crimes.”

“Yeah, Tim. I think that did make his children that apparently he left behind more stable,” Glenn comments. “Yeah, they got rid of a child rapist as a father.”

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​Glenn beck, Tim walz, Donald trump, Pedophile, Minnesota, Illegal immigration, Glenn beck program 

Democrats who are still hoping to win one of Maine’s seats in the U.S. Senate after Graham Platner’s unceremonious exit were likely disappointed by the Democratic debate Thursday.

The social media team for the Republican National Committee had a field day posting various clips from the debate that displayed the candidates’ absurdity and/or extremism.

‘They say we want to hurt people. I don’t want to hurt anybody, I just want to use the bathroom.’

Transgender-identifying candidate Ashley Webb got the most attention with the bizarre statements he made from the stage. In one video, Webb tries to list his qualifications to serve in the Senate.

“I ran for office several times. Didn’t win,” Webb explained with a brief laugh, “but I did run. And then, I’m a songwriter, and then I write my own books.”

Then Webb, who was wearing a dress, added: “I wouldn’t lie to the people, and I wouldn’t deceive the people, like we’re being deceived right now … like what’s going on with ICE.”

Webb went on to explain why he supported the rights of trans-identifying individuals to use any bathroom.

“And then with the trans community, we’re being dehumanized,” Webb said. “They say that we want to hurt people. I don’t want to hurt anybody, I just want to use the bathroom. … If they want me to use the men’s room, I will, but I don’t want to be assaulted.”

Webb also supported expansion of gun restrictions nationally.

“I think a national red flag law would probably be more appropriate. If you’re a danger to society, you shouldn’t have a gun,” he said in another video posted by the RNC.

Other candidates used the platform to bash the Democratic Party and to advocate abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

And many had warm thoughts about Platner, despite his embarrassing shortcomings.

“The single idea from Graham Platner that spoke most deeply to me is that he’s right. The democracy that we thought we had has been deeply corrupted by those in power in Washington,” said Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who failed miserably to unseat incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R) in 2014.

“We need someone who’s gonna stand up for Mainers, and Graham Platner was right! The system’s rigged!” said Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company.

The New York Post compiled a video of some of the cringiest moments from the debate.

RELATED: WATCH: Graham Platner’s video denial of sexual assault sounds EERILY similar to that of Eric Swalwell

After the debate ended, a television commentator tried to gently acknowledge the lack of pizzazz from the candidates.

“When it comes to charisma, Platner had a lot of advantages. … I don’t think that any of those people that we saw just now have that card to play,” Ron Schmidt said.

The winner of the Democratic scramble to replace Platner will go up against Collins in November.

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​Democrats, Graham platner, Us senate, Debate, Susan collins, Politics 

Fluoride use in drinking water has long been a contentious debate, resulting in multiple state bans in recent years.

Now, a new study shows that the chemical compound could have brutal effects on brain cells and cognition when consumed by humans or animals.

‘Structural damage to the central nervous system may occur.’

Brain drain

Florida became the second state after Utah to ban fluoride from its drinking water systems in 2025, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) may have been ahead of the curve if a recent study on fluoridization effects are to be believed.

A brain research study published on Science Direct is claiming point-blank that fluoride consumption can lead to cognitive dysfunction.

The study used living mice and HT-22 cells, mice brain cells, and concluded that “structural damage to the central nervous system may occur in human and animals after fluoride exposure.”

The mice were exposed to fluoride for five months, absorbing it through water as sodium fluoride, as it is typically delivered through drinking water systems or toothpaste. One group of mice consumed drinking water that had 50mg of sodium fluoride per liter, a second group drank water with 100mg/liter, and a third group drank pure deionized water.

The mice who had fluoride showed losses in brain and body weight compared to the control group, as well as a decrease in cognitive ability.

The HT-22 cells decreased in numbers with the increase of fluoride concentrations, while cell survival rate gradually decreased. At the same time, the number of axons and dendrites — which facilitate communication within the nervous system — decreased as fluoride concentrations increased.

