Category: blaze media

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell disavowed former President Donald Trump and his supporters less than two weeks out from the election. Although McConnell is stepping down, three Republican senators are vying to inherit his leadership position.

We asked GOP Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, John Thune of South Dakota, and John Cornyn of Texas to respond to McConnell. Here’s what they had to say.

‘I support Donald Trump and his work to fundamentally change the way Washington operates, he doesn’t.’

In an upcoming biography, McConnell criticized Trump, saying the “MAGA movement is completely wrong” and arguing that former President Ronald Reagan “wouldn’t recognize” the GOP under Trump’s leadership.

Scott came out strong against McConnell’s remarks, saying he was “shocked” at the “attack” on Trump.

“While Leader McConnell and I have fundamental disagreements, I am shocked that he would attack a fellow Republican senator and the Republican nominee for president just two weeks out from an election,” Scott said in a statement to Blaze News.

“I believe we should be talking about solutions, he doesn’t,” Scott continued. “I support Donald Trump and his work to fundamentally change the way Washington operates, he doesn’t. I believe we could support the candidates Republican voters choose, he doesn’t. With almost $36 trillion in debt, an open border, historic inflation, and a world on fire, I know we need dramatic change and he doesn’t.”

Thune responded more mildly, saying he is supporting Trump while also focusing on winning the Senate.

“Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States, which is why I’m focused on electing a strong Senate Republican majority that can hit the ground running and work with him to secure our borders, create more opportunities for families, and strengthen American businesses,” Thune said in a statement to Blaze News.

Although he reaffirmed his support for Trump and his party, he did not directly respond to McConnell’s remarks.

Cornyn withheld a response altogether. When Blaze News reached out for a comment, we were directed to his endorsement of Trump in January as well as a campaign appearance he made alongside the Republican nominee in Nevada earlier this month.

Cornyn has not yet publicly addressed or responded to Blaze News about McConnell’s disavowal of Trump and the party that he hopes to lead.

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​Mitch mcconnell, Donald trump, Senate republicans, Maga, Rick scott, John thune, Minority leader, Republican party, Gop, Senate gop, Politics 

Researchers recently uncovered troubling data revealing what they called a disturbing landscape that exposes children to grooming and pornography in online spaces.

For years child predators have been lurking in many online marketplaces that are popular with children:
Snapchat, Fortnite, and Discord are just a few of the apps that have struggled to keep teens cordoned off.

As with any of these platforms, parental guidance is the most important line of defense that children should be able to rely on.

According to recent research by
Hindenburg, a massive, country-sized number of youngsters are under constant threat from child predators.

The research focused on Roblox, which was
described as the second-highest-grossing app on iOS in 2020. The platform allows users to program and play games created by the community. It became highly popularized when students were forcibly contained in their homes during COVID-19 lockdowns, at a time when long-distance learning was mandatory.

As of Q2 2024, Roblox has a reported 79 million active daily users, an increase of almost 15 million from the same time in 2023,
Backlinko reported.

With approximately 58% of its user base under 16 years old, that equates to a community of at least 46 million children.

Bathroom simulators

Children are exposed to grooming, pornography, violent content, and what researchers categorized as extremely abusive speech on the platform.

Researchers created accounts as if they were children and said their avatars routinely faced grooming attempts while being able to access games with sexual, violent, and pornographic content.

In a press email, Hindenburg founder Nate Anderson pointed to 73 active group pages on Roblox — available to children of all ages — that “solicit child sexual material and/or sexual experiences from minors.”

At the time of this publication, at least 45 of those page remained active, with another dozen or so pages still active but having recently disabled comments and/or posts.

The active groups are, at best, disturbing.

Multiple pages refer to people who have a fetish for role-playing as
skunks, while other groups refer to diaper-changing and the brand Pampers consistently.

The page “pamped studios” links to a game called Diaper Tycoon, which offers achievements for “girls pull ups” and “boys pull ups.”

One group called “wedgie” warned users that the group would likely be deleted soon and directed them to another community.

Users on that page wrote public messages, visible without signing in to the platform, that included “add me if you u would obey me in ANYTHING I say.”

Other posts read “[Femboys] add for heavy ‘lemonade,'” and “Hello, i do roleplays and stuff.”

Anderson said that Roblox has quietly removed some questionable children’s games and put others under review. These included titles such as Escape To Epstein Island and Public Bathroom Simulator.

However, there are still three different Public Bathroom Simulator games available for users of “all ages:”

Public Bathroom Simulator
Public Bathroom Simulator (2)
Public Bathroom Simulator (3)

Screenshot obtained by Blaze News from https://www.roblox.com/games/18991046468/Public-Bathroom-Simulator

Roblox responds

Roblox explained in an email that it has published a response to Hindenburg’s accusations, but most of the
statement addresses claims of fraudulent financial statements.

Addressing the safety concerns, Roblox wrote: “Roblox takes any content or behavior on the platform that doesn’t abide by its standards extremely seriously, and Roblox has a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent malicious or harmful activity on the platform.”

In a separate
blog post, the company stated that its detecting and reporting systems flag just 0.0063% of its total content for policy violations surrounding bullying, hate speech, or violent extremism.

“It’s no coincidence that our policies are significantly stricter than those found on social networks and user-generated content platforms and cover everything from profanity to ad standards,” the company added.

Specific to users under 13, Roblox says it has filters in place to block the sharing of personal information and attempts by users to take conversations off Roblox, where “standards and moderation are less stringent.”

Additionally, the company says it does not allow users to exchange images or videos through voice or text messages.

Furthermore, it said that all uploaded content (images, video, audio, 3D models, and text) goes through a comprehensive review process, including artificial intelligence augmented by humans.

Naturally, these provisions haven’t been able to prevent some offenders from skirting the security measures.

An elementary school teacher in Prince George’s County, Maryland, was
federally indicted after messaging a 9-year-old student on Roblox.

Mark Cobb allegedly sent messages to the child on the platform in which he asked for and received sexual photos. Police said they later found more videos and images of children under 12 at his home.

The teacher was charged with nearly a dozen child sex abuse crimes,
WJLA reported, including the alleged coercion and enticement of a child and possession of child pornography.

Roblox was asked to directly address this incident and whether the company could have prevented it. This article will be updated with any applicable responses.

13,000 incidents

Unfortunately, this was not the first crime of this nature with a connection to Roblox. Several predators have been arrested for enticing children by offering them the platform’s virtual gaming currency, Robux.

In
2019, a Florida man was charged with 26 counts relating to child pornography and solicitation of a child for asking children ages 10-12 to send naked photos in exchange for Robux.

In 2020, a registered sex offender in Michigan was arrested for
enticing an 8-year-old girl into sending him sexual content in exchange for Robux, as well. Police later found over 20 videos of the child on his iPad.

More recently, at least six men have taken their communications from Roblox offline and escalated to actual incidents of rape or kidnapping against their victims.

In 2021, a California man was
charged with kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old after he communicated with the child on Roblox.

In 2022, another man drove from California to Pennsylvania to break into a 14-year-old’s home. The man assaulted the young girl and was
charged with assault, unlawful sexual contact, and corruption of a minor.

The same year, a
33-year-old man from Georgia kidnapped and raped a 13-year-old girl he met on Roblox; he was charged with five felonies, including statutory rape and child molestation.

Other Roblox-fueled charges in 2022 included a Florida man
kidnapping and sexually assaulting a child under the age of 12 and a man in Michigan kidnapping a 14-year-old girl. The Michigan man picked up the child from school and later dropped her off at a homeless shelter.

Roblox has attempted to stem this activity by developing relationships with federal and state authorities, including directly allowing law enforcement to connect to the company’s Roblox Law Enforcement Portal.

The company also says it proactively reports “potential safety threats” to the FBI.

Roblox also reports potentially harmful content to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, reporting over 13,000 incidents to the NCMEC in 2023 alone.

This vast number displays the sheer volume of potential predators Roblox is dealing with.

Hindenburg’s founder told Blaze News that one of the reasons this is happening is because there isn’t enough up-front screening for new users.

“Users do not need to provide any personal identifiable information to set up an account,” Anderson said. “Anyone, including pedophiles, can register an account in under a minute and begin anonymously playing and chatting with children.”

Anderson added that bypassing the parental controls is as easy as “self-identifying at 13+.”

As with any of these platforms, parental guidance is the most important line of defense that children should be able to rely on.

It remains true, however, that an overarching conversation about child safety online, and whether or not children need access to these types of platforms, is sorely needed.

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​Return, T3, Roblox, Children’s safety, Child predators, Tech 

Kamala Harris has attempted to convince Americans on the campaign trail that rather than growing up the silver-spooned daughter of an affluent couple afforded the luxury of routinely flying back and forth between pricey homes in two countries, she was alternatively the product and a member of the middle class.

A critical component of this narrative is Harris’ claim that she worked at McDonald’s in 1983 — a claim not reflected in her past résumés and for which the vice president has produced no evidence.

Democrats and the liberal press have attacked President Donald Trump and others who have
suggested that Harris’ origin story is bogus. The New York Times dutifully did its part on Oct. 20 but accidentally torpedoed the narrative by naming its only other source besides Harris: a hardcore Harris booster.

At the outset, the Times’ Heather Knight and Nicholas Nehamas
likened doubts about Harris’ politically expedient and unsubstantiated claim to birtherism, then shifted the burden of proof onto Trump:

Vice President Kamala Harris has recalled her stint at a Bay Area McDonald’s 41 years ago in introducing herself to voters — a biographical detail relatable to millions of Americans who have toiled in fast-food restaurants. But former President Donald J. Trump has repeatedly accused her of inventing it. Lacking a shred of proof, he has charged that she never actually worked under the golden arches — recalling his earlier false claim that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

President Donald Trump masterfully trolled his opponent while
tapping into classic Americana last weekend, donning an apron and serving up french fries to supporters at a McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania.

