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Scott Bessent may well be the most consequential secretary of the treasury since Alexander Hamilton — not simply because of the policies he advances, but because of the conditions he confronts and the clarity with which he is executing President Trump’s broader economic vision.

Like Hamilton before him, Bessent has stepped into an economy weakened by a long period of policies that, however well intentioned, failed to serve the enduring interests of the American domestic economy.

Before entering public life, Bessent operated at the highest levels of global finance. As a key figure alongside Stanley Druckenmiller, he helped execute one of the defining macro trades of the modern era — the successful challenge to the Bank of England’s currency peg in 1992. The lesson was enduring: Systems that ignore economic reality do not last. Markets force alignment.

What Bessent is executing is a re-centering, not only of economics, but of strategy.

It is precisely that market-grounded realism that now underpins the implementation of the administration’s economic strategy. But Bessent is not simply a market practitioner. His time teaching the history of economic thought at Yale reveals the deeper foundation of his approach.

He sees the economy not as a series of quarterly data points, but as a system shaped over time by production, energy, capital formation, and national power. That synthesis, of theory, history, and practice, places him firmly in the Hamiltonian tradition and makes him a natural architect for translating President Trump’s economic doctrine into operational policy.

After the Revolutionary War, the United States was financially strained under extreme levels of debt, industrially underdeveloped, and newly severed from its economic relationship with the British Empire. Hamilton’s achievement was to turn that fragility into a foundation for strength.

He tied fiscal credibility to growth, fostered domestic industry, and deployed tariffs with precision — high enough to generate revenue and support development, but not so high as to suffocate competition. He was not managing decline; he was reversing it.

Bessent faces a modern analogue, an American economy navigating the aftermath of its own rupture, not from a formal empire, but from the post-World War II Pax Americana and the rules-based system it sustained. The task, again, is not to preserve a fading order, but to build a new foundation, one that reflects the strategic reset articulated by President Trump and now being systematically implemented through the Treasury Department and beyond.

The parallel is difficult to ignore. Decades of globalization prioritized efficiency over resilience and consumption over production. The result is an economy that remains large but is increasingly imbalanced, dependent on external supply chains, tilted toward financial engineering, and less capable of sustaining broad-based growth. Bessent’s significance lies in recognizing this reality and acting on it, not in abstraction, but in execution of a defined national strategy.

Like Hamilton, he is not merely managing the economy he inherited; he is working to re-anchor it, aligning markets with the administration’s emphasis on domestic strength, industrial capacity, and economic sovereignty.

That begins with debt. The United States now carries historically elevated fiscal obligations layered on top of structural weakness. The answer, as in Hamilton’s time, is not austerity alone, but growth — stronger, more durable expansion rooted in production, investment, and rising capacity.

Debt is not ignored; it is made sustainable through expansion, a core pillar of the administration’s supply-side orientation.

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This framework was articulated clearly in Bessent’s speech at the Reagan Library. At its core is a simple recognition: An economy hollowed out by flawed globalization cannot sustain either prosperity or fiscal stability.

The answer is not withdrawal, but reordering, a principle that sits at the heart of President Trump’s economic agenda. His formulation — de-risk, not decouple — captures that balance. It preserves the benefits of trade while restoring the primacy of national resilience.

This is not a rejection of globalization but its correction, a distinctly Hamiltonian instinct and one now being operationalized across trade, capital flows, and industrial policy.

Energy is central to this vision. Cheap, secure energy is not a talking point; it is the precondition for winning the next phase of economic competition, particularly in artificial intelligence.

Computing is power. Without abundant energy, neither technological leadership nor sustained growth is possible. This, too, reflects a deliberate alignment between Treasury policy and the administration’s broader push for energy dominance.

So too does the shift back toward productive capital. For years, policy favored financial engineering over real investment. Bessent’s emphasis is different, directing capital toward infrastructure, manufacturing, and technological capacity, translating strategic intent into capital allocation.

Markets have responded not in spite of this shift, but because of it.

His early attention to Federal Reserve mission creep reinforces the broader theme. By insisting that the Fed operate within, not above, the constitutional framework, Bessent is reasserting a principle that has eroded: Economic power must remain accountable. It is a subtle but critical component of restoring coherence between monetary authority and elected economic leadership.

To understand his significance, however, is to see the broader architecture now taking shape. This is not a collection of policies. It is a doctrine, one that reflects both intellectual lineage and political mandate.

At its core is a modernized American system, domestic production, strategic protection, and national development. Layered onto it is a Monroe Doctrine-style approach to economic security, treating the Western Hemisphere as a strategic sphere.

But what distinguishes this strategy is not its articulation but its execution — the translation of President Trump’s strategic instincts into coordinated economic statecraft.

In late 2025, largely under the radar, pressure on Iran’s financial system intensified and key elements of its banking sector began to fail. It generated few headlines, but the signal was unmistakable — a targeted disruption of financial plumbing rather than a blunt sanctions regime.

This is economic statecraft executed with precision — identifying pressure points, applying force selectively, and achieving strategic effect without spectacle. It reflects Bessent’s background in markets, where understanding fragility is everything, and his role in implementing a broader geopolitical-economic strategy set at the presidential level.

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Within this framework, Bessent is the intellectual anchor and operational executor, aligning fiscal policy, capital markets, and economic structure with national purpose as defined by the administration.

What this represents is a break from the postwar consensus. The Pax Americana was a historic achievement, but over time it evolved into a system that often detached American policy from American strength.

What Bessent is executing is a re-centering, not only of economics, but of strategy.

Just as Hamilton anchored the early United States away from dependence on the British Empire and toward internally generated strength, Bessent is anchoring the modern economy back toward its domestic foundations, while executing a presidential mandate to rebuild American economic sovereignty in a more fragmented world.

But the defining parallel is not philosophical. It is practical. Hamilton did not simply write or speak. He executed, building institutions, implementing policy, and translating theory into durable structure in real time. Bessent is doing the same, not in isolation, but as the principal architect and executor of a broader economic vision set from the top by President Trump.

That is what makes him consequential. Not the speeches, though they matter. Not the framework, though it is clear. But the execution, policy applied in real time, reshaping the trajectory of the American economy.

That is the Hamilton standard. And by that standard, Bessent is the first secretary of the treasury to meet it.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

​Scott bessent, Ecnomy, Economics, American economy, Trump, Alexander hamilton, Markets, Globalization, Domestic products, Federal reserve, Opinion & analysis 

On June 17, Mass NOW in partnership with the MA Trans Political Coalition will put on its third annual “Trans Period Pride” — a “consciousness-raising” event featuring a group discussion on “menstrual equity” and “the experiences of trans menstruators,” a catered dinner, and free period underwear for attendees.

But this isn’t some privately funded event. Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu’s Office of LGBTQ+ Advancement — which receives nearly $1 million annually from the city budget — is officially co-sponsoring the event.

In other words, Boston taxpayers are being forced to bankroll this event while the city faces a nearly $50 million budget deficit.

When BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey saw the advertisement for this Trans Period Pride event, she admits she had to do “a double take.”

Allie says she’s unsure who exactly this event is even catering to.

“[Are we] talking about women who identify as men, still have their uterus and their eggs, and so they’re having periods? … Or are we talking about the men that I’ve seen on social media who claim because of the synthetic hormones that they’re taking to try to look more like women that they have some kind of menstrual cycle, even though you don’t have a uterus or eggs or any ability to menstruate?” she asks, speculating that the attendees will likely be “a mixed bag” of confused individuals.

She calls the entire debacle “funny, but it’s sad.”

But “Trans Period Pride” isn’t the only absurdity Boston taxpayers are being forced to fund.

In April, Mayor Wu’s Office for Immigrant Advancement partnered with the nonprofit OUTnewcomers on the “Belonging Matters” program, which aimed to provide $250-$500 “wellness allowance” vouchers to low-income LGBTQ+ migrants for non-clinical services such as yoga, meditation, massages, hair salon visits, gym memberships, and creative healing. The public backlash was so intense that the program was paused within days of launching.