RELATED: MAHA allies rage over Trump’s support for controversial weed-killing chemical

Seth McConnell/The Denver Post/Getty Images

Muddled mice

To test the fluoride-induced neurotoxicity, the team of scientists evaluated learning and memory capabilities through a behavioral study known as the “step-down test.”

Researchers placed the mice on a platform, where the surrounding floor delivered a mild electric shock. Then, the researchers recorded how many times the animals mistakenly jumped down after learning about the shock. These errors were considered a lapse in “avoidance memory,” PsyPost wrote.

The test reportedly showed a distinct drop in cognitive performance among the mice who were exposed to fluoride. The group that had a medium dose made more errors than those drinking the pure water, and while the highest dose group made even more errors, it wasn’t statistically significant compared to the medium-dose group.

RELATED: Doctors found a mass in her stomach — and the bizarre cure for it in the fridge

Gregory Rec/Portland Portland Press Herald/Getty Images

Ban wagon

While readers should be aware that the study was carried out entirely by scientists in mainland China, the debate over fluoridization in water is not limited to the communist country.

Around the same time Florida banned the process in 2025, at least five other states were having policy discussions about doing the same: Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and New Hampshire.

In addition to the two state bans, nine other states have less than 50% of their population on fluoridated water, according to CDC data. Among the lowest are Oregon (26%), New Jersey (16%), and Hawaii (8.5%).

Globally, the United States is one of the highest users of fluoride in water, but not the top. According to World Population Review, the U.S. is ranked as No. 7 (73%) in usage behind Malaysia, Australia, Gabon, and Brunei, while allegedly 100% of both Singapore and Hong Kong populations are on fluoride water.

Other Western countries with significant usage include Ireland (73%), Israel (70%), New Zealand (61%), and Canada (44%). China’s rate is just 15%.

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​Florida, Ron desantis, China, Fluoride, Brain damage, Health 

A governing body in Europe has decided that female athletes are being harmed by broadcasting presentations.

The European Broadcasting Union put out a 23-page report recently that demanded broadcasters cease using camera angles that they say contribute to the “sexualization” of women.

‘Certain camera angles … cause discomfort for athletes and unnecessary distractions.’

EBU Executive Director Glen Killane called the “sexualization of women athletes through selective camera angles and editing choices” a significant concern in the sports world, so his union set out to put a stop to it.

To that end, the broadcasters announced new guidelines for how women’s athletics should be filmed, specifically track and field. This included barring camera angles from beneath pole vaulters going over the bar, for example, long shots of female athletes, and camera angles of the lower half of their bodies.

Readers were quick to voice their displeasure with the decision.

“Great idea, let’s make women’s sports even more unwatchable,” wrote one X user.

“The beauty of elite athletes’ physiques is an integral part of the spectacle. If athletes [prefer] to conceal certain body parts, they can simply wear more covering clothing,” another reader argued in response to a post from a track and field page.

RELATED: ‘Supergirl’ Milly Alcock’s most fearsome foe? Christian dads

Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

Another comment seemed to summarize the EBU’s perspective on the matter when a reader stated, “Why can’t they just wear what they want to and not worry about creepy camera angles?”

In the EBU guidelines, two female athletes offered similar sentiments. British Olympic pole vaulter Holly Bradshaw wrote that “on too many occasions cameras are zoomed in, showing super slow-motion action replays of athletes in undignified positions.”

She said this has resulted in online abuse.

Serbian Olympic long jumper Ivana Spanovic also said, “Certain camera angles, combined with gender stereotypes … cause discomfort for athletes and unnecessary distractions.”

It didn’t take long, however, for readers to point out that both Bradshaw and Spanovic have themselves posted images and video of their competitions from angles that will soon be banned.

Bradshaw posted images from angles nearly identical to those the EBU considers “compromising,” such as this photo and this photo.

Spanovic was also noted to have shared multiple images that seem to be obvious violations under the new guidelines, specifically this image.

