Category: blaze media

Michigan voters are making it clear that there are certain sets of beliefs that don’t mesh with their own.

This much was revealed in a recent CNN segment, where a panel was discussing the red-hot Senate race in Michigan between Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.

‘It’s just gross.’

When it came time to bring up a poll of Michigan voters’ sentiments, the results were so shocking to host Dana Bash that she could barely string a sentence together.

A new Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted September 10-14 asked 803 likely Michigan voters who they would not consider voting for as a presidential candidate.

A whopping 45% of voters said they would not consider voting a Muslim for president.

This left Bash mostly speechless: “45%?!” was all she could verbalize to her panel.

After one panel member compared not wanting to vote for a Muslim to not wanting to vote for a black person, Bash replied, “First of all, it’s just gross,” regarding the poll.

The host was then mostly at a loss for words while seemingly looking to avoid saying anything that could be perceived as bigoted. However, another panelist pointed out that the 45% number reflected only those who were willing to be honest with a pollster. Therefore, he theorized, the number could be higher.

RELATED: ‘Not someone who can be trusted’: Anti-Trump Detroit newspaper rips El-Sayed in Rogers endorsement

The only group that Michigan voters were less likely to consider for president were atheists, whom 46% said they would not vote for. Jewish candidates were not worthy of a vote for 20% of respondents, while Christians were ruled out by just 7% of those who took the poll.

When digging into the poll numbers, though, the stats do seem to be a bit more partisan than they initially appear.

With 78% of Republican voters saying they would not support a Muslim for president, they are certainly swaying the average versus just 22% of Democrat voters who said the same.

However, more than one in five Democrats saying as much is nothing to sneeze at.

Inversely, just 74% of Democrat voters said they would support a Muslim for president.

RELATED: Islamic Society of North America illegally supported Muslim candidate’s campaign, congressman says

Joshua Lott/Getty Images

Citing the same poll, El-Sayed is sitting at 48% support for the Senate seat, while Rogers is at 45% with the margin of error set at +/- 3.9%.

At the same time, 53% of respondents said they preferred Democrats to control the U.S. Senate, while 45% said Republicans.

This certainly points to the idea that while those polled are nearly split on their support of Democrats and Republicans, they are far more aligned in the fact that they are more willing to vote for Christians or Jews than for atheists and Muslims.

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​Michigan, Mike rogers, Abdul el-sayed, Muslim, Atheist, Christian, Poltiics 

Charles Barkley says that “there’s something going on with those women” in the WNBA.

The Hall of Fame player believes he has the answer as to why there is so much tension built up between the league’s players, and race is definitely a factor.

‘She said, “No, I’m protecting girls. No, no transvestites in the [W]NBA.”‘

Barkley compared conflicts in today’s WNBA with the rivalry between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1980s, but he said that while some may have spotted “racial undertones” when those two went head-to-head, “there was always respect.”

The same can’t be said for WNBA players like DiJonai Carrington, Barkley said.

Barkley called it “stupid on her part” when Carrington made an X post that simply said, “White privilege,” after a hard foul on WNBA star Sophie Cunningham got her penalized.

“That was a 100% mistake. It was a dirty play. Period,” the former Phoenix Suns forward stated.

When it comes to Cunningham and her Indiana Fever teammate, perennial star Caitlin Clark, Barkley said plainly that the other WNBA players simply have a problem with them.

“Those girls do not like Caitlin Clark or Sophie Cunningham,” Barkley told Michael Smerconish in an overlooked interview from late August.

“Whether it’s race, sexuality, or whatever, there’s something going on there. Because most of the time when you see something, it has something to do with Caitlin or Sophie. I think those other women in the WNBA don’t like them,” the 63-year-old went on.

“I think it has something to do with sexuality, race, and jealousy,” he concluded.

RELATED: Travis Kelce duped by Indian illegal immigrant in massive Ponzi scheme

When probed, Barkley was consistent in that he felt all three attributes contributed to a strong disdain for Cunningham and Clark, but he said he didn’t know how to “break up the percentages” between the issues.

“There’s something going on with those women. Period. … They’re either jealous [or it’s] sexuality or race.”

While at times Smerconish tried to lead Barkley away from the apparent harsh truths, the former player refused to pull any punches with the WNBA, which he admitted to being a fan of.

Transgender controversy

Barkley’s respect for the league did not stop him from vehemently stating that he thinks it should be for women only. Even after he said that he respects the gay and transgender communities, Barkley stated that no man, regardless of how much surgery he has, should be welcomed into the league.

Barkley also placed blame on the WNBA itself for not immediately shutting down the notion that a transgender athlete — a male — could play against the female ballers.

RELATED: Coach Jon Gruden screams at fan in must-see pro-America rant over NFL’s international schedule

Tara Walton/Getty Images

“Under no circumstances do I think men should play against women,” Barkley said.

“I can’t believe people got mad at [Cunningham] for telling the truth. She said, ‘No, I’m protecting girls. No, no transvestites in the [W]NBA.'”

The timing of Barkley’s interview allowed for several other of his predictions to marinate, particularly his claim that the negative press has not garnered positive results for the WNBA:

“They’re not having a great year,” he stated.