“The city faces a budget deficit of nearly $50 million, but sorry, the transgender people need their period underwear. The queer asylum-seekers need their yoga classes, okay?” Allie quips.

To hear her full 2026 Pride Month breakdown, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Allie beth stuckey, Pride month, Boston, Michelle wu, Transgenderism, Relatable 

Several years ago, a team of researchers obtained numerous pig brains from a slaughterhouse and revived them off-site for experimentation purposes. That team has since moved up the food chain. Now it obtains human donors’ brains, restores their functions, and uses them to test experimental drugs.

Bexorg, a Connecticut-based biotech startup spun out of Yale University, boasts about having created a “platform that leverages the untouched potential of nature’s most complex and enduring mystery: the human brain.”

‘It’s a remarkable brain bank.’

Whereas other researchers might be limited to experimenting on lab-grown, human pseudo-brains or cell cultures, the team at Bexorg meddles with “full mature, intact, and isolated brains for days on end” with the stated aim of advancing brain disease therapies.

Unlike the company’s slick pitch, the reality appears to be something of a horror show. After all, the over 700 brains that have been subjected to experimentation at Bexorg so far were apparently far from inert.

Bexorg takes human brains from their newly deceased donors’ bodies, places them in what are effectively vats, and feeds them liters of blood substitute and other fluids that provide oxygen from an artificial lung and carry away waste to a fake kidney. The tubes that carry the sustaining fluids are connected to blood vessels in the brain via four plastic ports.

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According to the peer-reviewed academic journal Science, the company’s proprietary life-support system BrainEx keeps the disembodied brains alive and preserves their key functions so that they can metabolize experimental drugs and react to other stimuli.

After roughly 24 hours in a state of drugged limbo, donors’ brains are cut up into hundreds of pieces for further study.

Although the brains are alive and reactive for the benefit of “drug discovery,” Bexorg CEO Zvonimir Vrselja has stated that “higher-level brain functions are not restored.”

According to a 2019 study in which Vrselja and other members of what became the Bexorg team used their technology to revive pig brains obtained from a food processing facility, “The observed restoration of molecular and cellular processes following 4h of global anoxia/ischemia should not be extrapolated to signify resurgence of normal brain function. Indeed, quite the opposite: at no point did we observe the kind of organized global electrical activity associated with awareness, perception, or other higher-order brain functions.”

To ensure against the re-emergence of consciousness among the subjects of their “wet-lab” experiments, researchers suppress the human brains’ electrical activity with anesthetics, specifically the drug propofol.

Propofol apparently causes brain activity to become unstable until the brain loses consciousness.

“The brains are already almost devoid of the coordinated neural firing necessary even for minimal consciousness,” Brenand Parent, a bioethicist from New York University Langone Health who sits on Bexorg’s board, told Science.

Despite the company’s reassurances and use of multiple measures to block neuronal activity, some have raised serious ethical concerns about Bexorg’s technology, which initially developed with the help of funding through the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative. A source familiar told Blaze News that the company is not presently receiving NIH funding.

“This is brand-new, and there’s no kind of institutional oversight,” Yale bioethicist Stephen Latham told ScienceAlert in 2019 regarding the earlier experiments on pig brains.

“This is not animal research, because the brain comes to the researchers from an already dead animal,” continued Latham. “But if consciousness were somehow induced in the brain, we don’t have ethics committees … that are constituted to even think about how to do the kinds of trade-offs you do when you do research on human subjects or on animals.”

Vrselja claimed in a December 2025 study published in the Alzheimer’s Association’s journal, Alzheimer’s and Dementia, that the 5-year-old startup’s “perfusion‐based postmortem brain model can recapitulate the complexity of the brain at the cellular and systems level.”

The December study claimed further that “utilizing human disease brains as a preclinical model promises to substantially increase the probability of success in developing new therapies for AD.”

Bexorg did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Bruna Bellaver, a research assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, told Science that BrainEx is “a huge step up from mouse models.”

Bruce Car, the chief science officer at Biohaven, one of Bexorg’s collaborators, has used roughly 130 of the Bexorg-sustained brains to test drugs. Car told Science that one of the drugs, the intended use of which is to prevent toxic proteins from building up in the brain, didn’t perform as desired in a mouse, but worked in the disembodied human brains at a lower-than-expected dose. This apparently saved Biohaven a year of development.

“It’s a remarkable brain bank,” said MIT neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai, who instead uses pseudo-brains grown from human stem cells.

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​Science, Technology, Brains, Horror, Yale university, Drug, Pharmaceuticals, Experiments, Disease, Health, Politics 

If there is a single idea that President Donald Trump holds with conviction, it is that the 2020 election was stolen.

Millions of Americans agree with him. How it was stolen, and by whom, is still being investigated six years later. That is a problem, because another national election arrives this fall, and Americans deserve an answer as to whether the way we now conduct elections can actually produce honest results.

Normal legislative remedies have failed. Congress has not passed the SAVE Act to ensure that only citizens vote, nor does it appear likely it will. It has done nothing about mass mail-in balloting or the vulnerabilities of electronic voting systems. Yet these are precisely the parts of the system that millions of Americans no longer trust — and for good reason.

The notion that the federal government has no role in federal elections is plainly wrong.

Consider what happened this past April. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell summoned the chief executives of America’s largest banks to an unannounced meeting, alarmed by a new artificial-intelligence model capable of finding and exploiting security flaws faster than any human defender could patch them.

If the men charged with protecting the nation’s financial system feel compelled to convene Wall Street on short notice over what artificial intelligence now makes possible, our election systems — built with similar computer technology but with far less security — are open to the same threat and worse.

Our electronic voting systems

For most of American history, Americans voted on paper ballots, counted by human beings, watched by other human beings. Electronic voting promised speed and accuracy. What it delivered is elections that take weeks instead of a day, accuracy that is openly in doubt, and a counting process that has lost the transparency a republic requires.

Citing proprietary software, the major vendors have become black boxes. The public is told to trust the output. Oversight is inadequate, and skepticism is the rational response.

The deeper problem is the very idea that voting and tabulation should be done electronically. The major suppliers — Election Systems & Software, Dominion Voting Systems (now Liberty Vote), and Hart InterCivic — all record and tabulate American votes on networked digital equipment running proprietary software. The vulnerability is, in part, that many of the electronic components are made in communist China. But even if all the components were made in the United States, they are not immune to a remote intrusion, a firmware exploit, or a software supply-chain attack.

The vulnerability is the architecture itself: an opaque, software-driven counting process exposed, directly or indirectly, to any determined bad actor, most especially a nation-state adversary. That is not a vulnerability at the margin. It is a structural compromise of the most sensitive function of self-government.

This is not theoretical. The People’s Liberation Army fields a cyber force approaching one million men, and American critical infrastructure is one of its principal targets. In 2019, federal officials seized a Chinese-built power transformer destined for Colorado; analysis at Sandia National Laboratory revealed what appeared to be a hardware back door enabling remote disablement.

In 2023, Microsoft identified Volt Typhoon, a Chinese campaign pre-positioning malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure to enable sabotage. To imagine that our election systems are immune to the same treatment is folly, more so now that the aforementioned use of artificial intelligence has become another weapon in the adversary’s arsenal.

Some will point to the recent Reuters account of a federal examination of Dominion machines seized from Puerto Rico, in which investigators reportedly found no Venezuelan code and only one chip sourced from China. They will conclude that the foreign-component concern has been overstated. But that misses the point entirely.

The question is not whether a particular batch of machines, examined on one occasion, contained components from a designated adversary. The question is whether a computerized voting system, however sourced and however audited, can be defended against the cyber capabilities of a nation-state intelligence service.

The honest answer is no. The same Chinese cyber force that pre-positioned malware in our power grid, water systems, and ports does not require a chip stamped in Shenzhen to reach an American voting machine. It requires only that the machine exist, be connected to a network at some point in its life, and run software that can be updated. All three conditions are met.

RELATED: John Cornyn’s defeat could be the end of the GOP establishment

Antranik Tavitian/Bloomberg/Getty Images

New evidence

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified the Jan. 15, 2020, National Intelligence Council memorandum “Vulnerabilities in U.S. 2020 Election Infrastructure,” which judged that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea all had “the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure for the 2020 presidential election.”