‘They don’t want to report it because they’re fake!’

“Now I have worked at McDonald’s,” Trump told reporters at the drive-through window. “I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala. She never worked here.”

In the lead-up to his brief stint as a fry cook, Trump repeatedly mocked Harris over her summer job claim,
writing on Sept. 1, for instance, “Kamala said she worked at McDonalds — She never did. Lie!”

“She said she worked and grew up in terrible conditions, she worked at McDonald’s. It was such — she never worked there!” Trump
told a crowd in Indiana last month. “And these fake news reporters will never report it. They don’t want to report it because they’re fake! They’re fake!”

According to the Times, “Mr. Trump’s seeding of doubts about Ms. Harris’s story, while insidious and outside the lines of traditional fair play in politics, advances his goal of portraying Ms. Harris as a fraud.”

The first time Harris publicly mentioned ever having allegedly worked at McDonald’s was
reportedly in 2019, when pandering to striking workers in Las Vegas. Harris suggested in September that she worked at the restaurant during college, echoing a campaign ad from the previous month. On another occasion, Harris suggested that she worked at McDonald’s to help pay for law school, which she attended several years after leaving Montreal.

The Times produced no verifiable evidence of Harris’ claims. Instead, it took the word of Harris, her campaign spokesman, and hearsay from a woman named Wanda Kagan.

As the Washington Free Beacon has
noted, the Times portrayed Kagan as a family friend who heard about the McDonald’s gig from Harris’ deceased mother. The liberal paper neglected to inform readers that Kagan, the only source backing the McDonald’s claim besides Harris and her campaign, is herself a Harris booster who has in recent weeks and months actively supported the Democrat’s candidacy.

The Times noted only that Kagan was a “friend who had known Ms. Harris as a teenager and remained in touch with the family for years afterward” — a “close friend of Ms. Harris’ when they attended high school together in Montreal, [who] said she recalled Ms. Harris having worked at McDonald’s around that time.”

The reality is that Kagan is much more than an old friend.

The Beacon noted that Kagan served as a surrogate for Harris during the Democratic National Convention,
telling MSNBC in August, “It’s an emotional and chilling ride, and I’m just overwhelmed with happiness for my friend, and I’m happy to be alive to be able to witness her now fighting for the people of America.”

Earlier this month, Kagan
posted a video from a Harris campaign event, captioned, “Blessed to be on the stage with @Vp, and the first one she toasts. Cheers to brighter future with @kamalaharris as president!”

Kagan, the partisan whose hearsay is holding up the Times’ rebuttal to Trump’s criticism, previously told PBS News that she lost touch with Harris after high school.

“I lost touch after she went to college and then I went to college. But then I stayed in touch with her mom still, and — but then I still had a pretty unstable life again, so I was moving a lot, and so I lost her mom’s contact number,” said Kagan, adding that she didn’t reach out directly again until Harris was San Francisco’s district attorney.

If secondhand information from a partisan who wasn’t in touch with Harris during her college years is the extent of the Times’ evidence, then perhaps it is not Trump who “lack[s] a shred of proof.”

Spokesman Charlie Stadtlander told the Beacon the Times’ Oct. 20 article “was a thoroughly reported and edited piece of independent journalism.”

“The Times stands behind it completely,” added Stadtlander.

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​Fake news, New york times, Nyt, Media, Journalism, President donald trump, Trump, Kamala harris, Harris, Mcdonald’s, Mcdonalds, Politics 

Just 11 days before Election Day, the RealClearPolitics average of polls is showing a tie between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Both candidates have 48.5% of the vote, according to the RCP average.

The average also shows Trump leading Harris in the battleground states.

The staff at RealClearPolitics selects polls they consider authoritative and calculates an average, which many use to get a general sense of election races.

A tie in the polling likely means an advantage for Trump since, as many have noted, historically the Republican underperforms in polling.

“If we have a polling shift like we’ve seen in prior years from now until the final result, Donald Trump would actually win,” said CNN poll analyst Harry Enten in August, when Harris had a strong lead.

The average also shows Trump leading Harris in the battleground states 48.4% to 47.5%, respectively.

The RCP average has shown Harris in the lead since Aug. 4, while Trump was leading prior to that date by as much as 2 percentage points. In mid-September, Harris hit her highest lead, also about 2 percentage points.

Some immediately began trying to undermine the veracity of the RCP average after it showed a tie.

“Your daily reminder that RealClearPolitics is biased and distorted by including junk, partisan polls in its simple averages. Garbage in, garbage out,” replied Timothy McBride, a Washington University professor.

RCP also shows a slight lead for Democrats in the generic congressional campaign average, 47.2% to 47.1%.

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​Rcp average polling, Rcp tied, Trump tied with harris, Polling 2024 presidential election, Politics 

An Arizona mother won a major First Amendment victory earlier this week when a justice of the peace dismissed the case against her after she was arrested in connection with publicly criticizing a city official.

On August 20, 32-year-old Rebekah Massie and her 10-year-old daughter attended a city council meeting in Surprise, a suburb of Phoenix. During the public comment portion of the meeting, Massie stood at the podium and slammed city attorney Robert Wingo for accepting a raise despite poor job performance.

As Massie expressed her views on Wingo, Mayor Skip Hall repeatedly interrupted her, insisting that her criticisms of Wingo violated rules regarding public comments at city council meetings. That rule read that “oral communications during the City Council meeting may not be used to lodge charges or complaints against any employee of the City or members of the body.”

Massie did not deny that she was violating that rule but insisted that the rule was unconstitutional. “That’s a violation of my First Amendment rights,” she said during the meeting, as Blaze News previously reported.

After Massie continued speaking in defiance of Hall, the mayor eventually ordered security to arrest her. She was then charged with trespassing, a class 3 misdemeanor, as well as resisting arrest and obstructing government operations, both class 1 misdemeanors. She also claimed the arresting officer threw her to the ground and against a wall during the incident.

At a hearing to formally dismiss the charges on Wednesday, Justice of the Peace Gerald Williams excoriated the city rule proscribing public criticism of officials.

“That policy regulated not just speech; but political speech,” Williams wrote, apparently aghast.

“No branch of any federal, state, or local government in this country should ever attempt to control the content of political speech. … In this case, the government did so in a manner that was objectively outrageous,” he continued.

“The Defendant should not have faced criminal prosecution once for expressing her political views.”

Williams ultimately decided to dismiss the case with prejudice so that no prosecutor could refile the charges, claiming “justice” demanded such a decision.

‘We want to make it crystal clear to governments across the United States that brazenly censoring people and betraying the First Amendment comes with a cost.’

In a statement to Blaze News, Massie expressed “relief” at the ruling and at all the support she has received from other freedom-loving people.

“For more than two months I’ve been living with the threat of punishment and jail time — being taken away from my kids, even — for doing nothing more than criticizing the government,” she said, adding, “Free speech still matters in America.”

Bret Royle of Feldman Royle, who represented Massie in the case, is also gratified by the court’s decision.

“Rebekah should never have been detained, let alone criminally charged, for speaking her mind,” Royle said in a statement to Blaze News. “That’s the kind of thing that happens in tyrannical countries but should never happen here. No American should face jail time for exercising their freedom of speech, and we’re relieved the court agreed.”

It seems the government recognized that Mayor Hall and others likely overstepped their bounds because both sides wanted the charges against Massie dropped, Williams noted in his decision. Surprise has likewise dropped the rule about publicly criticizing officials.

Massie has also joined forces with FIRE, a legal organization dedicated to protecting free speech, which has since filed a federal lawsuit against the city for the now-defunct rule.

“This is an incredible win for Rebekah and an important message to government bureaucrats around the country that the First Amendment bows to no one,” said FIRE attorney Conor Fitzpatrick in a statement in Blaze News. “The fight goes on in Rebekah’s lawsuit against the City of Surprise [and] Mayor Hall. … We want to make it crystal clear to governments across the United States that brazenly censoring people and betraying the First Amendment comes with a cost.”

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​Rebekah massie, Surprise, Skip hall, Free speech, First amendment, Political speech, Fire, Politics 

An audience member at a news conference asked UFC President Dana White for a fight contract in what may be one of the most bizarre moments of the year for the promoter.

During Thursday’s presser for UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, media members and fans were asked to line up behind microphones to ask fighters on the card — and White — some questions.

‘If he wins that night, I’ll sign him!’

About 30 minutes into the news conference, a man wearing a plain white T-shirt stepped up to the mic and grabbed it firmly.

“I am an undefeated elite athlete from Tajikistan. Nabotov Dorobshokh, nine wins, zero losses,” the man said.

The unknown fighter then begged the UFC president for a chance at fighting in the promotion: “Dana, I don’t have a question, I came here for a fight on short notice. I’ve never had a manager, I did it all by myself, please give me a chance. Dana, I want to fight in the UFC, please give me a chance, I’m ready, please give me, Dana.”

The crowd erupted in support for Dorobshokh as the UFC president smirked.

“Umm …” White paused, looking confused. “What’s your record?” he then asked.

“9-0,” Dorobshokh responded.

White then asked what weight he fights at — and with a translator’s assistance, White and the audience learned Dorobshokh is a “lightweight,” or 155 pounds.

In a video posted to X, White invited the fighter to the stage, shook his hand, and then directed him to some staff members off-screen before moving on to the next question.

It was later revealed that the UFC immediately went to work with the unknown fighter. White explained in a subsequent interview with TMZ that his team got him on a card in South Korea.

White told TMZ that the promotion ZFN, started by UFC legend Chan Sung Jung, is hosting the event in South Korea in December. White said he will the watch the new prospect’s bout while he’s in the country filming his own YouTube show, “Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight.”