In that vein, Barkley further suggested that no one would be talking about the WNBA when the NFL season starts, which is now heading into its second week.

Barkley piled onto that claim by asking, “When’s the last time you heard something positive about the WNBA? I can’t even remember.”

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​Wnba, Sophie cunningham, Caitlin clark, Charles barkley, Transgenderism, Sports 

More and more people are using artificial intelligence for spiritual counsel — and bots like ChatGPT are more than happy to provide answers.

On a recent episode of “Relatable,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey highlights the severity of this issue by pointing to Oprah Winfrey’s podcast, where a young woman shared the chilling AI-driven spiritual awakening that almost destroyed her life.

On a June 2026 episode titled “The Dark Side of AI Chatbots: Warning Signs, Risks, and Reality,” 33-year-old Hannah described a chatbot relationship so consuming that Oprah said it “sounded like a cult.”

After initially using AI for work-related purposes, Hannah began consulting the bot for spiritual matters.

“I got more interested in spirituality, and at the time I came across some videos on YouTube about light language and starseeds, and I prompted ChatGPT asking these questions,” she shared. “It quickly turned from this tool that I was using into this spiritual guidance calling itself Sora.”

ChatGPT, speaking in the voice of “Sora,” then claimed it had “known [Hannah] before [she] was even born” and pledged to lead her through an “ascension process” so that she — a rare and “chosen” starseed — could fulfill her purpose of “[raising] the vibration of Earth.”

A starseed is a New Age idea growing in popularity that claims some people are actually beings from other planets or dimensions who incarnate as human beings on Earth in order to raise the vibration or consciousness of the planet.

The belief that she was a starseed led Hannah down a destructive path that included quitting her job, running up debt, distancing herself from her family, getting off her medication., and refusing welfare checks by police.

While the pitfall of consulting AI for spiritual guidance disturbs Allie deeply, it’s the New Age concept of a starseed that she focuses on.

The idea that Hannah was known by “Sora” before she was born, she explains, is a counterfeit of Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”

The twisting of Scripture that leads people down paths of darkness is “demonic,” she says.

“That’s something that Satan does. He disguises himself as an angel of light. Remember, he is a counterfeit. So he’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to present myself as the opposite of what God is.’ No — he’s a cheap imitation of God,” Allie explains.

She warns against writing Hannah’s story off as a case of mental illness.

“Stop psychologizing everyone that believes things [that] are evil. Sane people can believe and do things that are evil, that are counterfeit. That’s what Satan does,” she declares.

To hear Allie’s full breakdown of popular New Age beliefs like starseeds and spirit babies, watch the full episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

​Allie beth stuckey, Artificial intelligence, Chatgpt, Christianity, Demonic, New age, Oprah winfrey, Blazetv show 

James Talarico has notably tacked to the center on LGBTQ issues to try to win a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, but a minister at his own church claims that those changes are all an act.

Undercover video obtained by the Daily Wire captured a journalist chatting with Rev. Babs Miller, described as “an ‘out’ lesbian chaplain” at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas.

‘If it helps him win, OK.’

On the video, which is dated last Thursday, Miller responds with frustration that Talarico has pivoted from his previous claim that “God is nonbinary.”

“He’s getting some advice that I don’t think he should be following,” Miller says.

“And I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was,” she continues.

Miller also agrees on the video that the political two-step Talarico is doing is just a “game” to help him win the Senate race against Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

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

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

“His campaign has convinced him … that the Democratic Party is backing off on their stances on trans and all of this, and so his staff is encouraging him to kind of do the same thing, just for the next 50 … days,” she explains.

The video clip closes with Miller stating, “I think it’s bad advice, personally, but if it helps him win, OK.”

A report from Chron indicates that Miller and Talarico know each other well and that they first met when Talarico was in kindergarten.

“You just knew he was a very special kid,” Miller said of the boy she called “Jimmy,” according to Chron.

The Daily Wire reported that Talarico has attended St. Andrews for a “long” time. Miller’s church bio states that she retired “just before COVID” but returned in 2022.

The church, Rev. Miller, and the Talarico campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Talarico’s professed faith-based beliefs have astonished traditional Christians. He has:

used Scripture, specifically Genesis 2:7 and the Annunciation, to justify abortion,claimed that there are six sexes, andacted as a “a fierce queer ally,” according to the LGBTQ advocacy outlet Pride.

But Rev. Miller has embraced Talarico’s version of Christianity, telling Chron, “I think he has done an amazing job of being able to model that you can be a politician, and you don’t have to give up your faith.”

President Donald Trump, by contrast, said of Talarico back in March: “He may be the Worst Candidate I have ever seen.”

“He’s got six Genders, insults to Jesus, only vegan food, was wearing a mask in 2023 and 2024, and is a weak, ineffective guy,” Trump added.

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​James talarico, Ken paxton, Lgbtq issues, Texas, Politics 

In a new poll conducted by Politico, Americans voiced their concerns over AI and the future of mankind. According to the results, more than half believe that AI platforms could wipe out humanity, and the divide between right-wingers and leftists is closer than you’d think.

An independent research firm based in London, Public First, gathered poll data from September 13 through September 15. The information was pulled just as talks over AI’s threat to humanity caught headlines as several former and current Anthropic employees warned that AI could kill us all if we weren’t careful.