Senior officials briefed President Trump in February 2020. The public was never told. Subsequent declassified memos indicate that Chinese actors gained access to voter-registration databases in 12 to 18 states. Gabbard has opened a probe into allegations that intelligence officials suppressed this evidence, kept it out of the President’s Daily Brief, and hid it from Congress.

This was a serious misrepresentation by members of the Intelligence Community, especially since the Chinese Communist Party declared a “People’s War” against the United States in May 2019 in response to President Trump’s efforts to halt its theft of American intellectual property.

Communist China, which spends roughly $20 billion a year on intelligence and influence operations inside the United States, has every interest, as a matter of high government policy, in who sits in the Oval Office.

The motive could not be plainer. A second Trump term meant continued tariffs, continued enforcement against Chinese IP theft, continued pressure on Huawei, ZTE, and the Chinese semiconductor industry, and a hardening U.S. posture across the Indo-Pacific. A Biden administration meant the reversal of all of it.

Consider the numbers. Obama received 69 million votes in 2008. Clinton received 66 million in 2016. Biden received 81 million in 2020. A 15 million-vote surge for the least charismatic Democrat in living memory cannot be explained by enthusiasm.

The January 2020 assessment noted that “adversaries could also use the registration data … to tailor other interference or influence efforts.” It is well within the realm of possibility that communist China, armed with the names on those rolls, mounted an industrial-scale effort to produce counterfeit ballots indistinguishable from genuine ones and therefore votes for Joe Biden.

Such a possibility must at least be entertained. Otherwise, one is left to ask the obvious question no one in Washington wants to ask: Why did communist China hack into those voter databases in the first place?

Can elections be secured?

Congress will not act. Blue states will not reform their mail-in practices or replace their electronic systems. Securing federal elections therefore falls to the president in his role as chief magistrate. Two executive orders are needed even if they will be challenged in court.

The first is an emergency declaration outlawing electronic voting machines in federal elections, on the grounds that any networked, software-driven counting system is inherently vulnerable to nation-state cyberattack and cannot, under current conditions, deliver an election the public can verify. Executive Order 13848 from 2018 recognized the threat of foreign interference but triggers only after the fact.

America cannot afford after-the-fact remedies.

The second would require, since the electronic voting machines would no longer be used, federal elections to be conducted on paper ballots, hand-counted by human beings observed by other human beings, with photo ID, accurate voter rolls, election-day voting, and mail-in ballots reserved for the military and the genuinely confined. The counting would be live streamed. The result would be the most transparent election in American history.

States today hold the constitutional delegation to conduct elections, and ideally, they would administer such a system themselves. Given the political divide, many will refuse. One alternative is for the federal government — preferably the National Guard, federalized and operating under each state’s adjutant general — to administer the election directly.

Critics will invoke Article I, Section 4, which empowers Congress to alter the times, places, and manner of federal elections. That route would be preferable if our political system were not broken. Others will invoke states’ rights. But states do not have rights. Citizens have natural rights, and states are obliged to defend them. When states fail to defend the most basic right of a self-governing people – the right to a fair election – the federal government has the duty to act.

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Elen11/Getty Images

The country’s critical infrastructure, which includes our election system, falls under the Department of Homeland Security. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Election Assistance Commission sit in the executive branch. The notion that the federal government has no role in federal elections is plainly wrong.

The problem is that those agencies are not currently equipped to defend against a nation-state cyber adversary at this scale. And cybersecurity against communist China is beyond the capacity of any individual state government acting alone.

If federal authorities had actionable intelligence that a cyberattack was going to occur on America’s electronic voting systems during a federal election but did not have the ability to stop it, are they simply to stand aside and let the attack occur?

The commonsense approach would be to find a method of conducting the election that was not vulnerable to cyberattack. That is precisely why the president’s executive order is so urgently needed.

The choice at hand

As Director Gabbard’s declassifications confirm, China has gained access to the voter-registration data that defines our electorate. No election conducted on networked computers that a hostile intelligence service has the demonstrated capacity to breach, and on voter rolls that service has already breached, can deliver the legitimacy a republic requires.

Paper ballots, hand-counted, observed in the open, can. However controversial it may sound, it is the only way to ensure a fair election for the American people.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

​Election security, 2020 election, China, Russia, Election interference, Dominion voting systems, Trump, Foreign interference, Federalized elections, Opinion & analysis 

World-renowned director Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is a big-budget epic adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek poem that follows Odysseus’ perilous journey home after the Trojan War. Set to release this July, the film sparked scandal the moment marketing began.

Not only is Helen of Troy, who is described as a fair-skinned Greek woman in the original text, played by Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o, but Elliot (formerly Ellen) Paige, a biological woman who started identifying as a man in 2020, plays a male character in the film. Although her specific role is unknown, one viral theory claims that she will play the mighty Achilles — the greatest warrior in all of Greek mythology.

BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre was surprised and disappointed when he learned about the direction Nolan’s “Odyssey” would take.

Nolan is “a man whose work has often been described as conservative or even reactionary,” he tells libertarian author and political activist James Keena.

As one of the greatest film directors of the modern age, Nolan, MacIntyre argues, “would have had the authority to tell a studio no” if it was pushing woke ideologies, like race and gender swapping.

“Why is it so hard for even some of the most stalwart directors like Christopher Nolan to avoid this trap?” he asks Keena.

“This is an ongoing assault on Western civilization and the norms of Western civilization. When you look at the story of ‘The Odyssey,’ it’s part of Greek literature. That is one of the foundational things in Western thought,” Keena replies.

He explains that Homer’s central hero, Odysseus, is the kind of character that progressive thinkers detest. He’s “a very strong, type A male personality” who’s on a mission to return to his “nuclear family” and “re-establish law and order” in his kingdom of Ithaca, where suitors have invaded in his absence to steal what’s rightfully his.

“You can see why it sort of conflicts with what the ethos is now as to what a family should be, what a male should be like,” says Keena.

MacIntyre agrees, highlighting how Odysseus is a prime example of the patriarch archetype — the husband, father, and king who endures extreme hardship in order to return home and restore order to his household and kingdom.

“You want to, if you’re a radical leftist, undermine those things that kind of hold together the American or the Western identity,” he says.

But there’s an even deeper (and darker) reality at play in Nolan’s woke “Odyssey,” says Keena.

“When you look at the collectivist group of philosophies Marxism, socialism, communism, they can’t tolerate Western civilization or the concept of America,” he says.

Their unifying objective, he explains, is to “attack it, destroy it, replace it” by infiltrating every institution.

“And so what we’re seeing on all levels, not just about movies or literature, but education, music, anything that you can pick out in society right now, is essentially a collectivist assault on Western civilization because it has to be destroyed in order to make room for the socialist revolution,” says Keena.

To hear more, watch the full interview above.

Want more from Auron MacIntyre?

To enjoy more of this YouTuber and recovering journalist’s commentary on culture and politics, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The auron macintyre show, Auron macintyre, Christopher nolan, The odyssey, James keena, Western civilization 

Why are Washington and Detroit so worried about Chinese automakers?

Most Americans assume the answer is cheap cars. But lower-priced imports are only the visible part of China’s advantage.

Companies like BYD aren’t simply building vehicles. They’re building integrated ecosystems that include batteries, software, and charging infrastructure.

The bigger story is who controls the batteries, software, supply chains, and technology that increasingly determine who wins — and loses — the future of the auto business.

Hard line

To control a nation’s car industry is to control an industry that sits at the center of manufacturing, technology, and national security.

That’s the assumption behind Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno’s proposal to block Chinese vehicles and components entirely — and it signals a turning point. His message is blunt: Chinese automakers should not gain a foothold in the United States. This isn’t an incremental policy adjustment. It’s a hard line.

The automotive industry isn’t some niche corner of the economy. It accounts for roughly 22% of trade between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, making it one of the most important industries on the continent. And now it’s being challenged by a global competitor that plays by very different rules.