RELATED: Caitlin Clark’s coach rampages about ‘racism’ and ‘homophobia’ after on-court abuse: ‘So much more toxicity’

JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/Getty Images

“Men wear shorts why can’t women. I’ve never understood this. This isn’t a bikini contest,” Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies wrote.

The debate has raged on for years, especially when it came to the track and field uniforms for the United States at the 2024 Summer Olympics.

While some expressed outrage at the bikini-style women’s uniforms, it was later revealed that sponsor Nike had a plethora of options for athletes, including athletic shorts and longer tights. In fact, Nike said in 2024 that it offered over 50 different iterations and claimed that track and field athletes could “choose outfits that match their style and personal preference without sacrificing comfort during the games.”

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​Track and field, Europe, Olympics, Sexism, Sports 

President Donald Trump enraged Democrats and other leftists — including the heir to George Soros’ activist empire — on Thursday by disclosing in his national address evidence pointing to the insecurity of American elections.

“Our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American people was lost,” the president said. “This cannot be allowed to continue.”

‘We know that they can change voter registration and your vote. We know it’s possible. There’s not a question. It’s not even for debate.’

While Democratic officials were still hyperventilating over Trump’s insistence that lawmakers pass the SAVE America Act to protect against the kinds of trust-breaking meddling that evidence suggests occurred in recent years, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin detailed in a Friday briefing what his agency plans to do to “secure our elections.”

“It shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” Mullin said. “This should be something that every American, regardless if you’re a Republican, you’re a Democrat, you’re an independent, you’re a libertarian — regardless of if you live in a blue state or you live in a red state — everybody should know that their vote counts. And we have individuals that are voting that shouldn’t be. It cancels out someone that should be.”

RELATED: Democrats go into FULL PANIC MODE after Trump exposes election interference from China and the deep state

Digging “just a little bit deeper” into some of Trump’s claims from the night before, Mullin said the Department of Homeland Security has identified 250,000 noncitizens who were registered to vote in just four states — California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada.

According to the DHS’ preliminary review, there were 190,832 noncitizens registered to vote in California; 35,152 in New Jersey; 15,903 in Nevada; and 14,576 in Pennsylvania.

Mullin issued warnings to the secretaries of state for these four states on Friday, asking them to confirm within two weeks whether they intend to collaborate with the DHS on voter security measures.

“Mind you, we have 46 other states,” said Mullin, who noted further that the DHS has worked with 23 “proactive states” to identify another 28,000 noncitizens on voter rolls, along with “400,000 individuals that are still registered to vote that are deceased.”

Again reinforcing concerns raised by Trump on Thursday, Mullin claimed that foreign adversaries are able to gain access to American voting machines.

“Talking about our machines, we know for sure that our foreign adversaries — not our allies, foreign adversaries — have parts that are vital pieces in our voting machines. We know that they can access what they consider the key to the back of these machines,” he explained.

“We know that they can change voter registration and your vote. We know it’s possible. There’s not a question. It’s not even for debate,” Mullin continued.

In terms of remedies, the DHS secretary said his agency will not only apply “maximum pressure” flushing out noncitizens attempting to vote, but — working in concert with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick — will make new security enhancements “mandatory.”

Accordingly, states seeking reimbursements for administering federal elections must take steps to ensure both that their voting machines are secured and their voter registration lists are “scrubbed.”

“We are not going to spend taxpayer dollars reimbursing the state that is refusing to secure their elections,” Mullin said.

The DHS announced last week that all Homeland Security Grant Program recipients must:

submit a plan for phasing out certain electronic voting systems and shifting to hand-marked paper ballots;conduct a manual audit of at least 5% of all ballots cast after each federal election;reconcile the number of voters who participated in each federal election with the numbers of ballots cast; run voter rolls through the DHS’ citizenship verification database; anduse the Immigration Services’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system or another authorized government system to ensure that everyone working at polling places or operating election systems are American citizens.