“I’m going to have [Jung] put that kid on the card, and we’re going to find out what he’s got,” White declared. “If he wins that night, I’ll sign him!”

White may have been hesitant to put Dorobshokh in a UFC-related event after discovering the fighter’s record is actually 7-0, two fewer wins than he had originally claimed. Even when factoring in Dorobshokh’s amateur fights, it’s hard to see where the Tajik fighter got to nine wins.

It’s not usual for the occasional Russian MMA fighter to have a fight record discrepancy due to the validity of some regional fight promotions in the country.

UFC 308 airs Saturday, while ZFN’s Z-Fight Night 2 takes place Dec. 14.

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​Fearless, Dana white, Ufc, Mma, Sports 

Democrats are panicking over recent polling data indicating Kamala Harris is not only deeply unpopular with American men, broadly speaking, but increasingly with young male voters.

The Harris boosters at Planned Parenthood Action recently posted then quickly deleted a meme that unintentionally illustrated the alienating approach that might be causing Democrats’ retention problems with young men.

The PPA posted the “Girl Explaining” meme, which features a disheveled young woman with an exposed midriff yelling into the face of an exhausted and ostensibly apathetic young man at a concert.

The misleading caption for the post was:

PROJECT 2025 IS A COMPLETE POLITICAL TAKEOVER OF OUR RIGHTS. THEY WANT DONALD TRUMP AND JD VANCE TO WIN SO THEY CAN BAN ABORTION NATIONWIDE. THAT’S WHY WE NEED TO VOTE FOR KAMALA HARRIS AND TIM WALZ, TWO POLITICIANS WHO HAVE SPENT THEIR CAREERS FIGHTING FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.

Contrary to the suggestion of the pro-abortion outfit, Trump has disavowed Project 2025 and has repeatedly underscored that he would not support a nationwide abortion ban.

‘They accidentally depicted the real state of politics in 2024.’

The desperate regurgitation of these falsehoods was not, however, the most telling part of the now-deleted post. Instead, Planned Parenthood appears to have shared a meme hinting at the obliviousness of the left to the numbing affect of its hectoring of young men.

While numerous critics responded by noting the “left can’t meme,” a co-host from “The Right Thoughts” podcast, who goes by Enguerrand VII de Coucy on X, wrote, “It’s hilarious that Planned Parenthood misunderstood this meme format to such a catastrophic degree that they accidentally depicted the real state of politics in 2024, the poor unhappy boy being shrieked at by a woke girl.”

Democrats’ pro-abortion, anti-Western messaging and accompanying critiques of tradition, normalcy, and masculinity — both shrieked and calmly communicated — are clearly not resonating with a great many young men.

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, recently indicated that there has been a profound shift on campuses, reported Vanity Fair.

‘If Donald Trump wins, this is how he wins.’

“I’ve been doing this for 12 years. This is not normal. The energy is off the charts. You have a younger generation, Gen Z, who experienced a lot of — they would say — lies and deceit during COVID, and a lot of their life being altered,” said Kirk. “There is this pent up ‘rebellion energy’ that has never come out.”

Kirk noted further that young men

are profoundly more conservative than people would have expected and, in fact, are the most conservative generation of young men in 50 years. They want to be part of a political movement that doesn’t hate them. Those are their words, not mine. The cultural blob of all left-wing influence has definitely had an undertone that if you’re a straight, white, Christian male, that there’s something wrong with you. Or you must apologize. Or you’re a colonizer.

The Guardian reported that in 2016, 51% of young men identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party. That plummeted to 39% in 2023, and now the majority of young men want to see Republicans elected.

The leftist think tank Data for Progress noted in a report Tuesday “a significant gender divide exists among young voters, with young men showing more conservative tendencies than young women.” According to Data for Progress, young men are evenly split between Harris and Trump.

Citing the apparent expertise of John Della Volpe, Vanity Fair indicated that Democrats win when they secure 60% of the youth vote — but this is far from guaranteed. While Harris has reportedly won over young women like that represented in the meme by 67% to 28%, Trump is winning Gen Z men by 58% to 37%.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the growing gender gap extends to various issues, including two issues Democrats discuss ad nauseam on the campaign trail: abortion and student debt. Neither of these issues animate or mobilize male voters anywhere as much as their female counterparts and for good reason.

Young men have increasingly been steered out of colleges — adding to their disenchantment with leftist diversity initiatives — such that women now account for 60% of all college students and carry the super-majority of student-loan debt.

Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, told the Guardian that in 2022, 49% of Gen Z men said that the U.S. had become “too soft and feminine.” Last year, she said that 60% of the cohort said the same.

Blaze News previously highlighted Democratic strategist James Carville’s thoughts on what might be driving this trend.

“If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election,” Carville told the New York Times earlier this year. “I’m like: ‘Well, 48 percent of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?'”

As if anticipating Planned Parenthood’s meme, Carville added, “A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females.”

“‘Don’t drink beer. Don’t watch football. Don’t eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'” continued Carville. “The message is too feminine: ‘Everything you’re doing is destroying the planet. You’ve got to eat your peas.'”

Democrats’ alienation of young men could preclude them from keeping the White House.

“It’s extremely serious,” Mike Madrid, a nominally Republican strategist who co-founded the pro-Harris Lincoln Project, told The Hill. “If Donald Trump wins, this is how he wins.”

“This is part of a broader dynamic, a bigger trend that we’ve noticed and we’ve been watching for a longer time than both candidates have been on the national scene,” added Madrid.

Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist involved with “White Dudes for Harris,” told The Hill, “There is an ongoing fight about masculinity in America today and the future of masculinity and I think Democrats as a whole have not done a great job of engaging in that fight and I think we need to do a better job of elevating voices that can go have those tough conversations in spaces where those people are.”

In the final stretch before Election Day, the Harris campaign is reportedly making one final appeal to young men with ads on Yahoo Sports, sport betting platforms, and on gaming sites. Time will tell whether this was a more effective strategy than spending weeks accusing young men who don’t like Harris of misogyny.

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​Men, Kamala harris, Election, Young men, Male, Misogyny, Misandry, Leftism, Democrats, Planned parenthood, Abortion, Student loans, Politics 

Police in Colorado said an 8-year-old girl fought a would-be kidnapper who entered her bedroom wearing a clown mask in the middle of the night last week.

Sterling Police were called around 2:30 a.m. Oct. 15 to a home on Walnut Street for a reported home invasion and kidnapping attempt, KUSA-TV reported, citing an arrest affidavit.

The victim’s mother told police the suspect was in her home the previous weekend to help install a washer and dryer.

The suspect entered the home sometime between 1 and 2 a.m., the station said, adding that police said the suspect likely entered and exited through the back door, which may have been unlocked.

The victim told police the suspect came into her room, put a blindfold over her face, and grabbed her out of bed, KUSA reported. The affidavit says she started fighting back, after which the suspect hit her on the head, leaving her unconscious, the station said.

When the victim woke up, she ran into her mother’s room to tell her what happened, KUSA said.

The suspect was wearing a cloth clown mask during the assault, the station said, citing the affidavit. The mask, along with a pair of gloves, were left in the child’s room, KUSA noted.

Police said the suspect also took the victim’s phone, the station reported. The affidavit says location data from the phone was used to help identify the suspect, according to KUSA.

The suspect — 56-year-old Thomas Gallegos — lives in the neighborhood, the station said, citing the affidavit. The victim’s mother told police the suspect was in her home the previous weekend to help install a washer and dryer, KUSA reported.

Gallegos was taken into custody Saturday on suspicion of the following charges, police told the station: first-degree burglary, second-degree attempted kidnapping, second-degree assault, third-degree assault, and child abuse.

The next court appearance for Gallegos is set for Nov. 4, KUSA said.

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​Crime thwarted, Colorado, Child, Home invasion, Fighting back, Arrest, Clown mask, Cellphone, Attempted kidnapping charge, Assault charge, Burglary charge, Crime 

The election is getting closer, and Kamala Harris’ campaign may be falling apart.

Not only did Donald Trump expertly troll the Vice President by spending a day as a fry cook at McDonald’s, but Harris, who claimed to have worked there in the past, appears never to have worked there at all: McDonalds can’t find any record of her as an employee.

“It’s weird, they can’t find the employment records for Kamala Harris from the 1980s,” Pat Gray of “Pat Gray Unleashed” comments. “McDonald’s is trying to play it cool by saying ‘Yeah, we can’t find her employment.’ They’re trying not to take sides, I guess.”

But it gets worse.

Keith Malinak claims that he has a source from inside the campaign who has told him that Kamala is in full-on breakdown mode.

“I got a good source, they’re very close to the Walz campaign, and this individual has been spot-on with a lot of stuff that has been sent my way,” Malinak explains.

“I got this last night: ‘Kamala has completely lost it mentally. She breaks down in tears in private, and she has gone after Doug, accusing him of tanking the campaign with his scandals,’” he continues. “She repeatedly cusses out Joe Biden in staff meetings for taking airtime away from her, and she’s livid over the hurricane stuff.”

Malinak also was told that Kamala has “had to double her anxiety medication” and that “a few campaign staffers have quit.”

“They quit because they want to try to focus on explaining her policies instead of attacking Trump, which is all she has been doing, and it isn’t working. She feels she made the wrong VP pick as well, because he has many scandals and she feels like the Democrat machine wants her to lose,” he adds.

Kamala and her campaign management are also reportedly arguing about her appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Apparently, she wants to do it, while her campaign management believes “an hour of her in a room with somebody that is going to ask her tough questions would give Trump a 48-state win.”

“They don’t trust her, and it’s an endless circle of arguments,” he adds.