While the United States tightens restrictions, the international response remains divided. Europe has imposed steep tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, arguing they are being dumped below cost. Canada has taken a different approach, agreeing to allow 49,000 Chinese EVs into its market.

That divergence matters because supply chains don’t stop at national borders.

Washington is already signaling that any attempt to route Chinese vehicles through Canada or other backdoor channels will face scrutiny. The message is clear: If Chinese vehicles can’t enter directly, they won’t be allowed to enter indirectly.

Losing control

Nor is this happening in isolation. The Biden administration already laid much of the groundwork through executive actions targeting Chinese vehicle imports over concerns about software, hardware, and data security.

Those concerns aren’t hypothetical. U.S. officials have confirmed that Chinese state-sponsored hackers have infiltrated critical infrastructure systems.

Now apply that reality to modern vehicles, which increasingly function as rolling computers. The issue isn’t simply where a vehicle is assembled. It’s who controls the software, connectivity, and data flowing through it.

That’s why Moreno’s proposal focuses not only on vehicles themselves, but also on software integration, component sourcing, and corporate partnerships.

That may be a step in the right direction, but the auto industry itself is now pushing for even tougher restrictions.

Fast lane

Major industry groups representing automakers, suppliers, and dealers argue that simply moving Chinese production onto U.S. soil doesn’t solve the underlying problem if the technology, software, and supply chains remain controlled elsewhere. That leaves policymakers weighing the benefits of investment and jobs against concerns over long-term dependence on foreign-controlled technology.

At the same time, the global auto industry is changing faster than many manufacturers anticipated.

Toyota executives have warned that the industry’s traditional cost structures and manufacturing assumptions may no longer be sufficient in a rapidly changing market. This isn’t about minor adjustments. It’s about adapting to a fundamentally different competitive landscape.

Chinese companies dominate battery production, accounting for roughly 80% of global output. Batteries are the most expensive component in most electric vehicles and increasingly important in hybrids as well. Control over battery production translates directly into pricing power and manufacturing flexibility.

Companies like BYD aren’t simply building vehicles. They’re building integrated ecosystems that include batteries, software, and charging infrastructure. That level of vertical integration allows them to move faster and often at lower cost than competitors relying on fragmented global supply chains.

RELATED: The great motor oil shortage of 2026 is another fake, media-driven panic — and drivers are paying the price

Kevin Carter/Jeff Greenberg/Getty Images

Cashing in their chips

Technology companies are also entering the automotive space with a different mindset. They’re not burdened by decades of manufacturing habits or legacy systems. They’re focused on software, speed, and scale. Watch companies like NVIDIA and Qualcomm, which are becoming increasingly important players in automotive technology.

For traditional automakers, the challenge is no longer just building a better vehicle. It’s building vehicles faster, cheaper, and smarter while navigating regulations that seem to change with every election cycle.

That uncertainty has become a growing frustration across the industry. Executives increasingly complain about regulatory whiplash that makes long-term planning difficult.

Two years ago, the industry was being pushed toward full electrification. Today, many automakers are shifting resources toward hybrids as consumer demand evolves. Those strategic pivots are expensive.

Hyundai executives have acknowledged that competing directly with Chinese manufacturers on price is likely a losing proposition. Their strategy is to compete on quality, brand reputation, and dealer networks.

Price is right

Consumers, however, ultimately care about affordability.

If Chinese manufacturers can consistently deliver competitive vehicles at significantly lower prices, pressure on Western automakers will continue to grow.

That’s why this debate isn’t going away.

The push to block Chinese vehicles and components is as much about buying time as it is about setting policy. It gives American and allied manufacturers time to strengthen battery production, secure supply chains, and improve their competitive position.

But time alone won’t solve the problem.

The United States still possesses enormous advantages in engineering talent, established brands, and one of the strongest dealer networks in the world. Those advantages remain meaningful, but they aren’t permanent. They have to be reinforced with competitive products, realistic pricing, and a clear, long-term strategy.

Cars are no longer just transportation. They are increasingly software platforms, data hubs, and strategic industrial assets.

That is why the debate over Chinese vehicles has become far bigger than tariffs or trade policy. The question is whether the United States can remain competitive in an industry being reshaped by technology, batteries, and global supply chains.

Once control of those systems is lost, getting it back becomes far more difficult than anyone expects.

​Align cars, Automakers, Automobiles, Biden administration, Canada, National security, North american manufacturing, Supply chains, Technology, Toyota, United states, Lifestyle, Bernie moreno 

The officials of a Western New York town voted to remove Pride flags from town properties after protests against the flag were raised at the beginning of Pride Month.

The Webster Town Board voted 3-2 to take down the flag on Thursday after a contentious meeting, and it was taken down at 9 a.m. the next day.

‘The town did not raise the Pride flag. One elected officer made that decision on his own.’

Town Supervisor Alex Scialdone said in a statement to WHAM-TV that he was disappointed in the vote but would respect the decision.

“Everyone deserves to be seen, heard, and accepted for who they are. Last evening, I was moved hearing from members of our communities — many of the lifelong residents — who finally felt recognized and accepted by the Town they live in,” said Scialdone.

“While I am extremely disappointed in my colleagues’ actions last evening, I am equally encouraged by the resounding messages of love from Webster and beyond,” he added. “This is the Webster I see and will advocate for now and into the future.”

The resolution from Councilmember John Cahill said only U.S. flags could be flow from town properties.

“Government property should only display government flags — the U.S. flag, the state flag, and the municipal flag,” said resident Laurie Read in a statement at the hearing. “This ensures neutrality, avoids political or social favoritism, and respects the purpose of public property as a shared civic space.”

WHAM reported that a protester holding a Pride flag tried to keep officials from taking down down the flag from the town’s flagpole, but they eventually won the day.

RELATED: Activist tries to rip down US flag at Stonewall National Monument as officials return Pride flag removed by Trump order

Critics said that the flag had been raised without the consent of the entire town board.

“The town did not raise the Pride flag. One elected officer made that decision on his own,” said one unidentified speaker from the hearing.

Webster is a town of about 42,000 residents located east of Rochester.

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​Pride flags, Pride month, Webster town board, Lgbtq agenda, Politics 

A Florida past entrusted with the care of five children made them urinate and defecate into a bucket and starved them while feeding her own child well, police said.

59-year-old Gwendolyn Denise Rolle took in the children after their father left town, according to the Fort Pierce Police Dept. The children were ages 4 to 9 years old, and two of them were nonverbal.

The school also gave the children perfume so that they wouldn’t be bullied at school over the smell.

WPEC-TV reported that police were tipped off to the conditions at the home by an anonymous report.

Rolle allegedly locked the children out of her master suite in the Fort Pierce home, which cut off their access to the only functioning toilet.

The other toilet was in a bathroom filled with feces, forcing the children to defecate in a blue-green bucket that neighbors said they saw being emptied by the children.

Without access to a shower, the children also had to shower outside with a garden hose as they held a bedsheet to provide some privacy.

Rolle would starve the children but feed her own child fast food, according to police. The children were forced to share single packets of ramen or go to bed hungry.

One of the children smelled so strongly of fecal matter that a school official reported that a teacher had to spray the classroom with air freshener. The school also gave the children perfume so that they wouldn’t be bullied at school over the smell.

Rolle allegedly abused them regularly with slaps to the face, and she would call them “bastards.”

Police reported that one of the nonverbal children was kept from school to conceal a bruise he got from the abuse.

She allegedly whispered a threat to the children as they stood on the home’s porch: “Once he leaves, you’re gonna get it.”

Police said neighbors were afraid to report Rolle because of the standing she had in the community as a pastor.

RELATED: Cops investigating home odor home thought someone died — they found kids living in filthy conditions

Rolle faces five felony counts of child neglect without great bodily harm.

WPEC reported that Rolle had bonded out of jail and nobody responded when a reporter knocked on the door of her home.

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​Florida, Pastor, Filthy conditions, Child abuse, Crime 

A Los Angeles Times article describing the struggle of a transgender-identifying high school student to defeat President Donald Trump’s “vitriol” is getting lambasted online.