“States must do their part to secure our election system, and we stand by to help,” Mullin said.

Mullin noted further that the DHS is working with the Pentagon to safeguard the voting systems used by military service members, and that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will release an updated election infrastructure plan providing states with the additional resources “they need to help from the cyber side.”

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​Markwayne mullin, Department of homeland security, Voter fraud, Foreign interference, Donald trump, Politics 

The Trump administration is slamming the Democratic Party for ensuring our elections are less secure than the Olive Garden’s Never-Ending Pasta Pass.

White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson appeared on Newsmax on Friday and made the humorous suggestion that Olive Garden’s pasta pass has higher identification requirements.

‘Olive Garden takes pasta pass security more seriously than Democrats are taking election security!’

“I saw a tweet yesterday from Olive Garden of all places that in order to take advantage of their Never-Ending Pasta Pass, you have to show photo ID. And I thought, ‘That’s weird! Olive Garden takes pasta pass security more seriously than Democrats are taking election security!'” Jackson said while the show hosts laughed.

“So yes, President Trump is going to keep pushing this, and it just shows how absurd the Democrats are,” she added, “that they can’t even get behind commonsense policies that even somewhere like Olive Garden can say, ‘Hey we need this for us too!'”

Video of Jackson’s comments was posted to social media, where some on the left imploded with fury.

“They’re not asking for a f**king passport and a marriage certificate,” responded left-wing influencer Joanne Carducci.

“Happy to show my ID at the polls if it came with unlimited breadsticks,” replied former Democratic New York City Councilman Justin Brannan.

“You know, I never quite thought of it that way because, unlike Ms. Jackson, I’m not quite insane,” said one detractor.

“Can’t wait to see what Applebee’s has to say about the Constitution,” said another critic.

Some accused Jackson of citing online rumors as a source, but she was indeed correct about Olive Garden asking for photo identification.

RELATED: ‘Dead on arrival’: Chuck Schumer says Dems will ‘go all out’ to defeat voter ID bill

Jackson posted the social media statement from Olive Garden confirming a valid photo ID is necessary to gorge endlessly on its fettuccine Alfredo or five-cheese ziti al forno.

“The Never-Ending Pasta Pass is only for use by the Passholder whose name is printed on the Pass. Passes are personalized and non-transferable. Passholders must present a valid photo I.D. along with the Pass at the time of ordering,” said an Olive Garden message posted Thursday.

Finally, if this is the first time you’ve heard about the Never-Ending Pasta Pass, and you want to rush over to Olive Garden’s website to sign up, you’re too late. The 10,000 pasta passes have sold out.

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​Election security, Trump administration, Voter fraud, Save america act, Olive garden, Politics 

For years, Americans have watched home and rent prices climb out of reach, with many blaming everything from interest rates to a lack of new construction. But Ron Simmons argues that illegal immigration under the Biden administration has played the biggest role.

“Housing prices went up significantly during the time that Biden was president. And a lot of that, or some of that anyway, was due to the illegal immigration surge. And it triggered at least a 30% rise in home prices and a 20% rise in rents,” Simmons explains on “Relatable.”

“And this is according, not to some partisan organization, but this is according to the Dallas Fed,” he says, noting that the Dallas Fed “put out a paper that talks about the impacts of unauthorized immigration in the U.S. labor and housing markets.”

Researchers found “that while the influx of workers boosted employment with little measurable impact on wages, it also increased demand for housing in areas where supply was already limited.”

“So, places that are growing fast like Texas and a lot of the other red states, there had been a pressure on housing because it’s growing faster than we can build houses, and the illegal immigration has contributed to that,” Simmons explains.

“Unauthorized immigration accounted for roughly 30% employment growth and about 30% of home price growth and 20% of rent growth,” he reports.

Vice President JD Vance is also aware of who caused the rise in housing prices. During a November 2025 interview, he explained that “under the Biden administration, the price of a new home literally doubled in four years.”