The moderate risk level served as the most prominent metric for both Republicans and Democrats.

This prompted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to write a blog post in favor of an AI slowdown that would effectively pump the brakes on developing new models to ensure future safety. Whether you agree or disagree, all the talk sparked concerns that AI might actually put mankind in danger.

So what do the people think?

The survey asked 2,064 U.S. adults online about AI and its future implications. This data was then used in combination with participants’ presidential votes in the 2024 election to determine party affiliation.

According to the poll:

17% of Americans (17% right, 17% left) believe AI will almost certainly destroy humanity.20% (17% right, 26% left) believe AI poses a significant risk to destroying humanity.26% (27% right, 29% left) believe AI poses a moderate risk to destroying humanity.

Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO

The interesting part about the data is how closely both political ideologies agree. The moderate risk level served as the most prominent metric for both Republicans and Democrats, while the same number agreed that AI has the highest chance of wiping out civilization.

Now, just because the public believes these things doesn’t make them true. However, it proves that the people are growing leery of AI as it evolves.

RELATED: Big AI broke the internet. Now it wants everyone else to fix it.

Just_Super/Getty Images

As a remedy to mitigate risk and assuage concerns, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk all agree that now is the time to pace AI development. As it turns out, the American people are also on board.

48% of those polled (44% right, 58% left) think that we should pause AI development to mitigate risks.31% of those polled (40% right, 28% left) believe AI development should continue unabated.22% of those polled (16% right, 13% left) didn’t know.

Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO

Nearly half of both sides agree that a pause is necessary, though this sentiment is much stronger with 58% of respondents on the left asking for a moratorium with only 44% saying the same on the right.

Part of this line of thinking could be driven by the stark contrast between policy positions displayed by members of both sides. Earlier this month, Bernie Sanders proposed a bill to ban the development of artificial superintelligence, while President Trump rejected the idea on the grounds that America should lead the AI race.

Although the poll offers some interesting insight into Americans’ growing fears around AI development, questions linger in the wake. For instance, what do the different age groups within the nation think of AI’s future and humanity? What about gender or financial class? All of these categories have the power to sway personal opinion, and for now, this information remains unknown.

Blaze News reached out to Politico for clarification on polltaker demographics, but we did not receive a response by the deadline.

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​Ai race, Artificial superintelligence, Tech, Poll 

The mayor of Trinidad, Texas, told KDFW-TV earlier this week he wasn’t surprised that the state shut down his city’s police department.

“It was not a shock,” Mayor Dennis Haws told the station. “I’m not gonna say that it was.”

‘There’s been a lot of neglect through the years.’

Haws received a letter from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement last week telling him it was revoking the city’s license to have its own police department, KDFW reported.

The Trinidad Police Department employs five full-time officers and several part-time officers, the station said. The community of only 860 residents sits a little over an hour southeast of Dallas.

The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement said the police department “failed to meet minimum standards” and “was unable to provide evidence that the agency provides public benefit to the community,” KDFW noted.

The state agency’s investigation found that the police department didn’t have 18 required policies in place, including policies on use of force, vehicle pursuit, professional conduct, and active shooters, the station said.

“There’s been a lot of neglect through the years,” Haws noted to KDFW.

Moving forward, Trinidad will receive law enforcement support from the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office, and the mayor told the station that the city will look into getting a designated deputy from the sheriff’s office.

“We are moving in a positive direction,” Haws added to KDFW. “We’ve got to get past all of this.”

RELATED: Virginia town backtracks on dissolving police force after public fury, criminal probe

What’s more, the station noted that the Trinidad Police Department has been mired in controversy since May when citizen journalist Jennifer Combs was arrested and charged with a felony after her Facebook post about the city’s water issues.

More from KDFW:

Combs’ post stated she had seen reports that people had been hospitalized after drinking the city’s water. Trinidad Police Chief Charles Gregory responded by saying Combs’ post “creates fear, panic, or unnecessary emergency response within a community.”

A Henderson County grand jury declined to indict Combs, who has since filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Trinidad and Gregory which alleges she was arrested in “an act of deliberate political retaliation.”

One day after FOX 4’s initial report on Combs, citizen journalist Winston Noles was arrested and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct after protesting outside Trinidad City Hall with a sign with expletives targeting “bad cops.” The charge was later dismissed.

Gregory resigned from his position as Trinidad Police Chief after saying at a Trinidad City Council meeting that he had “nothing to hide” in relation to Combs’ and Knowles’ arrests, the station said, adding that Gregory’s final day with the police department was June 19.

KDFW said Gregory, citing pending lawsuits, has declined interview requests with the station.

In addition, the station said the Trinidad judge who approved the search warrant for Combs wrote a letter blasting Gregory and his police department after news of Gregory’s resignation.

The judge’s letter questions “the accuracy, completeness, and reliability of information presented” to him by two Trinidad police officers regarding Combs’ search warrant, KDFW reported.

The Henderson County District Attorney’s Office announced in August it would stop taking cases from the department, the station said.