The glowing report praised AB Hernandez, a track athlete who was born a boy but identifies as a female and is competing against biological girls in California.

‘LA Times, you are a woke joke and a disgrace to journalism.’

“Shielded by love, transgender athlete AB Hernandez defeated vitriol stoked by Trump,” read the headline.

The article portrayed AB as a joyful warrior against the dark oppressive efforts of protesters who opposed allowing transgender-identifying athletes to unfairly compete against biological females. Hernandez went on to win three titles in the girls’ track and field events.

The bias was not ignored by critics on social media.

“This boy is the CA state champion in two girls’ track and field events. And the @latimes chose this as their headline. Hernandez beat Trump. That’s their takeaway. What a truly broken brain wrote this,” responded Jennifer Sey, the founder of XX-XY Athletics.

“Hey, crappy @LATimes, let me fix the title for you.. ‘S****Y FAILED MALE ATHLETE ALLOWED TO BEAT GIRLS…’ There!! Fixed!!” replied comedian Rob Schneider.

“Well it’s Pride month so the .@latimes sucks up to the #LGBTQIA in spite how these girls show how they feel by the looks on their faces that they were cheated because of this boy in makeup,” wrote another detractor.

“The vitriol was stoked by cowards who refuse to do right by actual girls. L.A. Times, you are a woke joke and a disgrace to journalism,” said another user.

“He’s male & he’s stealing female successes & opportunities. In a country where many disadvantaged students can only achieve university education via sports scholarships, this is daylight robbery,” said another.

The president had previously threatened to cut off federal funding to the state of California over Hernandez competing in girls’ sports after his executive order restricting transgender-identifying athletes.

“California, under the leadership of Radical Left Democrat Gavin Newscum, continues to ILLEGALLY allow ‘MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS,'” said the president in May 2025.

RELATED: USA Today obliterated online over bizarre claim about transgender athletes

While the current California policies allow transgender-identifying athletes to compete, if they win a title, then the female athlete who was displaced by the trans athlete will retain the same record in the final standings as if she had won.

The California Interscholastic Federation adopted the rule after Trump threatened to pull state funding.

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​Ab hernandez, Los angeles times, Online backlash, Transgender athlete, Politics 

Vice President JD Vance and the U.S. State Department have weighed in on the British scandal surrounding the murder of English teen Henry Nowak and the systemic issues that Nowak’s mistreatment at the hands of police have illuminated.

Quick background

Nowak, 18, was fatally stabbed in an unprovoked attack on Dec. 3, 2025, by a knife-wielding Sikh named Vickrum Digwa. Adding grievous insult to injury, Digwa told police that he had acted defensively — that Nowak was a racist who had called him a “Paki” and attacked him.

The police officers from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary who arrived on the scene reflexively accepted the Sikh’s false claim that the dying teen was a racist aggressor, arrested and handcuffed Nowak based on those false accusations, and then dismissed his final pleas.

Digwa was convicted of murder last week and sentenced on Monday to a minimum of 21 years in prison.

Unlike Nowak’s killer, the scandal surrounding his death is not going away anytime soon.

Following the release of horrifying bodycam footage showing Nowak’s undignified death in the custody of members of Southampton police, multitudes of Britons took to the streets of southern England in protest, demanding the termination and/or prosecution of the officers involved, one of whom has resigned.

British politicians meanwhile sounded off about the discriminatory policies and practices that lay the groundwork for the teen’s mistreatment.

RELATED: Amnesty International frets about ‘racial justice’ again — just not for white people

JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

The National Police Chiefs’ Council announced amid the protests that it is reviewing its anti-racism guidance, which, as currently worded, explicitly calls for treating people differently on the basis of race:

Our commitment to racial equity means producing equality of policing outcomes for people from different ethnic groups by responding to individuals and communities according to their specific needs, circumstances, and experiences, with understanding that these will be racialised and with the aim of reducing harm. It does not mean treating everyone “the same” or being “colour blind” (racial equality).

Criticism from the land of the free

The U.S. State Department chimed in on Thursday, writing on social media, “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline. They must be rejected across the West.”

“The United States sends our condolences to the family of Henry Nowak and the people of the United Kingdom at this troubling time,” added the State Department.

‘He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred.’

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) stressed in response that “Henry Nowak deserved better,” and BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre wrote that “it would be nice to see the State Department treat the UK as a totalitarian terrorist state oppressing its population because that’s obviously true.”

The chatter in America has evidently enraged some leftists in the United Kingdom.

Ed Davey, a British politician who serves as leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons, responded to the State Department’s post with apoplexy, writing, “The Trump administration is attacking our democracy. Not in secret, but openly on social media. [U.K. Prime Minister Keir] Starmer needs to show some backbone and call this out today. We can’t turn a blind eye to this blatant interference any longer.”

U.S. Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers calmly reminded Davey that Starmer and other British liberals previously opined on the death of career criminal George Floyd. She also highlighted the markedly different response between those who took to the streets after Floyd’s death and those who have done so to protest Nowak’s death.

“Protesters mourning Nowak have not ignited infrastructure, murdered anyone, or otherwise cut an antisocial swathe of destruction through the UK,” wrote Rogers. “To the extent any of them care what America thinks, we urge them to remain peaceful — and we expect they will. Just like Henry Nowak and just like Americans, ordinary Brits have been slandered as racist. Thus violent. They’re not.”

On Friday, Vance underscored in a scathing message that Nowak’s death was an indictment of Britain itself.

“Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit,” wrote the American vice president. “His murder is as tragic as it is enraging. He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

In a message sure to prickle Starmer and others who have been clutching pearls over Reform U.K. party leader Nigel Farage’s recent call for “pure, cold rage” over the Nowak case, Vance noted further, “Henry was far from the first to so needlessly lose his life, and I fear he won’t be the last. Each time a life like his is lost, the proper response — the only response — is righteous anger.”

After emphasizing that the Trump administration has taken meaningful steps to stop the flow of mass migration and defend American sovereignty, Vance noted, “It is because we love the West that we want to preserve it. We love our civilization. We love our country. We love our children. And nobody — nobody — should ever die the way that Henry Nowak died. May God comfort those who loved him, and may God rest his soul.”

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​Britain, England, Henry nowak, Jd vance, Keir starmer, Leftism, Migration, Murder, Nigel farage, Sikh, Uk, Vance, Politics 

The case of Karmelo Anthony continues to gain national attention.

In April 2025, at track meet in Frisco, Texas, Anthony (then a 17-year-old Centennial High School student) allegedly fatally stabbed fellow high school student 17-year-old Austin Metcalf in the chest with a pocketknife during a confrontation. Anthony turned himself in shortly after the incident, but he pled not guilty to his charge of first-degree murder, claiming he acted in self-defense.

On June 3, a jury was seated. No black jurors were selected.

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock admits he was thrilled by the news.

“I am overjoyed there are no black people on this jury,” he says unapologetically. “I don’t want anybody on this jury that’s sitting there thinking about, ‘I gotta do the black thing,’ or ‘I hear the facts different because I’m black.’”

He insists there is no need for “a black perspective” in this murder case — only “a justice perspective.”

“American black people,” Whitlock argues, “seem to struggle to take the racial lens off of how they see things.”

White people, he notes, can struggle with this too, but it is “more pronounced” in the black community.

“I think we have a much better shot at getting some justice here with an all white or a non-black participant on this jury,” he says, acknowledging that these are “uncomfortable truths.”

Guest Shemeka Michelle agrees.

“When I was reading some of the answers that some of the jurors gave, such as it would be hard for me to convict a brother … those aren’t the type of answers that you give if you really want to be considered,” she says, referring to the black male prospective juror who was struck after he said he would “have a hard time putting a brother in jail.”

“The fact that they actually went in there and let their biases be known just says either you have low IQ or you really just didn’t want to be a part and so you said what you knew would get you tossed out,” she continues.

Whitlock gives these struck jurors “the benefit of the doubt” and interprets their admitted biases as a good sign.

“I don’t think they wanted anything to do with the pressure to have to make a racial decision. … All of this self-defense deal, it makes no sense to anybody,” he says, “and I think that black people were wise enough — some of them — in this case to be like ‘man, I don’t want to be on this jury.”’