“It went up 100%. Under the Trump administration, housing and rent prices are up about 1% to 2%. That’s actually in line with what you would like to see,” he explained.

“So, while it’s gone a lot better since we’ve removed most of the illegal immigrants, or a lot of the illegal immigrants that are in this country — I wouldn’t say most of them by any means, but a lot of them,” Simmons comments.

“And we certainly have shut down the border, I think as low as it has been since 1970, which is incredible,” he adds.

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​Allie beth stuckey, Donald trump, Housing prices, Illegal immigration, Jd vance, Joe biden, Ron simmons, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

Imagine buying a brand-new car and discovering it comes with a camera pointed at your face every time you drive.

Not the road. You.

Most drivers never realized their vehicles were quietly building behavioral profiles.

As of this week, that’s no longer optional across the European Union. Every new passenger car and van registered in the EU must include an interior camera as part of an Advanced Driver Distraction Warning system. The technology activates at about 12 mph, tracking your eyes, head position, and attention. If it decides you’re distracted or drowsy, it issues a warning.

Officials say it’s about saving lives.

Camera-ready

No one disputes that distracted driving is a serious problem. The question is whether constant driver monitoring is the only solution — or whether it creates infrastructure that could eventually be used for much more than safety.

According to the European Commission, the system is designed as a closed-loop safety feature. It analyzes driver behavior inside the vehicle and issues warnings when it detects distraction or drowsiness. Officials say it does not record video or transmit footage outside the vehicle.

The more important question is what happens next.

Once every new vehicle is required to have an interior camera, the hardware is already in place. Expanding what that hardware can do no longer requires redesigning millions of vehicles. It only requires new regulations, updated software, or new policies governing how the data can be used.

Safety regulations have added new technology to our vehicles for decades. Seat belts, airbags, anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, backup cameras, automatic emergency braking, and forward-collision warning systems all became standard because they delivered measurable safety benefits.

An interior camera is different because it monitors the driver rather than the roadway.

Big picture

Europe may be moving first, but the United States isn’t far behind. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop rules requiring advanced impaired-driving prevention technology in future vehicles. While NHTSA has acknowledged that passive detection systems are not yet ready for widespread deployment, in-cabin monitoring remains one of the technologies under consideration.

In other words, this conversation is already happening here.

What makes that more concerning is how much information modern vehicles already generate. Over the past several years, investigations revealed that automakers, including General Motors and Honda, shared driving behavior data — including hard braking, rapid acceleration, speeding events, and time-of-day driving patterns — with data brokers. Those brokers, in turn, supplied information used by insurance companies to help determine premiums.

Most drivers never realized their vehicles were quietly building behavioral profiles.

Now add an interior camera capable of detecting whether you’ve looked at your navigation screen, reached for your coffee, glanced at a child in the back seat, or appeared drowsy after a long shift.

Americans have also watched roadside surveillance expand dramatically. Modern license plate reader systems now identify far more than license plates, using AI to recognize vehicle make, model, color, distinctive features, bumper stickers, roof racks, and travel patterns. Combined with connected-car telematics and interior cameras, those systems create an increasingly detailed picture of where you go, how you drive, and what you’re doing behind the wheel.

RELATED: The latest ‘solution’ to reckless driving could limit freedom for all of us

United Archives/Getty Images

Who pays?

Let’s not ignore the economic incentive behind all of this surveillance.

Every mandate creates winners. Camera manufacturers gain a guaranteed market. Software companies secure long-term licensing contracts. Automakers pass compliance costs on to consumers through higher vehicle prices. And the data generated by these systems may become valuable in ways nobody can fully predict today.

Consumers pay for all of it.

They pay more for the vehicle while giving up another measure of privacy inside what has traditionally been one of the last personal spaces they control.

Highway robbery

Supporters argue these systems only issue warnings, and today that’s true.

But history suggests technology rarely remains limited to its original purpose once the infrastructure exists. Software evolves and regulations change. Data that wasn’t considered valuable yesterday often becomes indispensable tomorrow.