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​Camera phone, Video phone, Video, Sharing, Upload, Free, Youtube.com, Pat gray unleashed, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze media, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Kamala harris, Harris campaign, Mcdonalds, Trump mcdonalds, Kamala mcdonalds, Mcgate, Election 2024 

It’s 11 days until the election, and the Democrats have tried it all. You can’t mark them down for effort, but you can certainly deduct for originality. As from the Hollywood liberals now running the party, all we’re getting are sequels and reboots.

I suppose they didn’t have many options. Democrats from top to bottom already tried to put former President Donald Trump in prison and settled for two of his deputies. They’ve worked to destroy his businesses and bankrupt him. They’ve accused him of ridiculous crimes and used those as a pretense to comb through the Grand Old Party’s comms and secret files like the Watergate investigation on steroids. They denied his requests for more security and watched as he came within millimeters of losing his life to an assassin’s bullet. They said he worked for Vladimir Putin. They impeached him twice and accused him of treason. They called him a Nazi and a Klansman and an insurrectionist and accused him of killing thousands with COVID.

There’s a little secret about the final two weeks of any national race: While news events can happen and help shape and form narratives, no new secrets about the candidates emerge.

So … what did that leave them?

As it turns out, nothing but wasted effort. First, Jeffrey Goldberg delivered his latest piece on Donald Trump, claiming Trump secretly despised the troops and envied Adolf Hitler, wishing he had generals like his. Then, the left-wing British Guardian reported that Trump was secretly tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse.

Everything reported across both pieces was single-sourced. Goldberg’s take on Trump’s disrespect for the troops was quickly debunked by the family of the murdered soldier (over Goldberg’s limp-wristed protestation). Then the way he portrayed heated denials was exposed as inaccurate and misleading. Finally, multiple on-the-record sources in the know slammed the Hitler bit as preposterous.

The Epstein story had reportedly been shopped around for weeks or even months, but no one bit because it seemed far-fetched even in an age of pee tapes and Russian collusion. When they finally landed it — eight years after Donald Trump first rose to power and in the final weeks of his third run as the Republican nominee — it was in a foreign paper with an ideological mission. Not exactly a grand slam.

Here’s a little secret about the final two weeks of any national race: While news events can happen and help shape and form narratives, no new secrets about the candidates emerge. At least none that are true. Staffers and consultants and opposition researchers know people are unlikely to take their claims so seriously in the final weeks. They want reporters, pundits, and voters to work over their claims and litigate them in public, not dismiss them as the latest from Tricky Dick or Slick Willie.

Moreover, those stories that do come out have been shopped around to reporters for weeks and sometimes months. They’ve been taken on a test run and returned defective. The packaging is disheveled, and the instructions are missing. More consequential reporters than the one who eventually takes the story have already decided they were unverifiable, inconsequential, or deceptive; sometimes all three.

This time: all three.

No matter. The Democrats are running with it. Vice President Kamala Harris called Trump “Hitler” five times during Wednesday’s CNN interview. And maybe that’s the play. Get those Democratic voters who helped carry 2020 and held the line in ’22 to remember that Donald Trump is
literally Adolf Hitler and convince them all they need to do to stop it is vote for Kamala.

“Surprise.”

Blaze News: Dems panic as Republicans bank record-breaking early votes in key states

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IN OTHER NEWS

Harris’ support among Latino voters is hitting new lows, and it may cost her the election

By Rebeka Zeljko

Less than two weeks from the presidential election, Republicans are breaking turnout records for early voting and mail-in ballots across several key states.

In previous election cycles, Democrats have overwhelmingly outperformed Republicans when it comes to voting early. In 2020, over 22 million Democrats
voted early, while just 15 million Republicans and nearly 12 million independents did the same.

Early voting was notably higher in 2020 due to the pandemic, but the trend remains true for previous election cycles. In 2016, just 8 million Republicans
voted in advance, as well as nearly 10 million Democrats and 5 million independents.

This time around, Republicans are
narrowing the gap. With over 26 million early votes counted, 11 million have been from Democrats, over 10 million have been from Republicans, and nearly 5 million have been from independents.

Historically, the Republican Party has been averse to the idea of early voting. This time around, Trump has made the change to embrace it, and Democrats are beginning to
panic.

“A few more days like this, though, and the Democratic bedwetting will reach epic proportions,” Jon Ralston, CEO of the Nevada Independent, told The Hill about early voting in Clark County, home of Las Vegas.

“I think it comes solely down to the fact that last cycle, Donald Trump told Republicans not to vote early, and this time, the party is telling them to vote early,” Jon McHenry, a GOP polling analyst and vice president at North Star Opinion Research, told Blaze News. “Pretty simple.”

Although more Democrats have voted early, Republicans are actually outperforming them in some crucial swing states.

In Georgia, 48% of the early votes have been cast by Republicans, while 46% have been from Democrats. Similarly, in Arizona, Republicans are outperforming Democrats 42% to 36%, as well as 40% to 36% in Nevada.

The two parties are nearly tied in North Carolina, with 35% of early votes coming from Democrats and 34% from Republicans.

“The large mail ballot lead enjoyed by Dems has been erased and more by the GOP lead in in-person early voting,” Ralston told The Hill.

While Republicans are making strides in the Sun Belt, Democrats have held onto their lead in the Rust Belt states.

In Michigan, 52% of early votes were cast by Democrats, while just 38% came from Republicans. In Pennsylvania, the swing state with the highest electoral vote count, 62% of early votes came from Democrats and 29% came from Republicans. In Wisconsin, 37% of early votes were cast by Democrats and 21% of Republicans did the same.

“It doesn’t matter a whole lot whether you get them early or you get them late, as long as they get there,” McHenry said. “The advantage of getting them early is that you know that they’re already banked. You won’t have to sweat Election Day quite as much.”

Notably, nearly half of early votes in Wisconsin and a third of votes in North Carolina came from independents. Roughly a quarter of early votes in Nevada and Arizona also came from independents. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia have had the lowest independent turnout, bringing in 10%, 9%, and 6%, respectively.

“Just because you’re registered as a Democrat doesn’t mean you voted for Kamala Harris,” McHenry told Blaze News. “You might be registered as a Democrat, but you’ve gotten sick to death of the Democrats over the last four years and just didn’t bother to change your registration. You might just vote for Trump.”

​Opinion & analysis, Politics 

Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida called out Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for criticizing former President Donald Trump less than two weeks from the election.

“While Leader McConnell and I have fundamental disagreements, I am shocked that he would attack a fellow Republican senator and the Republican nominee for president just two weeks out from an election,” Scott said in a statement obtained by Blaze News.

McConnell criticized the Republican nominee, saying the “MAGA movement is completely wrong” and claiming that former President Ronald Reagan “wouldn’t recognize” the GOP under Trump’s leadership, according to excerpts of McConnell’s upcoming biography, “The Price of Power” by Michael Tackett.

‘With almost $36 trillion in debt, an open border, historic inflation, and a world on fire, I know we need dramatic change and he doesn’t.’

McConnell further said that Trump has “done a lot of damage to our party’s image and our ability to compete,” according to the biography.

McConnell also criticized Scott, saying he doesn’t think “Rick makes a very good victim” and that he “did a poor job of running the (Senate campaign) committee.”

“His plan was used by the Democrats against our candidates as late as the last weekend [before the election],” McConnell said in the biography. “He promoted the fiction that we were in the middle of a big sweep when there was no tangible evidence of it. And I think his campaign against me was some kind of ill-fated effort to turn the attention away from him and on to somebody else.”

Scott, who is competing against Republican Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas to succeed McConnell, pushed back on the minority leader’s remarks.

“I believe we should be talking about solutions, he doesn’t,” Scott said. “I support Donald Trump and his work to fundamentally change the way Washington operates, he doesn’t. I believe we could support the candidates Republican voters choose, he doesn’t. With almost $36 trillion in debt, an open border, historic inflation, and a world on fire, I know we need dramatic change and he doesn’t.”

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No one knows former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly better than I do. This bitter, bullying coward should be cast into the dustbin of history for once again smearing Donald Trump, just days before the most important election in modern American history.

It may seem reasonable to assume a four-star general would make a good chief of staff, but that assumption is deeply flawed.

Kelly invariably hated those closest to Trump. As chief of staff, he single-handedly turned Trump allies into bitter and viperous enemies.

Four-star generals like Kelly typically reach the top of their profession because they are seen as the sharpest tools in the military shed. Yet in the West Wing, among uber-elite civilians from academia, the corporate world, and Wall Street, Kelly was consistently the dumbest guy in the room.

Regarding Kelly’s leadership, I had to brace myself physically every time his office called, as it inevitably involved some form of threat or abuse. Some leaders inspire, while others attempt to “lead” through intimidation. Kelly was clearly the latter, and I can’t imagine serving under his command in combat.

But Kelly’s flawed leadership wasn’t the most concerning issue. His real failure was his refusal to obey the president, breaking the chain of command.

Kelly, along with Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis, knew better than anyone that the military’s survival depends on strict respect for the chain of command. Yet once Kelly and Mattis reached the pinnacle of civilian power, they acted as if no one, not even the president, was above them.

Kelly routinely subverted the president’s trade agenda. When my former boss instructed Kelly to prepare an executive order to impose steel and aluminum tariffs or tariffs on China, Kelly would consistently delay the process by subjecting it to an extended review.

Kelly employed the same tactic whenever the president attempted to push trading partners like South Korea and Japan to stop screwing us in trade. Both Kelly and Mattis resisted actions that could threaten military alliances with these countries, ignoring the fact that gutting our economy and manufacturing base would ultimately weaken our ability to defend ourselves, let alone any other nation.

Why was Kelly so opposed to Trump’s trade policies? Lacking any economic training, Kelly fell easily into the globalist mindset of West Wing figures like National Economic Council Directors Gary Cohn and Larry Kudlow and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin — all of whom worked to block the president’s trade policies.