Admitting bias thus became the perfect off-ramp, he explains.

While he acknowledges the possibility of “woke white leftists” on the jury who will use the history of slavery to excuse Karmelo Anthony’s actions, Whitlock says the jury’s deliberation should be “three minutes.”

“I’m hoping that’s the way it goes down.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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​Jason whitlock harmony, Jason whitlock, Karmelo anthony, Austin metcalf 

As California officials continue to be mocked for the glacier-speed ballot-counting process, the U.S. Dept. of Justice announced several investigations into possible election fraud.

Without commenting on any specific allegations, acting U.S. Attorney for Central California Bill Essayli announced Friday that his office, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had opened “multiple election fraud investigations.”

‘We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out.’

“Protecting the integrity of California’s elections is a top priority for my office,” said Essayli in the post on social media. “California’s election system has serious structural vulnerabilities. Universal vote-by-mail with no voter ID requirements creates conditions where fraud can go undetected and unpunished, eroding public confidence.”

The highly anticipated results in two California elections are still in limbo as the ballot count continues. Critics accuse Democrats of stalling the process in order to allow for fraud, but others say the electoral system in California prioritizes ballot access at the expense of delayed results.

“We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent,” Essayli added.

Left in the lurch are the candidates awaiting the primary results for the Los Angeles mayoral election as well as the California governor’s race. Currently, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt appear headed toward the general election, but as more tranches of votes are counted, the gap narrows for third-place Democratic competitors to steal their spot.

The top two vote-getters in each race will advance to the general election.

Essayli went on to say they were working to comprehensibly audit the voter rolls.

“The state has stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote. This case is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal,” he added.

Video from L.A. County’s central processing center, where the ballots are being counted, showed an official from the U.S. Attorney General’s Office reviewing and monitoring the effort.

RELATED: The man who propelled AOC into Congress fails SPECTACULARLY in race for Pelosi’s seat

“My office will not look the other way,” Essayli concluded. “We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out.”

On Thursday, Newsom’s press office said, “For the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too.”

Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta offered only a brief statement about the announcement.

“My office has a presence on the ground right now, is monitoring the situation closely, and stands ready to protect voters and ensure California’s election laws are followed,” he wrote.

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President Donald Trump celebrated the jobs report published on Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that American employers added jobs for the third consecutive month.

The report, which Trump called “great,” says the U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs last month; the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.3%; the number of unemployed people, 7.3 million, “changed little over the month”; and the labor force participation rate held at 61.8%.

‘Bodes ill for the country.’

Total employment growth for the months of March and April were revised up by 29,000 and 64,000, respectively.

“This is a labor market that is stronger than it was last year and is looking pretty darn solid, despite high energy prices and higher inflation generally,” Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC, told CNBC. “There’s no indication that the labor market needs support.”

While the labor market is purportedly healthy, there are a pair of potentially destabilizing trends under way behind the scenes: the overwhelming majority of new payroll jobs are going to women, and a staggering number of men have given up on finding a job.

Jason Riley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recently highlighted that “the share of American men in the labor force has dipped to record lows.” Labor Department data revealed last month that one in three men were neither working nor looking for a job.

RELATED: Steelworkers need a future, not another merger war

Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images

The male labor-force participation rate has declined significantly in recent years, to say nothing of the precipitous decline that has taken place over the past century. The male LFP rate was 87% in 1948, 75% in 2000, and — according to the latest jobs report — 67.2% in May.

“The premature absence of millions of able-bodied men from our workforce, combined with the continuing retirement of the Baby Boomers and significant reductions in immigration, bodes ill for the country,” wrote Riley.

While there are multiple factors at play — Baby Boomers are, for instance, retiring en masse; young men are dropping off to study; there is diminished demand for non-college male labor; and prime-age men are falling to the wayside because of illness and disabilities — the Washington Post recently pointed out that:

the labor market has weakened since early 2025, with most job opportunities concentrated in areas typically dominated by women, including health care and private education. At the same time, several male-dominated industries, including manufacturing, transportation, and mining have shed jobs, leaving a mismatch between typical skill sets and job opportunities for men.

It’s evidently a new day for female labor.

Whereas in the mid-1970s, women held roughly 40% of jobs in the U.S. — not including agricultural work or self-employment — they now hold the majority of jobs in the country.

NPR’s “Morning Edition” reported that of the roughly 369,000 jobs created between the beginning of Trump’s second term and April, 348,000 jobs went to women and 21,000 jobs went to men. In other words, 94% of the jobs went to women and only 6% to men.

Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department, stressed to “Morning Edition” that raw job counts provided a “misleading snapshot” of the labor market, adding that “both men and women are benefiting from a strong economy.”

Women have picked up the supermajority of net new payroll jobs in part because of the growth in female-dominated sectors, namely health care — where women hold roughly 80% of the jobs — and social assistance.

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​Department of labor, Labor, Work, Men, Women, Unemployment, Donald trump, Economy, Politics 

The bitter feud over federal immigration enforcement funding is finally over after Republicans in the U.S. Senate were able to pass a funding bill Friday morning.

The bill secures $70 billion that will fund President Donald Trump’s directive for mass deportations by supercharging operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection.

‘No more slush funds for corruption. We must dismantle DHS and abolish ICE!’

The Senate voted 52 to 47 to pass the bill with one lone Republican joining the Democrats, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. It now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives for approval.

Democrats opposed the increased funding based on their criticism of operations under the Trump administration. Some pointed to the deaths of anti-ICE protesters Alex Pretti and Renee Good, while others accused Trump of being motivated by racism.

Democrats were also pushing to include a provision in the bill outlawing the proposal for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate Trump supporters persecuted by the federal government.

Republicans defeated that provision and passed the bill.

Democrats, as expected, were outraged.

“Early this morning, the Senate passed a $70 billion reconciliation bill to give ICE and CBP more funding to terrorize our communities, and violate our rights,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.). “To avoid all transparency and accountability, they voted down EVERY amendment to protect our communities and rein in Trump’s corruption while Americans slept. We must hold the line as it moves to the House next week. NO more money to ICE and CBP. No more slush funds for corruption. We must dismantle DHS and abolish ICE!”

“While you were sleeping, Senate Republicans jammed through a $70 BILLION blank check for ICE,” responded Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). “In the middle of a cost-of-living CRISIS, instead of focusing on how to lower your grocery bills, your gas bills, your health care bills, your housing bills, and the millions of other bills you are dealing with, they are focused squarely on passing more and more funding for an out-of-control agency for the remainder of Trump’s term.”

RELATED: ICE accuses LA of giving ‘a middle finger to the law’ after new funding for illegal aliens

Senate Republican Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) acknowledged that the anti-weaponization fund is no longer an option based on the testimony of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche before Congress, but Democrats are still not satisfied.

“Republicans refused to permanently outlaw Trump’s $2 billion slush fund, leaving taxpayers to rely on nothing more than a promise from Donald Trump’s personal fixer,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Trump later said of the fund, “I love it. I think it’s so important.”

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​Anti-weaponization fund, Customs and border protection, Immigration and customs enforcement, Senate republicans, Politics 

Former first lady Jill Biden has been making the media rounds, with one of her latest stops being with the women of “The View” — and ending in disaster.

“For some reason, Jill Biden really just still wants to be the it girl. And so, she’s still doing this media tour. And it didn’t start well. It’s not going well. It’s not going to end well,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says.

In a clip from her appearance, Jill explained that she was terrified that Joe was having a stroke during one of the debates.

Co-host Sara Gaines responded, saying, “He’s given so much of himself and to see you even saying like, ‘I thought he was having a medical episode, I was concerned.’ Was there any part of you that went into protection mode of like, ‘Joe you can’t keep doing this?’”

“But the doctors told me he was fine. I’m not a doctor,” Biden responded, correcting herself, “I mean, I am a doctor.”

“Excuse me,” Gonzales comments. “I was informed if you don’t call her Dr. Jill Biden every single time you refer to her that you are rude and have no manners and now here she is accidentally admitting that she doesn’t even consider herself to be a doctor.”