We’ve already watched driving data migrate from vehicles to data brokers and, in some cases, insurance companies. We’ve also watched roadside camera networks expand well beyond their original mission. Neither happened overnight; both expanded gradually.

Every responsible driver wants safer roads. My concern is what happens after every new vehicle comes equipped with hardware designed to watch the person behind the wheel.

For more than a century, the automobile has represented personal freedom. When driving increasingly means being observed, analyzed, and potentially scored, the relationship between drivers and their vehicles begins to change.

Europe has already decided that every new car should watch its driver. Americans should decide whether they’re comfortable heading down the same road before it quietly becomes the default here as well.

​Drivers, Auto industry, Nhtsa, Distracted driving, Privacy, Culture, Freedom, Data brokers, Ford, Gm, Automotive 

United States Vice President JD Vance sat down for a wide-ranging interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. The eyebrow-raising interview included skewering Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, discussing the Epstein files, and explaining aliens possibly being demons.

In the nearly three-hour podcast interview released Wednesday, Vance said many Republicans are “skeptical” because many Democrats want it to be illegal for voters to show identification when voting in elections.

‘I admire the f**king sheer tenacity that he has in being full of s**t.’

Vance asked, “Why not just have voter ID?”

Rogan said opposition to voter identification requirements makes it seem “like you want people to cheat.”

Vance declared, “If you don’t want to cheat in the election, then just make everybody actually show an ID.”

When Rogan asked about the United States’ military action against Iran, Vance said he would support President Donald Trump’s overseas intervention as long as the decisions are “legal and ethical.”

Vance stated, “The goal is certainly good, which is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.”

The prolific podcaster asked about the release of the files related to the investigation into convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The vice president conceded that the administration had “mishandled” the Epstein files.

“If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle it — especially the communications of it,” Vance said.

“We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files. We just did,” Vance admitted.

However, Vance stressed there was no truth to theories that the White House was attempting to hide anything about the Epstein files.

Vance declared himself to be one of the original “Epstein conspiracy theorists” and said that he has “probably gone down every single rabbit hole we could go down.”

Vance added, “But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No.”

Vance said former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s claim about having binders of documents on her desk made “people mistrust the entire effort” and “overstated what we had and what we didn’t have.”

Vance said that he does “like” Bondi and that the binder incident was likely her “trying to respond to the political moment.”

Vance noted, “We did release all these files. Did it take longer than it should have taken? Yes.”

Vance said the Epstein files should have been “dropped at the very beginning” once all the reviews and redactions had been done.

“We should have just done it as quickly as possible,” Vance stated.

Vance said he believes that Epstein “clearly” had connections to the highest level of American and Israeli intelligence.

“Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel or another country — or both,” Vance said. “Look, he clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence.”

RELATED: JD Vance reveals the heartbreaking conversation that convinced him to have a fourth child

Rogan — who showed support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a democratic socialist, in 2020 — said that he is “really concerned” about Americans rallying around socialism.

“I’m really concerned that people think that’s a good idea and that they think that socialism just hasn’t been done correctly,” Rogan told Vance. “That drives me nuts.”

Rogan said socialism “always leads to one thing: It leads to a very powerful military government that controls the population — period, end of discussion.”

Vance agreed with Rogan’s assessment.

“The whole argument of communism is that you seize the means of production,” Vance said. “But because the most powerful means of production is the human mind, you ultimately have to get into totalitarianism.”

Vance expressed concern that artificial intelligence could unintentionally usher in communism.

“The fundamental challenge of AI is, it’s going to unleash a lot of wealth creation, but if that wealth creation all goes to some segment of people, you’re going to have communism,” Vance warned.

“But if you don’t ensure that there’s some broader prosperity from that wealth creation, we have run this experiment before, and it leads to communism,” he added.

Vance and Rogan both agreed that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is “full of s**t.” The pair rehashed the time when Newsom told a group that he “cannot read a speech.”