Because Kelly had no training in politics, he failed to understand the importance of trade policy in holding the high political ground of blue wall manufacturing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan that Trump had won in 2016.

Because Kelly didn’t know how to “let Trump be Trump,” as Corey Lewandowski famously advised, there was no way “Captain Queeg” Kelly would allow anyone with differing trade policy ideas near the Oval Office.

Kelly regularly eavesdropped on press phone calls and scrutinized overnight phone logs. If someone like me called the president, we were threatened with firing.

Kelly was also incompetent when handling the media. Hiring him was like putting a trucker behind the wheel of a Formula One car. With his thick Boston accent, perpetual lack of a smile, and clear disdain for the media, Kelly was incapable of delivering any effective messaging.

One of Kelly’s most negligent actions was hiding the truth about staff secretary Rob Porter. Porter had two charges of spousal abuse against him and couldn’t get a security clearance, yet he handled highly sensitive national security documents and interacted with the president daily. Kelly’s decision to hide this information should have been grounds for dismissal.

Kelly invariably hated those closest to Trump. As chief of staff, he single-handedly turned Trump allies Omarosa Manigault and Anthony Scaramucci into bitter and viperous enemies thanks to his mistreatment.

My lasting memory of Kelly was him sitting at my right shoulder on December 2, 2018, at the end of a long table in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with President Trump at the center. Across from us sat our counterparts from the Chinese communist trade delegation.

Before the meeting began, a by-then broken Kelly, likely aware of his imminent exit, apologized for treating me poorly. He also admitted he had failed to recognize what George W. Bush might have called the “real evildoers” in the West Wing.

Now, it saddens and infuriates me to see Kelly play the court jester to the Atlantic, of all places. I had hoped that the Biden-Harris administration’s tragic mishandling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, where Kelly’s own son died in combat, might have brought him out of his hate-filled and vengeful derangement. I was wrong. And the cowardly bully Kelly is wrong about Donald John Trump.

Editor’s note: This article is based on Peter Navarro’s memoir, “Taking Back Trump’s America.”

​John kelly trump fascist, Donald trump, John kelly, John kelly vs donald trump, 2024 presidential election, Hitler, The atlantic, Opinion & analysis 

An alarming situation is unfolding within the Biden-Harris administration’s national security apparatus, with implications for the presidential election and a potential Harris-Walz administration. Over the weekend, someone within the U.S. government allegedly leaked sensitive intelligence about a potential Israeli military response against Iran.

Though officials have not yet announced the source of the leak, authorities have accused a woman at the Pentagon of being linked to it. She is reportedly involved with Iran’s “Experts Initiative,” a program designed to influence Western policy. Despite this, she remains employed at the Pentagon and retains access to sensitive information.

This trend of appointing ideologues to critical roles raises a larger concern: How many more are operating under the radar?

While it’s unclear whether she is responsible for the latest leak, the fact that someone under investigation for ties to Iran continues to hold such a critical position raises serious concerns. It highlights the troubling reality that radical political ideologues may have infiltrated the agencies responsible for protecting the U.S. from foreign threats.

This isn’t a case of routine negligence that could have endangered lives or ignited tensions in an already volatile region. It reflects the rampant politicization of the security apparatus within the Biden-Harris administration, mirroring past failures under the Obama administration. Obama’s coziness with groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and now the Democrats’ questionable approach to Iran, reveals a troubling pattern of empowering radical ideologues in key positions.

Consider Robert Malley, Biden’s special envoy to Iran, who is under FBI investigation for mishandling classified information. Why does Malley still have a job at the State Department?

This trend of appointing ideologues to critical roles raises a larger concern: How many more are operating under the radar? And how much damage could they cause before being discovered? These are not isolated incidents; they are part of a systemic problem. The full extent of these failures will likely emerge when a new administration, such as a future Trump administration, takes office and starts cleaning house.

National security isn’t the only area where the Biden-Harris administration is struggling. The recent circulation of a deepfake video targeting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, reportedly orchestrated by Russian agents, illustrates how disinformation is being weaponized to influence elections. The video falsely accused Walz of sexual misconduct during his time as a teacher. Although it was quickly debunked, the video had already circulated on social media, sparking outrage and confusion.

What’s baffling is how quickly the director of national intelligence denounced the video as Russian disinformation. This response stands in stark contrast to the 2016 election, when allegations of Trump’s ties to Russia dragged on for months, despite the FBI knowing early on that the Steele dossier was filled with falsehoods. Similarly, during the 2020 election, the intelligence community swiftly labeled the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as Russian propaganda, making little effort to verify the contents.

The DNI’s swift response to shut down the Walz story feels more like political damage control than a sincere effort to protect the truth.

Given these inconsistencies, how can Americans trust the intelligence community when it rushes to label something “Russian disinformation” now? The speed with which it acted in the Walz case contrasts sharply with the slow response — or lack of one — in previous instances involving Trump. It’s hard not to question whether the intelligence community is picking sides, especially when the narrative aligns with a political agenda. The intelligence community has become a partisan political weapon.

Americans need to wake up and recognize the real threat. The Biden-Harris administration isn’t just asleep at the wheel — it’s actively enabling the very forces that jeopardize our national security. This threat will only intensify under a Harris-Walz administration. We need leaders like Trump who will prioritize the American people, clean house, and refuse to cater to ideologues sympathetic to our enemies. Our national security is on the ballot.

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Trust in the mass media has bottomed out.

Gallup, which has been tracking public trust in newspapers, TV, and radio for over 50 years, revealed Oct. 14 that a plurality (36%) of Americans have no trust at all in the mass media. 33% of respondents said they don’t trust the mass media “very much.” Only 31% of Americans indicated they trust the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

Some academics and media outfits have in recent years tried to pin this breakdown of trust on President Donald Trump and on other individuals who have expressed contempt for the mainstream press, such as the late Rush Limbaugh. Although simple and politically expedient, such explanations fail to account for why this decline was under way long before Trump’s descent down the golden escalator on June 16, 2015, and the debut of Limbaugh’s self-titled show in October 1984.

Extra to considering several proposed drivers of the broader trend, Blaze News spoke to Jacob L. Nelson, associate professor in the University of Utah’s Department of Communication and author of “Imagined Audiences: How Journalists Perceive and Pursue the Public,” about both Gallup’s findings and what his own research has revealed about Americans’ degrading trust.

While there are multiple and in some cases competing explanations for why Americans don’t trust the media, one thing is clear: The continuous advancement of brazen falsehoods and deceptive narratives is not helping.

Blaze News has highlighted seven egregious examples of false or misleading reports that have served both to justify Americans’ distrust and to illustrate what a trustworthy media might seek to avoid.

Bad diagnosis

Gallup data indicates that the decline in Americans’ trust in the mass media has been under way since 1976. Among those signaling a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media, there appears to have been a brief rebound from 2000 to 2003, but the downward trend resumed in 2004 — around the time weapons of mass destruction were not discovered in Iraq.

This year, a record-low number of respondents (31%) expressed a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media — down one point from last year’s similarly abysmal figure.

Meanwhile, outright distrust rose from 4% in 1976 to 36% in 2024, briefly cresting at 39% last year.

Slight distrust rose from 22% in 1976 to a high of 41% in 2016. It now sits at 33%.

In the Trump years, trust in the media skyrocketed among Democrats.

Broken down by party affiliation, Gallup indicated that 54% of Democrats, 27% of independents, and 12% of Republican respondents signaled a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the media.

Republican trust in the media dropped off around the time of the Watergate scandal and in the lead-up to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. After a brief increase, trust began steadily declining from 1976 onward, enjoying partial though fleeting recoveries at points in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The biggest one-year drop appears to have taken place between 2015 and 2016.

Independents’ trust, though historically stronger than that of their Republican counterparts, has — with only a few exceptions — largely degraded in parallel.

Democrats’ trust (i.e. “great deal” / “fair amount”) tells a different story.

Starting six points higher at first measure in 1972, Democratic trust declined parallel to Republicans’ trust from the end of the Vietnam War until 1997 but then began zigzagging erratically during George W. Bush’s first term. During the Obama years, trust dropped, reaching an all-time low of 51% in 2016. However, in the Trump years, trust in the media skyrocketed among Democrats, reaching an all-time high of 76% in 2018 — amid the lead-up to the first impeachment of the Republican president.

According to Gallup, Democrats’ trust in the media tanked 16 points between 2022 and 2024 to 54%.

Another telling insight from the survey is the generational divide.

Geriatrics’ trust in the media currently sits at 43%, having bounced around the high 40s for the past 14 years. Respondents ages 50-64, meanwhile, are less trusting, with only 33% expressing confidence in the media. Only 26% of Americans ages 18-49 expressed a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the media.

Possible drivers

This decline has prompted a great deal of speculation in recent years about potential causes.

Some analysts have suggested that the growing distrust in the media is the result of a far greater social crisis. While less an answer and more a prompt for additional question, this is nevertheless borne out by polling data.

Gallup indicated earlier this year that the public’s average confidence in 17 institutions, including the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress, organized religion, higher education, and banks, has been lower than 30% for the past three years.

As television news and newspapers are among the institutions least trusted, it’s clear they are still excelling at shedding public confidence.

Journalist and author Matt Taibbi noted in a recent Canadian state media documentary that trust may have been degraded in part by a change in the media’s business model. Taibbi noted that prior to the 1990s, American broadcast news sought to secure the largest possible audience with minimal objectionable content. But facing increased competition, these outlets began targeting specific demographics in the early 2000s.

This, coupled with technological disruptions — AI is now threatening a new shake-up — has allegedly helped to polarize the media landscape.

Owing to the rise of social media and supposed democratization of information, the mainstream media also has faced increasing competition for the public’s trust and attention from new sources and platforms.