“Now, obviously, she meant a medical doctor,” she added, recalling Whoopi Goldberg once using her platform on “The View” to champion making Jill Biden the surgeon general.

“Dr. Jill becomes a surgeon general. His wife. Joe Biden’s wife,” Whoopi once said on “The View,” before calling Jill a “hell of a doctor.”

“She’s a teacher but, you know,” Sunny Hostin chimed in, correcting a very confused Whoopi.

“Whoopi’s final look before that clip ended,” Gonzales says, laughing.

“Oh my gosh, like inject that into my veins. So confused. This poor bird is so confused,” she continues.

“The same woman who literally just said she’s a hell of a doctor. As if she knew. As if she’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ve watched her operate on someone before. She is one hell of a doctor.’ No, it’s just an education doctorate, by the way,” she adds.

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​Jill biden, The view, Whoopi goldberg, Sunny hostin, Sara gonzales, Joe biden, Sara gonzales unfiltered 

The U.S. built an entire export control system to keep its most powerful AI chips out of enemy hands, but a loophole may have made the system vulnerable to infiltration by China and other countries.

America’s chip export rules target where a company is headquartered, not who ultimately owns it — meaning a Chinese tech giant could set up a subsidiary in Singapore or Malaysia and buy chips the parent company never could.

‘The new Blackwell that just came out, it’s 10 years ahead of every other chip. But no, we don’t give that chip to other people.’

The Bureau of Industry and Security in the Commerce Department released new guidance Sunday, clarifying that a subsidiary of any company headquartered in a U.S. arms-embargoed nation — including China — still requires an export license to purchase advanced chips, regardless of where the subsidiary operates.

The requirement had technically been on the books since November 2023 — but the BIS acknowledged it had been receiving questions about whether it was still being enforced.

In May 2025, the bureau scrapped the Biden administration’s strict AI Diffusion Rule export framework. The Trump administration called it “overly complex, overly bureaucratic,” and warned that it would “stifle American innovation” and damage diplomatic relations with dozens of allied nations.

Pulling the Biden framework without a replacement in place, however, left the rules that govern who can buy these chips effectively unenforced. Furthermore, chips purchased during the loophole window do not have to be returned.

Former State Department official Chris McGuire, who helped build America’s chip export framework under Biden, sounded the alarm on X Sunday, writing that “Chinese companies have been buying these chips, very likely at scale.”

While the new guidance requires export licenses for subsidiaries of companies linked to U.S. arms-embargoed nations, it does not reinstate a separate safeguard: the requirement for offshore chip manufacturers to verify who is ultimately behind a purchase — a vulnerability that McGuire warned remains unaddressed.

Trump struck a deal on December 8, 2025, allowing China to purchase the H200 — a less powerful Nvidia data center chip and the company’s second-best — with Nvidia paying 25% of those sales back to the U.S. government. Trump announced the deal on Truth Social, writing that Chinese President Xi Jinping “responded positively.”

However, it appears China “chose not to” approve the purchases.

RELATED: Trump goes to China with THIS surprise guest and an entourage of business leaders

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

While China was passing on the H200, a scaled-down export variant, Nvidia’s Blackwell chips — which defense analysts warn could serve as the foundation for next-generation autonomous weapons systems — may have been flowing freely through the back door.

The Blackwell chip was never supposed to reach any entities linked to U.S. arms-embargoed countries. Trump made that explicit while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One in November 2025: “The new Blackwell that just came out, it’s 10 years ahead of every other chip. But no, we don’t give that chip to other people.”

Al Jazeera reported that Nvidia said the company had been operating according to the clarified rules, claiming its “sales and vetting process is correct.” Nvidia also claimed China “has more than enough domestic chips for all of its military applications,” raising questions about the Chinese military actively seeking Nvidia chips in the first place.

Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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​Adversary nations, Ai chips, Air force one, Autonomous weapons, China, Commerce, Oversight, Donald trump, Politics 

In the biggest upset of this primary cycle so far, businessman and farmer Zach Lahn defeated four other candidates in the Iowa Republican gubernatorial primary, including U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, who received President Trump’s late endorsement.

Lahn won by less than one percentage point and fewer than 1,700 votes out of nearly 215,000 cast. He fused together evangelicals, MAHA voters, a Turning Point USA endorsement, and late encouragement from yours truly for Iowa Republicans to vote strategically against Feenstra, who ran the most cynical campaign I have ever seen.

Even when Trump endorsed against him, Lahn was still the candidate saying the most Trumpian things to the base. That was all that mattered.

Back in February, Brent Buchanan, one of the best pollsters of the 2024 cycle, published research arguing that Republicans’ secret weapon for the 2026 midterms could be a fusion of MAHA messaging with traditional conservative themes. He added that “most Republican candidates are too cautious to grab it.”

Enter Lahn.

His issue-driven success may signal that the personality-driven retail politics that long defined Iowa, thanks to its first-in-the-nation presidential caucus status, is fading.

When I endorsed Adam Steen early in this gubernatorial primary, I had never met Lahn. I had never even heard of him. I chose Steen because he fit the kind of candidate Iowa Republicans have traditionally rewarded: high integrity, strong character, serious faith, and real governing experience.

Steen had essentially been the chief operating officer of Iowa for the past five years. He seemed like one of us during Republican Kim Reynolds’ popular and successful governorship. That level of trust and connectivity is what Iowa conservatives have long craved, and it helps explain why Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum found success here over the years.

In almost any earlier political era, Steen probably would have been where Lahn is now.

But the electorate has changed. Many evangelicals overlooked Trump’s past because they liked where he stood on the issues. They cared less about the résumé of the salesman than the sales pitch in front of them. In the final month of the primary, more Iowa voters answered the question “Do you know what time it is?” with one name: Zach Lahn.

Even when Trump endorsed against him, Lahn was still the candidate saying the most Trumpian things to the base. That was all that mattered.

Issues, not background.

That is likely where Republican politics will stay as the Fox News generation fades and the GOP gets younger. Younger Republicans include more people from broken homes, more people who have gone through divorce, more people who came to faith later in life, and more voters carrying baggage that no longer fits the old Pleasant Valley Sunday model.

RELATED: Iowa primary: One Trump-backed candidate secures landslide victory, while another is narrowly defeated

Scott Olson/Getty Images

They are not looking for perfect biographies. They want results.

That hunger for results was strong enough to overcome Trump’s 11th-hour endorsement of Feenstra.

And yes, Trump’s endorsement helped. The president took a candidate whose negatives had climbed 20 points in the final three months and, in less than four days, gave him at least a 10-point bump without major media assistance. That should have finished Lahn.

But Iowa Republicans decided, with some irony, that the candidate Trump endorsed could not be trusted on Trump’s own issues as much as the candidate Trump opposed.

To be honest, the risk I took by supporting Lahn in the campaign’s final days had nothing to do with confidence in how that dynamic would play out. But here we are. For the sake of the state where my children are raising my grandchildren, I am grateful it ended this way.

Lahn had enough independent wealth to make himself visible and viable, no matter when or how Trump weighed in. With the right message on the right issues, he found the secret sauce.

So to Iowa Democrats and their Trojan horse candidate Rob Sand, here is our message: Now we fight.

All aboard the Lahn train.

​Kim reynolds, President trump, Zach lahn, Pat robertson, Trump endorsement, Iowa primary, Randy feenstra, Opinion & analysis 

Brazil has very interesting ways of honoring its soccer team.

The South American country is often credited as being the most Catholic country in the world, and its people seemingly showed it as their team took off for the World Cup, hosted in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

‘The event represents the collective hope of the entire nation.’

Brazilians on the runway at Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão International Airport celebrated their team’s departure by conducting what has been described as both a gigantic blessing and a customary baptism-like ritual.

ESPN reported that the team’s Boeing jet was “blessed” by two airport fire trucks before departing Rio, with their water cannons blasting arches of water as the plane slowly moved through.

Catholicism and soccer are quite the big deal in Brazil; the country is often credited as having the largest Catholic population in the world, with approximately 182 million practicing worshippers, representing about 13% of the world’s total Catholics, according Premier Christian News.