As Blaze News reported in February, Newsom apparently attempted to appeal to a reportedly majority-black audience at a book tour stop in Atlanta.

“I’m not trying to impress you,” Newsom told the group. “I’m just trying to impress upon you, I’m like you. I’m no better than you. You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy. I’m not trying to offend anyone, you know, trying to act all there if you got a 940.”

“You never see me read a speech because I cannot read a speech,” Newsom added.

Vance said of Newsom, “He’s full of s**t.”

Rogan replied, “He’s so full of s**t. Admirably full of s**t. I admire the f**king sheer tenacity that he has in being full of s**t.”

Rogan asked Vance about remarks he made earlier this year, where he revealed that he believes aliens could be demons.

“I’m not one of these people who’s, like, a hyper-rationalist,” Vance responded. “I think that there are things happening in the world that we’re not always seeing. I believe in God.”

“If you look historically at things that are similar to the alien phenomenon, where some strange being, it kind of looks like a human being, but … that’s not human, and it shows a particular interest in human beings, and then it takes the human beings and does weird experiments on them.”

Vance said either it is “bulls**t,” you’re “talking to a crazy person,” or aliens could be demons.

“Just because I believe in the supernatural doesn’t mean I believe in everything supernatural,” Vance continued. “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, but I think there’s a lot of historical precedent to call that a demon.”

Rogan described an alleged alien encounter where the extraterrestrial healed a man. Vance replied, “Extra-powerful beings, in this case communicating telepathically, helping people, sounds like an angel.”

The entire “Joe Rogan Experience” interview with JD Vance can be seen here.

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​Gavin newsom, Jd vance, The joe rogan experience, Donald trump, Aliens, Politics 

Night owls who stay up watching TV or on their devices are known to get a little less sleep, but there is another factor that is contributing to a lower quality of life.

A glance at studies over the last decade have shown that watching devices in the bedroom and at night before bed has increased, with nearly half the population giving in to the blue glow.

‘When people eat may be just as important as what they eat.’

ET phone home

A 2025 study of more than 120,000 participants found that over 40% (~50,000) reported daily screen use before bed.

However, another nighttime ritual is contributing to poor health, specifically among women: late-night eating.

A study from New Zealand evaluated hundreds of women and their eating habits, tracking body-fat percentage, body mass index, and fat ratio.

Broken down into “evening types” and “morning types,” those who stay up late had a higher body-fat percentage than the morning people.

Staying up seemed directly related to diet, as the study showed the nighthawks consumed more energy, protein, carbohydrates, and fat after 8 p.m.

The ET group also had a reportedly worse lipid profile, which refers to blood sugar levels.

RELATED: Doctors found a mass in her stomach — and the bizarre cure for it in the fridge

ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images

Night feeding

The bodies of women who were evening types burned off less energy and ate food that is less nutrient-dense as well. This was coupled with lower dietary intake in the morning and eating more in the evening. The study said that evening intake was “significantly associated” with a higher body-fat percentage.

For evening type ladies, there was also a “potentially greater susceptibility to obesity.”

Compared to the morning types and those in between, evening types had a 20.3% higher body mass index and had approximately 6% more body fat. There was also a +12.6% difference in the android fat to gynoid fat ratio; meaning a greater proportion of body fat is concentrated in the abdomen area rather than the hips and thighs.

This all came despite the ETs and MTs both consuming similar amounts of energy and nutrients.

“The research highlights that when people eat may be just as important as what they eat,” said a senior author of the study, Rozanne Kruger, per Newsmax.

RELATED: Michigan parents charged with murder and torture after their 7-year-old boy dies with disturbing weight

Martin Bertrand/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images

Hitting the sack? Don’t snack

According to Kruger — a professor and nutrition researcher at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia — limiting food late at night could improve health even in those who feel the need to stay up.

The study further concluded that the timing of meals in relation to when a person goes to sleep is important to ongoing “metabolic health outcomes.”

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​New zealand, Study, Health, Women, Lifestyle