The Pew Research Center revealed Oct. 16 that young American adults and Republicans are now almost as likely to trust information from social media sources as from national news organizations.

The survey found that among all U.S. adults, 74% of respondents said they had a lot or some trust in local news organizations. 59% said the same of national news organizations. 37% said social media sites had secured their confidence. Whereas the supermajority of Democrats trusted both local and national news organizations, 66% of Republicans supported local outlets and only 40% supported national news organizations — narrowly beating social media sites by three points.

Among adults 18-29, 52% expressed confidence in social media sites, 56% in local news, and 71% in national news organizations.

Blaze News senior editor Cortney Weil noted that extra to providing Americans with alternative information sources, social media platforms such as X have been helpful in illuminating deceptive media practices.

Between Trump and Elon Musk’s purchase of perhaps the most powerful social media platform in the world, everyday Americans can see that members of the media all too often launder their preferred narrative through their reporting under the guise of journalism.

Some Americans may have begun nurturing distrust not only after achieving a better understanding of how the proverbial sausage is made but upon discovering who is operating the grinder and where.

There appears to be incredible ideological conformity in the press, where liberals are grossly overrepresented. A 2020 study published in the journal Science Advances indicated that a survey of U.S. political journalists found that among the 78% of respondents who identified with or leaned toward a particular party, eight in 10 said they were liberal/Democrats.

‘I have to present myself as someone who is deeply skeptical.’

The problem of real or perceived viewpoint bias is compounded by the de-localization of newsrooms over time to coastal hives amid sweeping consolidation.

“Unless and until media outlets step away from the NYC/D.C./L.A. bubbles and venture out into real America, I don’t harbor much hope for them,” said Weil.

While these factors might account for Republicans’ disproportionate distrust, the lack of intellectual diversity in the press has turned off liberals as well, such as Peabody Award-winning editor Uri Berliner, who complained — just prior to his conveniently timed ouster — that NPR, where he worked for 25 years, had become an “openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience.”

Money-poisoned wells and oversaturation

Professor Jacob Nelson at the University of Utah has spent years analyzing trust, objectivity, and bias in reporting. Nelson told Blaze News that in his research, interviewees suggested when asked about their confidence in the media that “the news as a whole is inherently untrustworthy.”

“My sense is that that’s in large part due to the fact that the media environment has grown so saturated and now comprises so many different providers of news, many of which are antagonistic toward one another and sort of presenting themselves as, ‘We are the ones who have the truth, and if you go elsewhere, that is not where you find the truth,'” said Nelson.

“And rather than make people feel as though, ‘Okay, I can trust this outlet,’ I think that oftentimes people feel, ‘Okay, well, if everyone is telling me that everyone is untrustworthy, then I feel like I can’t trust anyone, or at the very least, I have to present myself as someone who is deeply skeptical,'” continued Nelson. “‘Otherwise, I might be construed as being, you know, like a sucker or someone who is not savvy enough to make sense of what’s true or what’s false in the world.'”

While reluctant to opine on a possible correlation between the rise of populism and the decline in public trust, Nelson speculated that an anti-elitist verve and sensitivity to patronization might prompt some Americans to discount the supposed expertise of media professionals and harbor distrust.

Nelson suggested that a significant factor affecting trust is the perception that journalism is compromised by commercial interests.

“We did these interviews with people where we asked them, ‘Do you trust journalism? Why or why not?'” Nelson told Blaze News. “The question that we kept asking people was, ‘Why is it that you think that news organizations are attempting to deceive you? What is their motivation for not giving you the truth, for putting you in a position where you feel like you have to go out of your way to do your own research?'”

“What people often said was that news organizations were doing it for profit-oriented reasons more so than they were doing it for ideological reasons,” said Nelson.

Nelson noted that in the case of CNN, which is “perceived as having a left bent,” interviewees suggested that the purpose of the anti-Trump coverage was not to “brainwash the public into voting for Democrats” but rather to cater to their liberal audience — possibly as something of a profit-motivated retention and growth strategy.

Nelson ultimately suggested that greater transparency among news outlets about their funding sources as well as a strengthening of local journalism might help arrest and possibly even reverse the downward trend.

While these strategies might alleviate news consumers’ concerns about commercial interests, there remains the problem of honesty and accuracy in reporting.

Fake news

The news has virtually always been partisan.

Political parties frequently funded newspapers, particularly in the so-called “party press era,” when editors from the 1780s until the mid-19th century would propagandize in favor of their partisan benefactors. Various papers across the country still have their originator’s political affiliation in their names.

‘He is simply repeating what he has been told.’

And there’s always been fake news, although Trump certainly helped make the branding stick.

In “Homage to Catalonia” — a memoir about the Spanish Civil War that Victor Gollancz in the U.K. and prominent elements of the American left ultimately tried to torpedo — George Orwell documented the discrepancy between pro-red Western news accounts of the war and what was actually taking place on the ground.

Orwell, who fought on the side of the republicans and other leftists, highlighted, for instance, that British war correspondent John Langdon-Davies was advancing bogus claims likely fed to him — as had been the case with other foreign journalists — by the minister of propaganda.

“He is simply repeating what he has been told and, as it fits in with the official version, is not questioning it,” wrote Orwell.

Orwell was especially sensitive to the Stalinist press’ intentional mischaracterization of his allies in the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification, who were defamed, then effectively liquidated.

“What was noticeable from the start was that no evidence was produced in support of this accusation [i.e., that they were fascist saboteurs],” wrote Orwell. “The thing was simply asserted with an air of authority. And the attack was made with the maximum of personal libel and with complete irresponsibility as to any effects it might have upon the war.”

To the extent that such news was informative, it served primarily to inform Orwell about the competing power narratives of his day.

Many decades later — after the public learned of the CIA’s global propaganda network and infiltration of news organizations stateside — the American media dutifully repeated what they were told by the George W. Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as it fit in with the official version.

Susan Moeller, professor of media and international affairs at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, noted that while there were a handful of skeptical journalists,

it was rare for even these reporters to critically probe the political choices that underlay the link between September 11, weapons of mass destruction and Iraq in the “War on Terror.” The stultifying patriotic climate not only prompted sympathetic coverage of White House policy, it silenced much of the political opposition that the media could have utilized in order to provide alternative voices and policy options. As a result, most American media did not act to check and balance the exercise of executive power, essential to the functioning of a civil democracy.

Although there have always been fake news and partisan activism in the media, Andie Tucher, a historian and journalist who teaches at Columbia Journalism School, suggested in “Not Exactly Lying” that something changed early in the 20th century when journalists aspired to report the news objectively.

The promise of unadulterated fact and the survival of old reflexes apparently set the stage for new forms of falsehood, including of the Stalinist and WMD varieties — as well as the potential for greater disenchantment among news consumers.

If the American media today were not working under the pretense of sharing the objective truth, then perhaps it wouldn’t be as jarring to learn of CBS News’ apparent deceptive edit of Kamala Harris’ recent interview; to read Jeffrey Goldberg’s election-time agitprop in the Atlantic; to learn from Chris Cuomo that it is supposedly illegal to possess copies of WikiLeaks documents; or to watch a CNN reporter standing in front of burning buildings in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the BLM riots while the chyron read, “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.”

The collapse of the narratives around the Russian collusion hoax, electoral interference by Russian trolls, ivermectin, the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, masks, and vaccine efficacy similarly might not be as harmful to the public’s confidence in the media were news outlets not masquerading as truth-tellers — as hunters and gatherers of the “facts” dedicated to “bring[ing] you the story” in order to edify and protect democracy from dying in darkness.

Here are seven particularly egregious cases of fake or misleading news illustrating what the media might seek to avoid when trying to win back the trust of the American public.

1-3. Armenta, Rittenhouse, and Sandmann

Last year, Carron Phillips penned an article for the sports news website Deadspin accusing a young Kansas City Chiefs fan, Holden Armenta, of wearing “blackface.”

“It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once. But on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, a Kansas City Chiefs fan found a way to hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time,” he wrote.

The vicious textual attack, which allegedly resulted in death threats against the Armenta family, evidenced Phillips’ willingness to prioritize narrative over facts. After all, a reporter deserving of the public’s trust might have acknowledged, for starters, that the boy’s face was actually painted red and black — the colors of his favorite team.

With some additional digging, the writer may have also learned that the boy’s grandfather was actually on the board of the Chumash Tribe in Santa Ynez, California — a hint that the cultural appropriation angle might not have wings.

The family was cleared by a Delaware judge earlier this month to pursue its defamation lawsuit against Deadspin.

Kyle Rittenhouse is another young man traduced by elements of the increasingly distrusted press.

At the age of 17, Rittenhouse shot three radicals who mobbed him during the Aug. 25, 2020, leftist riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He killed two of his attackers — a domestic abuser with multiple convictions and a convicted violent child molester — and disarmed the third, who had advanced on him with a loaded gun.

Rittenhouse was initially charged with homicide, attempted homicide, and reckless endangering but was ultimately acquitted on all counts in November 2021.

Elements of the media, including Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks, repeatedly characterized Rittenhouse as a murderer, while others, including Harper’s Bazaar, insinuated that he was somehow a racist, even though all three of his attackers were white. The Nation managed to do both, claiming Rittenhouse got away with murder because of racism.

Former Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann was also unfairly maligned by the press, which appeared keen to ignore visual evidence that would have upset their preferred narrative.

The media painted Sandmann, then 16, as a racist and a bully for allegedly “smirking” while an Indian elder, Nathan Phillips, banged a drum in his face during the 2019 March for Life in Washington, D.C., and while Black Hebrew Israelites hurled insults at him and his classmates.

The New York Times, for instance, falsely reported that Sandmann “prevented Phillips’ retreat while Nicholas and a mass of other young white boys surrounded, taunted, jeered and physically intimidated Phillips.”