Some Brazilian stars were baptized in 2025, including Liverpool star Alisson Becker and his former teammate Roberto Firmino.

RELATED: NFL players defend NY Giants QB Jaxson Dart after he introduces Trump: ‘Fake Trump hate’

– YouTube

The Sun noted that the airport staff sought and received permission from the Brazilian Football Confederation to authorize the plane’s blessing before spraying the water on the Boeing 767-300ER.

International outlets have emphasized the importance of the world tournament to Brazil and its people, with Marca describing the “baptism” of sorts as customary for Brazilian aircraft before important takeoffs. It also said the event represents the collective hope of the entire nation that wants to bring home another World Cup title.

Brazil has the most World Cup wins of any country, with five. Germany and Italy both have four. Brazil is also the only country to have been in every single tournament since the World Cup began in 1930.

RELATED: My 1990 World Cup sticker book — and a glimpse of football’s simpler past

VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images

This isn’t the first time Brazilians have given an airplane the royal treatment before the big tournament. In 2022, fans covered a different Boeing jet at a shopping mall with stickers and murals commemorating the team.

Branded with the Brazilian soccer logo, the 2026 team jet is priced at $170 million and was previously used by the Rolling Stones for their 60th anniversary tour in 2022.

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​Fearless, Brazil, World cup 2026, Catholicism, Baptism, Sports 

An actor known for his roles in “Jumanji” and “Top Gun: Maverick” was lethally stabbed in the chest outside a home in Los Angeles, and the main suspect is his girlfriend’s son.

81-year-old James Handy was found by Los Angeles Police Department officers in the front yard of a home in Tarzana in the San Fernando Valley.

‘I just killed the man of sin.’

An individual called 911 at about 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday. “I am the son of man. I just killed the man of sin,” the caller told the 911 dispatcher, according to police.

When cops arrived, 44-year-old Michael Gledhill flagged them down and told officers that “he was the one they were looking for,” the police statement claimed.

Handy was found unconscious with a stab wound to the chest and was rushed to a hospital by paramedics, where he was pronounced dead.

Gledhill was booked on murder charges and held on a $2 million bail at the Van Nuys Jail. Police say he had been living with his mother, Handy’s girlfriend, at the Tarzana residence on Erwin Street.

The LAPD said there was no longer a threat to the public.

Police are asking for anyone with information related to the investigation to contact them.

RELATED: Obamas were to meet Rob Reiner and his wife on the day they were killed, Michelle says

The “son of man” is a biblical phrase used in the New Testament as one of the descriptions of Jesus Christ. Others have used the phrase to refer to themselves as the second coming of Christ, most notably Charles Manson.

Handy had starred in about 150 movies and television shows going back to the 1970s. He is also known for his roles in the “Logan” movie as well as “Arachnophobia.”

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​Los angeles, Actor, Murder, Biblical reference, Crime 

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) introduced two new bills on Thursday targeting child exploitation through surrogacy and held a press conference with fellow Republican Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Randy Fine of Florida to discuss the details.

“We are here because we are concerned about the safety and the welfare of children — and, in particular, the use of surrogacy to get around [the law],” Perry said.

‘Children are not pets. Children are not property.’

Perry’s legislation is twofold. The first bill closes a dangerous loophole that allows registered sex offenders to legally obtain children through surrogacy agencies, and the second bars foreign nationals from using American surrogacy agencies to obtain U.S. citizen children altogether.

Protecting kids from creeps

The first bill, the Protecting Kids from Creeps Act, was sparked by a recent case in Pennsylvania.

Brandon Riley-Mitchell, a former high school chemistry teacher, pleaded guilty to felony child pornography charges after sending more than 12,000 texts to a 16-year-old student, soliciting nude photos, and sending roughly 20 nude images of himself.

He served time in prison and was designated a registered Tier I sex offender. Then, he and his male romantic partner obtained a newborn through surrogacy — legally.

The couple set up a GoFundMe to fund the surrogacy, seemingly without disclosing Mitchell’s sex offender status to donors.

RELATED: ‘There is no mama’: Two homosexuals taunt surrogate baby crying for his mother: VIDEO

Pennsylvania State Police

York County District Attorney Tim Barker confirmed to Newsweek that there was nothing prosecutors could do. Unlike adoption, which requires background checks, home studies, and court approval, private surrogacy agreements operate with virtually no oversight. Mitchell found the gap and walked right through it.

Perry’s bill slams that door shut with serious penalties.

Any sex offender who knowingly enters into a surrogacy agreement would face a mandatory minimum of 20 years in federal prison. Surrogacy agency employees who knowingly facilitate such a deal would face the same. Agencies that act recklessly would face a minimum of 10 years, would lose their 501(c)(3) status, and would be permanently barred from receiving federal grants.

The bill defines “sex offender” broadly — covering anyone who is, or ever was, required to register under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.

Rep. Burchett didn’t mince words about the importance of the bill.

“A sex offender — these dirtbags — we need to send them all to hell, but they’ve got no right to obtain a child through surrogacy. They lost that right when they committed a disgusting crime that put them on this list,” Burchett said.

Burchett closed with Scripture. “Jesus said, ‘How you treat the least amongst you is how you treat me,'” Burchett said.

Preventing foreign exploitation of US surrogacy

The second bill, H.R. 9132, which Perry said already has co-sponsorship, targets a separate but equally alarming problem: foreign nationals — including citizens of adversarial nations — using American surrogacy agencies to have children with U.S. citizenship.

Perry framed it plainly: “International commercial surrogacy, birth tourism — it’s a national security threat. It invites immigration fraud and malfeasance, and most importantly, it is an ethical, moral imperative — because we are allowing, if not facilitating, child endangerment.”

Perry pointed specifically to wealthy Chinese nationals exploiting the system. He cited the case of a Chinese man who fathered more than 100 children through U.S. surrogacy.

Other accounts describe Chinese men having surrogate children raised by nannies. One California agency owner described helping a client who wanted more than 200 children to build a family enterprise.

“There’s a mansion in California where people roll up to it like it’s a drive-thru and pick up these babies and send them to China,” Perry said. “This is horrific. And it’s horrific that it’s happening in the United States of America. Yet it is.”

Reportedly, more than 107 Chinese-owned surrogacy agencies are currently operating in Southern California alone. The issue was also addressed in a letter from Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. Children born through these arrangements automatically receive U.S. citizenship — making them eligible to vote, access sensitive government positions, and eventually sponsor their foreign parents for immigrant visas.

Perry noted that even China has banned surrogacy domestically.

“We don’t want to be creating spies with American passports who are raised in China and have their allegiance to the Communist Party of China,” Perry said.

“If you live in one of these countries and you want to have a surrogate child, do that in your country. Don’t come to America.”

When Blaze News asked Perry whether he expects pushback from California Democrats, given that 107 Chinese-owned agencies are reportedly operating in their back yard, he didn’t hold back.

“I do expect a response from California Democrats. Unfortunately, they could have introduced this legislation — these things were occurring in their back yard. They were easy for us to find. Apparently, they not only don’t care about it, they’re good with it,” Perry said.

“Look, we’re on the high ground here. Doesn’t matter what the response is. I don’t know how you can defend sending children — newborns — to pedophiles.”

The bill would void any surrogacy contract between an American surrogate and a foreign national prospective parent and impose up to 10 years in prison on brokers who facilitate such agreements. Rep. Perry says the bill includes an exception for married couples of whom at least one prospective parent is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.

“Families are important to Americans, and we want to enable that,” Perry said. “But it also doesn’t oppose restrictions to ensure surrogacy or IVF clinic channels aren’t exploited by foreign nationals without allegiance to the U.S. or current and former sex offenders. That’s what we’re trying to get after.”

Rep. Fine offered a pointed summary: “Surrogacy is a special, almost holy procedure. … But like so many things in our culture, this noble, special, almost holy process where someone gives of themselves to make someone else a parent has been perverted and bastardized for those who would seek to do evil.”

“Children are not pets. Children are not property,” Perry said.

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​Politics, Surrogacy, Sex offenders