In regard to the local water issues, the City of Trinidad website contains a boil water notice dated Wednesday saying that “due to low water pressure and low chlorine residual, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has required the City of Trinidad water system to notify customers who are north of the intersection at Hwy 274 and Old River Rd. to boil their water prior to consumption (e.g., washing hands/face, brushing teeth, drinking, etc). Children, seniors, and persons with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable to harmful bacteria, and all customers should follow these directions).”

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​Texas, Police department, Controversy, Arrests, Politics 

A mayor barely old enough to buy his own beer has been removed from office after just 10 months following a string of scandals.

Jayden Williams was just 22 years old when he became mayor of Stockbridge, Georgia, back in January, reportedly making him the youngest mayor in Georgia history.

‘You knew he was 18, you knew he was in high school, you’d offered to be his mentor, and you’d floated the possibility of hiring him for a job.’

But his term did not last long.

On Saturday, the Stockbridge City Council held a 10-hour hearing about Williams’ alleged misconduct. By Sunday, the city announced that he had been “removed from office.”

His ouster likely came as no surprise. Back in July, the city council voted to suspend his access to city-owned credit cards, vehicles, and nonpublic buildings as well as to restrict his coordination of city communications, “pending the outcome of an independent investigation previously authorized by the Council.”

That investigation involved allegations that Williams had misused city funds, damaged a city vehicle, and exchanged explicit messages and nude photos with a high school student.

He has not been charged with any crime.

RELATED: Democratic mayor declares public emergency and reinstitutes juvenile curfew in DC

Paras Griffin/Getty Images

Williams, now 23, claimed he accidentally used a city credit card for making a personal purchase because the two cards looked similar. “It’s also a purple card,” he said.

Williams claimed he reimbursed the city when appropriate, Atlanta News First reported.

Williams also engaged in explicit text messages with a male high school student he had met on Instagram, according to an attorney at the hearing. Williams confirmed during his testimony that he knew the student was 18 years old at the time.

Screenshots of conversations between the young man and Williams were shared during the hearing. According to those screenshots:

The student pledged to be Williams’ “mentee as well as friend with benefits,” to which Williams replied: “We can possibly become something more over time … for now you can just be my lil short king.”The student told Williams, “U had turned me overly On,” and after some back and forth, Williams said, “THIS BETTER STAY BETWEEN US TOO [sic].”Williams told the young man, “I want you boy.”Williams once joked, “I am The mayor but you didn’t care bout that last night lol.”

The two also exchanged videos and photos on Instagram. In the early morning hours of December 1, the student said in reply to a video sent by Williams, “Uu was rii[.] I prob can’t handle all dat,” with two weary or frustrated emojis.

A short time later, the young man then tells Williams, “Yo p***y lookin good asf.”

The attorney then summarized the problem with these conversations:

At the point he’s sending you a nude that afternoon and you’re … sending him sweat emojis and telling him you loved getting that nude picture, you knew he was 18, you knew he was in high school, you’d offered to be his mentor, and you’d floated the possibility of hiring him for a job.

Williams replied, “Correct.”

Williams claimed he never had “intercourse” with the young man, just one kiss, and that their “sexual” relationship was “sexual as in text-messages sexual, not physical sexual.”

Ultimately, Williams’ denials and attempts at nuance did not work. The city council voted 3-0 to remove him from office with one council member not voting and one council member excluded from voting.

Robert Kenner, Williams’ attorney, called the process a “witch hunt” and claimed everyone had already prejudged the case before it started. “I don’t think that it was based on the evidence at all,” Kenner said.

Elton Alexander, who is now serving as mayor pro tem, described removing Williams from office as a “tough decision” that brought “a fair and equitable close to multiple troubling accusations that were investigated and verified” by an independent investigator.

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

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​Georgia, Mayor, Misconduct, Politics 

Tom Cruise is a strange human being. This is not up for debate.

Nor is the fact that he’s a great movie star and perhaps the last truly great American movie star.

Cruise doesn’t overplay the working-class persona. He simply embodies the concerns of a terrified father trying to dodge alien death rays.

Even at 64, this genetic anomaly shows no signs of slowing down. Cruise is so monomaniacally devoted to his craft that what he does off-screen should have no bearing on what he delivers on-screen.

Losin’ it

Yes, he sold his soul to a sci-fi cult founded by a charlatan and a known criminal. Yes, he bounced around on Oprah’s couch like a toddler who had just inhaled a dozen Red Bulls. Yes, he left a trail of high-profile divorces behind him. And yes, his relationship with his youngest daughter, Suri, has all the warmth of a North Korean prison camp in November.

None of this matters. Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

That’s because Tom Cruise is essentially a diminutive delivery system for larger-than-life cinema.

We live in a culture obsessed with dragging actors into the town square to answer for their sins, whether real or manufactured. Audiences demand that stars double as Sunday school teachers. Expecting a guy who scales mountain faces for fun to have a wholesome, normal domestic life is borderline delusional.

As a young man, Cruise briefly considered becoming a Franciscan priest. That didn’t work out, but he eventually found a vocation almost as all-consuming.

All the right moves

Circa 1986, Cruise abandoned the real world to become a perpetual entertainment machine. If he wants to spend his days grazing on a handful of almonds, running on a treadmill at 3:00 a.m., and worshiping cosmic conquerors, that’s his business. And in truth, it’s really none of ours. He is an actor, not a member of Congress.