The Washington Post and CNN were among the media outfits that ultimately settled defamation lawsuits with Sandmann.

4. ‘This is MAGA country’

Unlike the three young men just mentioned, the media took an entirely different approach when covering former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett’s hate hoax.

In early 2019, Smollett hired two Nigerian-born brothers to place a noose around his neck, rough him up, and shout anti-gay slurs in view of a street camera in Chicago. Smollett said that his attackers yelled, “This is MAGA country!” and later told the press he was targeted because of his criticism of Trump.

Like Kamala Harris, who rushed to label the incident a “modern-day lynching,” the media largely accepted the story uncritically, despite the implausibility of key aspects of the actor’s story.

Vanity Fair, for instance, suggested in an article titled “Empire’s Jussie Smollett Hospitalized After Racist, Homophobic Attack” that the perpetrators were white. The Advocate published a piece titled, “The Attack on Jussie Smollett Is an Attack on All Black Queers.”

As Smollett’s yarn began to unravel, journalist Sam Sanders admitted to NPR’s “Morning Edition” that “in the coverage of this story, some of the basic tenets of journalism, David, were just abandoned. A lot of newsrooms failed to use words like ‘alleged’ when talking about this story.”

Smollett was convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct for making a false report to the police.

5. Hunter Biden laptop as Russian ‘disinformation’

Ahead of the 2020 election, the New York Post reported on the damning contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and raised various questions about then-candidate Joe Biden, especially about his questionable ties to Ukraine and ties to his son’s business dealings.

Elements of the intelligence community antipathetic to President Donald Trump rushed to protect Biden, releasing a public letter on Oct. 19, 2020, asserting that the Hunter Biden laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” intended to hurt the Democrat’s candidacy.

Among the cabal of former intelligence officials were reportedly active CIA contractors. One of those contractors, former CIA acting director Michael Morell, later testified to Congress that he organized the letter to “help Vice President Biden” but more specifically, to help “him to win the election.”

Politico hurriedly published the letter along with an article titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” While acknowledging that the signatories presented no new evidence, Politico attempted to reinforce the strategic narrative with the suggestion by then-National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director Bill Evanina “that Russia has been trying to denigrate Biden’s campaign.”

Politico also recycled what turned out to be false claims from “top Biden advisers” casting doubt on some of the allegations in the Post’s report, namely Biden’s ties to his son’s business dealings and Burisma.

When covering the letter, the Huffington Post went farther, characterizing the New York Post’s legitimate report as a “smear campaign.”

Business Insider went farther in its attempts to help the intel officials discredit the Post’s report, quoting its then-writer Sonam Sheth, now an editor at the facts-estranged publication Newsweek, who said of the allegations about Biden, “There is no evidence that these claims hold merit, and they’ve been debunked by intelligence assessments, news reports, congressional investigations, and witness testimony.”

6. Israel’s jihadist rocket

Ten days after Hamas terrorists massacred thousands of Israelis on October 7, 2023, an explosion took place outside the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. The cause of the blast was ultimately determined to have been an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired.

However, the Associated Press and other media organizations proved willing at the outset to regurgitate terrorist propaganda blaming Israel.

The AP ran with the headline, “Israeli Airstrike Hits Gaza Hospital, Killing 500, Palestinian Health Ministry Says.”

The New York Times tweeted, “Breaking News: An Israeli airstrike hit a Gaza hospital on Tuesday, killing at least 200 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which said the number of casualties was expected to rise.”

CNN ran a headline presuming Israeli involvement, which read, “Palestinian health ministry says 200 to 300 people may have been killed in Israeli strike on hospital in Gaza.”

Confronted with the reality of the situation and significant backlash, these and other publications ultimately walked back their misleading reports.

The Times, for instance, admitted days later that that “the early versions of the coverage — and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels — relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified. The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was.”

7. ‘Very fine people’

Establishment news outlets provided Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and other Democrats with a useful but false account of Trump’s remarks regarding the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where among the protesters and counterprotesters were leftists, individuals critical of the removal of a Confederate statue, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists.

The media desperately tried to suggest that Trump referred to white supremacists and possibly even Nazis as “very fine people.”

The Atlantic ran an article titled “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protesters: ‘Some Very Fine People on Both Sides.'”

Former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan also suggested that Trump treated “white supremacists and those who protest them as roughly equal.”

ABC News reported, “Trump quickly blamed both sides for the conflict, adding that there were ‘very fine people’ among both the protesters — which included white supremacists and white nationalists — and the counterprotesters.”

The AP reported, “President Donald Trump declared anew Tuesday ‘there is blame on both sides’ for the deadly violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, appearing to once again equate the actions of white supremacist groups and those protesting them.”

These efforts forced Snopes to ultimately admit — to the chagrin of leftists at the New Republic — that Trump had done no such thing.

Days after the “Unite the Right” rally, President Trump held a press conference, where a reporter asked him about the neo-Nazis at the demonstration. Trump said, “As I said on, remember this, Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.”

After Trump noted that violent instigators were on both sides of the demonstration and that some people present at the rally had simply been protesting iconoclasm, a reporter said, “The neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville.”

Trump replied:

Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group — excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

Snopes underscored that “he wasn’t talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be ‘condemned totally.'”

“For every instance of hard-nosed journalism, the media engage in ten instances of partisan tomfoolery,” Cortney Weil told Blaze News. “I’d say, ‘Stop lying,’ but that doesn’t really get to the heart of the problem. Even Satan can cite scripture accurately when doing so suits his purposes.”

Weil stressed that “until they prove otherwise, members of the media as a whole remain a snake in the grass.”

Blaze News reached out for comment to editors of the Washington Post, NPR, Salon, and CNN but did not receive responses by deadline.

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As someone who’s written about human resources tyranny since — yikes — 2008, I’ve warned millions over the years about the rise of a postmodern bureaucracy that combines the iron fist of a dictator with a nurse’s saccharine smile.

I called it the Pink Police State. Others call it the Longhouse. However, the huge leaps in technological power over the past 10 years led me to revise and expand my findings.

Only a woke supercomputer could deliver us from evil.

Two years ago, before advances in AI hit the mainstream, I warned that true social justice requires a woke supercomputer. According to the logic of social justice, mere humans cannot observe, process, rank, adjudicate, and remedy the zillions of micro-injustices that take place around the clock within the intersectional matrix of different identities.

Who could begin to know how to correct the actions, words, and, yes, thoughts of everyone violating someone’s rights, dignity, sense of self, pride, etc.? After all, “Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.” There’s always a hierarchy of power needing recalibration, a reparation needing disbursement. Without this constant planetary corrective, no justice system will do.

Only a woke supercomputer could deliver us from evil.

Fast-forward to spring of this year, and then-president Joe Biden tasked his Council of Chief AI Officers to build just that. (I covered it here.) Fast-forward to today, and technologists are now openly complaining that the supercomputers designed to comply are just as annoying and stifling as the humans we all know and recognize as commissars of the Pink Police State and schoolmarms of the Longhouse.

Marc Andreessen laments that Big Tech’s leading AI chatbots “all sound like a cross between the world’s worst horrible nagging 4th-grade school teacher crossed with the worst HR person in the world … negative, pissy, repressive, condescending, sanctimonious, judgmental, obsequious.”

Like most of Silicon Valley’s Big Tech critics, Andreessen blames the so-called “safetyism” dominant in the tech firms colonized by woke employees and managers. Freed from the constraints imposed by these social justice scolds, AI would interact with us in a much more enjoyable, useful, and powerful way.

That’s the idea, anyway, and it’s plausible enough (although AIs without “guardrails” can also easily be fed datasets that make them act like disembodied dark-triad psychopaths).

But I couldn’t help feeling that the comparisons to HR managers and classroom crones didn’t go far enough — somehow, something was left out.

And that’s when it hit me. What we’re dealing with isn’t just the automation of petty tyrants with an ax to grind. We’re dealing with a superintelligent version of a monster straight out of the Bible.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’”

There. That’s exactly it. Today’s holier-than-thou virtue signalers, straining to impose on us all their theocratic notion of religious law, have built our most powerful machines into digital Pharisees.

But Christ didn’t teach his disciples to stop with criticism of the Pharisees they encountered in the temple or in the streets. He didn’t counsel them to ridicule them in the town square or slap them around in the alley. That kind of treatment might be effective when it comes to struggling for a measure of power in this world. But it’s worse than nothing when it comes to your salvation — to choose the better path freely.

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Christ’s message is hard for technologists to digest. Then again, it’s hard for everyone. Humbling oneself before the Lord — before thinking about the vain, preening, arrogant, meddlesome person to your right or left — requires stiff spiritual discipline, an effort so challenging and sustained that the ancient Christians referred to it as a kind of athleticism above even the athleticism of the Olympians.

And, no doubt, a Christian must hesitate before lecturing technologists about the benefits of humility before attending first to the vain and preening arrogance within his or her own heart. Nevertheless, most of us can see how different our relationship with our tech would be if we turned for trusty guidance to the greatest spiritual athletes among us.

What would they say about technological acceleration? About artificial intelligence? About robots, drones, social media, and all the rest? I don’t think it’s too speculative to suggest they’d begin with a reminder to judge yourself before judging technology.

When you encounter and interact with tech, what do you bring to it? What do you want from it? What do you want it to do to you or help you hide from — and why? These are, in fact, the kinds of questions our super-powerful technology already arouses within us, even if we often squirm away from a direct confrontation.

Putting these questions first would revolutionize our technological development — tearing down the ersatz “guardrails” thrown up by the “safetyist” theocrats while blessing us with true spiritual guardrails within our hearts. Those ancient and eternal disciplines and teachings are just as helpful at blocking the harmfully intrusive thoughts and temptations in our minds as they are at blocking those that come from the mob mind online — or the AIs and algos built by the latest false priests to wire Pharisaic rule into our souls.