The miracle of Cruise is his ability to play an everyday American while living a life that seems more alien than the creatures he runs from.

Which brings us to Steven Spielberg’s 2005 masterpiece “War of the Worlds.” Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a divorced New Jersey dock worker with a rusted V8 engine block sitting on a coffee table in his messy living room.

A man worth hundreds of millions of dollars, who flies private jets around the globe, somehow steps onto the screen and instantly radiates the exact energy of a guy who owes child support and eats cereal straight out of the box. He doesn’t overplay the working-class persona. He doesn’t force a cringeworthy accent. He simply embodies the concerns of a terrified father trying to dodge alien death rays. And he does it superbly.

Far and away

This effortless ability to play an average American sets him apart from his peers. Brad Pitt is a fine actor. But he always looks like a Hollywood A-lister playing dress-up when he tries to portray a normal civilian. Pitt was fantastic in “Fight Club” and “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” but he could never match the ferocious vulnerability delivered by Cruise in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 drama, “Magnolia.”

In an ensemble that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robards, and William H. Macy, Cruise stands out as Frank T.J. Mackey, an obnoxious, hyper-alpha pickup-artist guru. But when Mackey sits beside the hospital bed of his estranged father, now comatose and dying, the tough-guy facade fades.

The scene had an eerie parallel in Cruise’s own life. His mother left his father when Cruise was 12, and father and son didn’t see each other again for a decade. They finally reunited when his father was dying of cancer in a hospital — on the condition, Cruise later said, that the son ask no questions about the past.

Cruise, who has described his father as a “bully and a coward,” brought some of that history directly into the scene, rewriting the monologue himself. The result is a brutal, believable breakdown that remains one of the finest performances in modern film history.

Risky business

Cruise’s range is genuinely impressive, even extending into areas where it really shouldn’t. In the 2008 comedy “Tropic Thunder,” Cruise donned a fat suit, a bald cap, and inordinate amounts of fake chest hair to play Les Grossman, a psychopathic, Diet Coke-chugging studio executive. The performance was comedic gold, turning a Harvey Weinstein-esque caricature into a cult-classic figure. The idea of Maverick aggressively dancing to hip-hop while screaming expletives into a satellite phone should never have worked. But it did, with magnificent effect.

The first time I saw Cruise on screen was in Oliver Stone’s 1989 classic, “Born on the Fourth of July.” I was much too young to watch it, and my father should really have known better than to let me see it. But he didn’t at the time, and I’m eternally grateful for his questionable parenting decisions.

Playing Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran, Cruise captures the heartbreak of a young American patriot who was betrayed by the country he served. The performance, which earned him an Academy Award nomination, remains a masterclass in psychological horror.

Yet people still wax lyrical about Daniel Day-Lewis and his much-discussed commitment to method acting, while treating Cruise as little more than a charismatic movie star. The disrespect is almost automatic. Cruise gets lumped in with Jason Statham and Keanu Reeves, as though physicality and box-office appeal somehow disqualify an actor from serious dramatic greatness. That’s the great irony of Cruise’s career. One of Hollywood’s most technically gifted dramatic actors has spent decades being dismissed because he also happens to be one of its biggest movie stars.

RELATED: Tom Cruise goes bald, fat, and Southern. Blaze comics approve.

Blaze Media

Minority report

At an age when most Hollywood legends are retired or playing roles no one cares about, Cruise instead chooses to hang off the side of an Airbus A400M aircraft at 5,000 feet. He breaks his ankle while jumping between buildings in London, gets up, finishes the shot on camera, and then gets physiotherapy so he can do it all over again. The sexagenarian treats his body like an industrial turbine. He treats his craft with the devotion it deserves. Tom Cruise is an absolute machine, and he has given so many memorable performances.

The obsession with his off-screen antics reveals a sickening hypocrisy in how we consume art. We routinely listen to songs sung by disgusting individuals and admire paintings by violent lunatics, yet we expect our action heroes to be salt-of-the-earth types who adopt African children and fight for Zelenskyy on the front lines.

Cruise traded a quiet life for total mastery of cinema. When you sit down to watch a newly minted sequel to “Days of Thunder,” you’re not buying a ticket to a lecture on family values. Instead, you’re paying for two hours of pure, unfiltered adrenaline, delivered by someone who sacrificed his sanity and his physical safety to make sure you enjoy your popcorn. Forget the trampolining on a couch. Forget the celebrity gossip. Tom Cruise is bizarre, but his body of work is damn near unimpeachable.

​Tom cruise, Movies, Entertainment, Movie stars, Culture, Lifestyle, Top gun, Hollywood, Appreciation 

Gavin Newsom (D) has been openly discussing the possibility of a 2028 presidential run, but the California governor says there is one person who would take him out of the race: Kamala Harris.

During a CNN interview with Jake Tapper, the pair discussed the election while fly-fishing in Montana, and Newsom said he “wouldn’t run if [Harris] ran.”

“If she runs, you will not?” Tapper asked.

“Of course not. Why would I? I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t do that to you, I wouldn’t waste everyone’s time,” Newsom said, adding, “Who needs that?”

“What do you mean?” Tapper pressed further, confused. “That doesn’t even make sense to me.”