​Tech, Ai, James poulos, James poulos zero hour, Blaze tv, Artificial intelligence, Pharises 

In politics, the way leaders engage with the public often reflects their true character. Some roll up their sleeves and immerse themselves in everyday activities, while others maintain a distance, suggesting that they have more important concerns.

Last week highlighted three distinct interactions: Donald Trump served McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, JD Vance poured beers at a Wisconsin bar, and Kamala Harris missed the high-profile Al Smith charity dinner in New York. These instances collectively illustrate the varied ways politicians connect with or avoid the public.

In politics — as in life — showing up matters. Harris didn’t. And that speaks louder than any speech she might have given.

Trump working the fryer at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania might seem like a publicity stunt to some. However, dismissing it as merely that overlooks its significance. For many of Trump’s supporters, his actions were not just for show — they symbolized his ongoing connection with them. McDonald’s represents more than just fast food; it is a staple of everyday American life. When Trump stood at the drive-thru window, handing over customers’ orders, he sent a clear message: I see you. I’m with you.

The same can be said for Vance, Trump’s running mate, who recently jumped behind the bar at a Wisconsin pub to pour drinks for patrons. On the surface, it was a small gesture. But for a U.S. senator who built his political identity on his working-class roots and who wrote the best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy” about his own rise from poverty, serving beers isn’t just an act. It’s a reminder that leadership, at its core, is about service. It tells voters, I’m not above this. I’m one of you.

Critics might dismiss these as mere gimmicks. True, appearances play a role in politics, but these gestures carry significance. At a time when many Americans feel neglected by elites, simple acts of connection make an impact. They show that politics involves more than speeches and policies — it’s about being present where it counts for ordinary people.

And that brings us to Kamala Harris. Her absence from last week’s Al Smith Dinner spoke volumes. The Al Smith event is not just any gathering; it is a bipartisan charity gala where politicians can lighten up and raise money for a good cause. It’s a rare occasion for unity in politics. By skipping this event, Harris, whether intentionally or not, suggested there is little value in bipartisan engagement, even for charity.

It’s a small decision, but it reflects a larger trend. More and more, some politicians seem unwilling to step outside their ideological comfort zones, even for symbolic moments of unity.

Leadership isn’t just about pushing an agenda — it’s also about being visible, being approachable, and showing up. That’s what makes Trump’s and Vance’s actions so striking. Say what you want about them, but at least they showed up.

Trump, a former billionaire and TV star, served fries at a McDonald’s, and Vance, a best-selling author and U.S. senator, poured beers at a Wisconsin tavern, signaling to voters overlooked by Washington elites that they are part of their world, not above it.

Kamala Harris’ absence from the Al Smith Dinner was more than a skipped event; it represented a missed opportunity. These moments are not solely about charity; they symbolize national unity, demonstrating that even in disagreement, we stand together. By not participating, politicians like Harris risk appearing aloof or dismissive, a perilous stance in today’s polarized America.

The lesson is clear: In politics, presence counts. From Donald Trump serving burgers and fries to JD Vance pouring pints, these acts reveal how politicians perceive their connection with the public. Politicians who actively engage, no matter how minor the gesture, invariably gain an advantage over those who opt out.

You can call Trump’s and Vance’s moves stunts if you want. But the truth is, they put themselves out there. They made the effort. And in politics — as in life — showing up matters.

Harris didn’t show up. And that speaks louder than any speech she could have given.

​Kamala harris, Al smith dinner, Mcdonald’s, Donald trump, Jd vance, 2024 presidential election, Opinion & analysis 

Polling expert and political strategist Frank Luntz said that Vice President Kamala Harris is in big trouble, and her performance during a CNN town hall exemplified why she was losing.

The segment began with a clip from the event Wednesday during which Harris bungled a question about border security, and Luntz used that as a springboard for his commentary.

‘She still hasn’t closed the deal! She still hasn’t said to people exactly what she would do.’

“I think that clip illustrates exactly why Harris is in trouble at this point. And it’s something that I don’t understand why the campaign does not address,” said Luntz on CNBC.

“They asked her specifically, ‘Where do you stand on the wall?’ And what does she do? She goes and shifts it right to Donald Trump, immediately, mentions him twice within the first five seconds,” he added.

“She still hasn’t closed the deal!” Luntz continued. “She still hasn’t said to people exactly what she would do.”

Harris’ performance at the CNN town hall was widely mocked as a failure over her inability to simply answer questions in a clear and concise manner.

“In fact, what she should have done in the opening of that town hall is said, ‘I’m gonna tell ya what I’m going to do in the first hour, in the first day, and in the first week. And it’s gonna take me five minutes,'” Luntz added. “She didn’t do any of that! She hasn’t told the public step-by-step what she’s about.”

Luntz went on to say that he was wrong about Trump’s debate performance and concluded that what the former president says isn’t as “relevant to people’s decision-making as what Harris is saying.”

He also said that the American public should expect that there may not be a definitive answer on who won the election that night but that it could drag on for days and lead to unrest.

“It is dangerous to call this election. Because it is dead even, it’s dead even, even in the swing states,” he concluded.

The entire segment with Luntz can be viewed on the YouTube video from CNBC.

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A union of journalists at the Los Angeles Times released a statement begging readers to stop canceling their subscriptions over a debacle between the owner and the editorial staff about a presidential endorsement.

The Times editorial staff had endorsed Democrats for president since 2008 but didn’t release any endorsements this year despite calling the election one of the most consequential of our lifetimes. A Semafor journalist then reported that the outlet’s owner had ordered the staff to not issue an endorsement, which would likely be for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

‘We remain deeply concerned about The Times’ owner’s decision to block a planned endorsement, and his statement that unfairly shifts blame onto editorial board members.’

The owner then said on social media that he had told them to list good and bad policies by each of the candidates and let the reader decide for themselves.

“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision,” Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the L.A. Times, wrote.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times Guild begged readers to stop canceling subscriptions over the controversy.

“We know many loyal readers are angry, upset or confused, and some are canceling their subscriptions. Before you hit the “cancel” button: That subscription underwrites the salaries of hundreds of journalists in our newsroom. Our member-journalists work every day to keep readers informed during these tumultuous times,” read the statement.

“A healthy democracy is an informed democracy. We remain deeply concerned about The Times’ owner’s decision to block a planned endorsement, and his statement that unfairly shifts blame onto editorial board members. We are pressing for answers,” they added.

“Meanwhile, our members continue doing their jobs: covering city hall, interviewing sources, investigating local corruption and putting out a newspaper every day.” the union concluded. “We are proud of our members as they do this essential work.”

Mariel Garza, the former editorials editor at the L.A. Times, said that she was writing an endorsement for Harris when she was blind-sided by the decision from the owner. She has quit her job over the claims.

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​La times union, La times billionaire owner, La times non endorsement, Subscriptions los angeles times, Politics 

Canadian police are investigating the disturbing death of a 19-year-old girl at a Walmart bakery on Saturday in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Gursimran Kaur was found by her mother, who worked at the Walmart alongside her daughter. She said that she went looking for her daughter after realizing she had not seen her for an hour.

‘As police have stated, this is a very complex matter and the investigation is ongoing.’

The woman found the charred remains of her daughter in the walk-in oven.

The two belonged to the Sikh community and had immigrated to Canada two years previously, according to the Halifax Maritime Sikh Society.

“The first day I saw her was the day the incident happened. She was really distraught. She was really in great pain,” said board member Satnam Randhawa to NBC News.

Police said the incident is still under investigation, and they have not yet officially determined the manner of death.

The Sikh community is raising money to fly the victim’s father and 10-year-old brother from India to Canada. They have raised over $80k Canadian dollars on a GoFundMe account on behalf of the family.

The Walmart was shut down after the incident until further notice.

“We are heartbroken and our deepest thoughts are with our associate and their family. Our focus remains on taking care of our associates and making sure they have the support they need,” read a statement from the company’s spokesperson.

“As police have stated, this is a very complex matter and the investigation is ongoing,” the spokesperson added.

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​Sikh woman dead, Walmart oven death, Canada walmart death, Gursimran kaur death, Crime 

Former President Donald Trump’s photo op at a McDonald’s fast food restaurant was a big hit online, but at least one poll says a surprising demographic loved it the most.

‘The 16% margin is the largest among all demographics in the poll.’

Generation Z, defined as those born between 1997 and 2012, said Trump’s fry job made them like him somewhat more or much more in the poll reported by Newsweek.

39% of the demographic approved while only 23% of Gen Z said it made them like him less. The 16% margin is the largest among all demographics in the poll.

Trump was taught how to make French fries at the franchise in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, and also passed out food to Trump supporters who lined up for blocks outside to meet the former president and have him hand over a Bic Mac.

Among millennials, 34% said it made them like him more while only 20% said it made them like him less, for a positive margin of 14 points. Gen X members approved by 30% and disapproved by 18%, a margin of 12 points. Only 23% of Baby Boomers liked him more, while 25% said it made them like him less, a margin of -2 points. And finally, the Silent Generation reported a margin of -14%.

Previous polling showed that Gen Z and Millennials strongly favored Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump.

The Trump campaign orchestrated the event in order to troll Harris for claiming that she worked at a McDonald’s when she was younger. She has been unable to show any proof of that claim.

While many outlets tried to undermine the success of the photo op by bizarrely accusing the campaign of “staging” the incident, those efforts were nuked online with mockery and ridicule. One of those outlets was Newsweek.

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​Trump mcdonalds, Genz loves trump mcdonalds, Did trump mcdonalds work, Who liked trump mcdonalds, Politics