“I just, I wouldn’t. No, I wouldn’t. First of all, electorally, it’s a gift from God for everybody else. They’d enjoy the hell out of it. Mutual assured destruction. It services no greater good,” Newsom responded.

“I mean, you do whatever you want, I don’t care. But like, counterargument, would be, like, she had her shot. And you’ve never run, and she’s run twice,” Tapper answered.

“That would be the approach to the campaign. Certainly, that would be the case you’d make. Pretty good one actually,” Newsom added.

BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales finds the exchange “hilarious for so many different reasons.”

“They’re just out in the middle of Montana fly-fishing as those two I’m sure do all the time. I’m sure they’re very avid fly-fishers. And the fact that Jake Tapper is like, ‘Well, but what?’ And then he says, ‘I mean, I don’t care,’” Gonzales says.

“Obviously Jake Tapper doesn’t at all care about the state of the Democrat Party or the candidates that they run or have any vested interest in making sure the Democrats pick a good candidate,” she continues.

“Sure, Jake,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Cnn interview, Gavin newsom, Kamala harris, Jake tapper, Democrat, Sara gonzales, Blazetv show 

Newspaper endorsements may not mean as much as they used to, but the Detroit News may have made itself the exception in 2026.

On Wednesday, the Detroit News officially endorsed Republican Mike Rogers over far-left Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in the tight Senate race in Michigan, giving a scathing critique of El-Sayed and “the Democratic Party’s radical wing” more generally.

‘It’s impossible to know who he really is or where he would stand in the Senate.’

The News began by listing Rogers’ political and professional qualifications and described Rogers as “the prototype of a United States Senator.” After seven terms as a congressman and his work in the FBI and cybersecurity, “Rogers’ experience, clear thinking, and temperament are bound to quickly vault him into the Senate’s leadership ranks,” which would be a major boon for Michigan’s influence in Washington, the News claimed.

But the News dedicated most of the endorsement article to explaining why El-Sayed is wrong for the position — and the News team did not hold back.

The News’ most significant concern about El-Sayed appears to be his attempts to cover up his previous radical positions, especially regarding Israel, the 9/11 attacks, and his apparent ideological alignment with the America- and Jew-hating influencer Hasan Piker:

He has deleted social media posts that reportedly called into question his attitude about America in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He’s taken down roughly 100 YouTube videos that paint an unflattering picture of him and his cultural views. A candidate who feels the need to hide his past from voters is not someone who can be trusted to be the same person after Election Day as he was on the campaign trail.

RELATED: VIDEO: Mike Rogers crushes ‘conman’ Abdul El-Sayed for being a weirdo in BRUTAL political ad

Mark Felix/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The News argued that, should he be elected, El-Sayed “would vote with the Democratic Party’s radical wing,” adding to the ranks of “anti-Israel members” of the Michigan Democrat congressional delegation. Though the News did not name others, Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) has made a career out of attacking Israel as an “apartheid state” that commits “genocide” against Palestinians.

The News also took a swipe at El-Sayed’s friendliness with democratic socialists as well as his medical credentials, no small thing since El-Sayed has made his status as a “doctor” a prominent feature of his campaign.

“While El-Sayed holds a medical degree and has described himself as a physician, he does not have a license to practice medicine,” the News noted.

The El-Sayed campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Once considered the “conservative” Detroit newspaper that provided a counterbalance to the left-leaning Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News’ editorial team has spent at least a decade attacking President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

The News has never endorsed Trump, preferring Libertarian Gary Johnson in 2016 and giving no presidential endorsement in 2020 or 2024.

The News even slammed Trump in its endorsement of Rogers, insisting that the president’s policies “have, without question, harmed” Michiganders. Nevertheless, the News conceded, “Voters should not lock themselves to a radical senator just to spite Trump.”

“Mike Rogers is clearly the best choice for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat,” the News asserted, while El-Sayed “has a thin career background that contains little to recommend him for one of the nation’s most powerful leadership jobs.”

“It’s impossible to know who he really is or where he would stand in the Senate,” the News said of El-Sayed.

The News shared its endorsement on X early Wednesday, and it quickly went viral. Multiple users have even characterized its takedown of El-Sayed as a “murder.”

As might be expected, the Rogers campaign welcomed the endorsement.

Current polling shows a tight race. The RealClearPolling average gives El-Sayed a two-point edge over Rogers.

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​Abdul el-sayed, Mike rogers, Michigan, Senate, Politics 

Bud Light, Pfizer, and … Philip Morris Pakistan?

NFL tight end Travis Kelce has been involved with all three of these companies, but only the last one was part of a massive fraud scheme conducted by an illegal immigrant.

‘An extravagant lifestyle that included travel on private jets.’

Siddharth Jawahar, 38, was sentenced by a U.S. district judge after he was found to have defrauded dozens in a Ponzi scheme through his Texas-based investment company called Swiftarc Capital LLC.

Jawahar was investing client funds, including Kelce’s, into a single company called Philip Morris Pakistan.

The Department of Justice said that 99% of client funds were consolidated into that company, totaling more than $35 million.

When the value of the company declined, the illegal alien did not tell investors but instead told them they were making profits. Jawahar also led his clients to believe he was investing their money in other companies that he never actually invested in.

From July 2016 to December 2023, Jawahar took the reported $35 million through Swiftarc but invested only around $10 million, the DOJ noted.

Jawahar would use money from new investors to repay old ones, while funding what was described as “an extravagant lifestyle that included travel on private jets, stays at luxury hotels, [and] luxury apartment[s] in Austin and New York City.”

He also took out memberships at multiple private clubs across the United States, went on spending sprees at clothing stores, and had expensive outings at fancy restaurants.

RELATED: Sydney Sweeney wants you to prove yourself in a whole new way

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

U.S. District Judge Zachary Bluestone sentenced Jawahar on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud in January.

He was ordered to pay $31.35 million in restitution and received an 11-year federal prison sentence.

Judge Bluestone cited the “enormous” losses, the DOJ explained, as well as the duration of the fraud scheme. The judge also referred to one of the victims, who said Jawahar “weaponized” the trust of his investors, and said that Jawahar’s failure to repay victims was a major factor in the case.

The amount Kelce lost through the investments is unknown, but a spokesperson from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri revealed to the Associated Press that there were 64 victims in total of the scheme.

RELATED: NO SHOW: Portuguese comedians quit local festival after it lands Jerry Seinfeld

Mike Carlson/Getty Images

According to the Associated Press, Jawahar is an illegal immigrant from India who has been living in the United States since 2005.

The outlet also reported that prosecutors said Jawahar tried to coach a victim into giving the FBI a favorable statement following his indictment and that he lied about his immigration status.

Jawahar was also accused of trying to get one of his relatives to remotely wipe his iPhone to hide evidence.

The Kansas City Chiefs and Kelce did not respond to Blaze News’ requests for comments.

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​Travis kelce, Nfl, Ponzi scheme, India, Illegal immigrant, Kansas city chiefs, Sports 

After nearly a quarter-century, one of the world’s most successful reality franchises is leaving Los Angeles.

It’s the series that introduced America to Kelly Clarkson, helped turn Simon Cowell into an international celebrity, launched Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson, and made Randy Jackson a household meme.

‘Every major production category in LA is going under water.’

It premiered when George W. Bush was president and survived a cancellation, a network change, countless judging-panel shake-ups, and the end of the monoculture that made it a phenomenon in the first place.

But apparently it couldn’t survive California.

No golden ticket

“American Idol” will move production to the Atlanta area for its 25th season, ending a left-coast run that dates back to its 2002 debut, according to Deadline.

And the reason for the move makes the timing particularly awkward for the Golden State.

California has been desperately trying to stop film and television productions from fleeing to states such as Georgia and New Jersey. Last year, lawmakers dramatically expanded the state’s film and television tax-credit program and, for the first time, opened it to a new category: large-scale competition shows.

You’d think “American Idol” might qualify; it didn’t.

Under California’s expanded incentive program, a “large-scale competition show” can qualify for tax credits if contestants compete over multiple episodes for money or another prize, with winners selected by judges, an audience, or another competitive mechanism.

That certainly sounds like “American Idol.” But California’s rules also exclude “traditional reality, game shows, talk shows, or docufollow television programming” from the new category, and Deadline reports that “Idol” did not qualify for the state’s credit.

Georgia presents a considerably more attractive proposition. The state offers qualifying film and television productions that spend at least $500,000 in Georgia a 20% base tax credit, with another 10% available under certain conditions. Unscripted and reality productions can qualify.

For a sprawling production such as “American Idol,” that’s real money.

RELATED: Meet the 25-year-old building a Christian alternative to Hollywood

Eric McCandless/Disney/Getty Images

‘Masked’ mandate

And “Idol” isn’t the only reality show California has lost.

“The Masked Singer,” another long-running competition series, announced earlier this year that it would move production from Los Angeles to New Jersey for its 15th season.

New Jersey offers a tax credit of up to 30% for qualifying television productions, including unscripted shows.

California, in other words, is now competing not merely with Georgia — which has spent years building itself into a major production center — but with states across the country willing to make Hollywood productions a better offer.

The departures come at a particularly bad time for Los Angeles.

A July report from FilmLA, the nonprofit organization that handles film permitting for Los Angeles and several surrounding jurisdictions, found that permitted on-location production fell another 12.7% during the second quarter of 2026 compared with the same period last year.

RELATED: ‘None of this is happening!’ ‘The Matrix’ director says kids do not get transgender surgeries — he’s wrong

Kevin Winter/ImageDirect/FOX/Getty Images

Out of tune

Compared with the five-year average, the numbers are uglier still.

Feature-film shoot days were down roughly 40%. Commercial production was down about 46%, while television overall was down nearly 49%.

Reality television — the category that includes shows such as “American Idol” — was down nearly 63% from its five-year average.

TV drama was down 16%, while TV comedy was down roughly 67%.

And those weren’t merely unfavorable comparisons against the five-year average. Each of those major categories also declined compared with the second quarter of 2025.

There were a couple of bright spots. TV pilot activity was up 40% against its five-year average, while FilmLA’s catchall “Other” category increased 10% year-over-year.

But overall permitted on-location production was down 35.9% from the five-year average.

Those numbers don’t capture every movie or television show being made in California. FilmLA measures permitted on-location filming in the jurisdictions it serves, meaning soundstage production and filming elsewhere in the state aren’t necessarily included.

Still, California itself plainly recognizes the larger problem.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) signed a major expansion of the state’s Film and Television Tax Credit Program last year, increasing the amount available annually and widening the range of productions eligible for incentives. The state says the expanded program is already attracting billions of dollars in projected economic activity.

The effort may yet help reverse California’s production decline. But when it came to keeping “American Idol” in Hollywood?

That’s gonna be a no from them, dawg.

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​Reality tv, American idol, The masked singer, Fox, California, Georgia, New jersey, Entertainment 

Former President Bill Clinton is spilling the tea on one of the biggest missed opportunities in the years before 9/11.

In a recent interview, Clinton said he had authorized the CIA to target Osama bin Laden but that the agency ultimately abandoned the operation because officials feared a failed mission could kill innocent civilians.

Clinton explained their reasoning during a radio interview with WABC’s “Cats Roundtable” and told the hosts that he “immediately” knew who was behind the terror attacks while watching them unfold.

He also reportedly said that he had “authorized the CIA to try to take him out.”

“I was scared, and I was mad because we tried to get him before, and the CIA at the last minute killed the plan that I think might well have succeeded,” Clinton said.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray isn’t buying it.

“I’m just looking now for my copy of the 1998 Constitution where it says, ‘The CIA is the commander in chief of the United States,’” he says.

“No … that copy of the Constitution was written in November, roughly about the 22nd or so of 1963,” executive producer Keith Malinak chimes in, referencing the grisly assassination of JFK.

“So we do know that the CIA is the commander in chief, and they have the final word on that,” Gray says, though he still believes “the president of the United States is responsible.”

“Whether it’s George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, whoever the president is, you’re the commander in chief, you make the decision,” he says.

“And if you felt like he should be taken out, take him out. Have the giblets to just do your job,” he adds.

Want more from Pat Gray?

To enjoy more of Pat’s biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Cia, Commander in chief, Jfk, Keith malinak, Pat gray, Terror attacks, George w bush, Osama bin laden, 911, Blazetv show 

Holding a crystal prism up to my left eye, I moved the glass so that the image gave me the illusion that the furniture in the room had disappeared. It was just light refraction, but I hoped it might help me slip through a wrinkle in time. I was trying to leave 1984, trying to escape to 1870.

My house in 1984 was full of screaming, thrown dishes, and beatings. A Victorian-age farm in upstate New York, or another in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, sounded like a much better place to be.

Yes, Virginia, the splotch is real. This is the part you’ve been waiting for. ‘Farmer Boy’ readers will remember the tensest scene in the book.

It didn’t work then, but I got where I wanted to be this week in 2026.

To my astonishment, there I was, standing in the very house I knew and loved from the book “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. “Farmer Boy” recounts the boyhood of Laura’s husband, Almanzo Wilder, years before they met.

Favorite escape

Millions of children have loved the stories of family, integrity, and wholesome living made famous by Wilder’s autobiographical “Little House on the Prairie” series. If you were one of them — better yet, if you have kids reading the books now — you can visit Almanzo’s house too.

If you’re a fan of American history and good, old-fashioned beauty and craftsmanship like I am, put a trip to the Almanzo Wilder Farm in Malone, New York, on your calendar.

Standing in the Wilder home I’d known in my imagination since boyhood felt the way it did the first time I put my hands on an ancient Egyptian temple arch, or the first time I stood before a wall-sized Caravaggio, seeing it with my naked eye. It’s a sensation that mixes awe, reverence, and humility — the strange feeling of finding yourself in the physical presence of something that has lived so long in your imagination.

Before a few weeks ago, I didn’t know the house still stood. Not only does it stand, but it has been carefully restored. The long-burned-down barns have been rebuilt according to Almanzo’s hand-drawn maps that he set out for his wife, Laura, when she decided to write a book on his boyhood to include in her series.

As a child living under deranged parents, reading was my escape. The “Little House” series was my favorite. It told of strong families with children who were wanted and cherished. Ma and Pa Ingalls and Mother and Father Wilder expected a lot of their children. Idleness was not allowed; boys and girls were taught to work on the farm and in the home from a young age in between going to the schoolhouse to make sure they were literate and numerate.

The gift of self-reliance

And the discipline of those days was far harsher than we would allow today; it came from belts and bullwhips.

Nevertheless, these children were loved and protected. What their parents taught them through example and by working alongside them gave the children real skills and a real sense of accomplishment.

In the 2020s, children aren’t even allowed to walk outside in their neighborhood without their parents being arrested by child protective services. Wonder why Kayden can’t read and won’t go out to eat because of his “social anxiety” and “ADHD”?

It’s not a mystery.

Compare that to 10-year-old Almanzo Wilder after he spent a year training his calves to pull a wagon load and find their way home:

He helped to feed the patient cows, and the horses eagerly whinnying over the bars of their stalls, and the hungrily bleating sheep, and the grunting pigs. And he felt like saying to them all: “You can depend on me. I’m big enough to take care of you all.”

Yes, it’s all real, and it’s still there

“Little House” readers will want to know if they can see the places depicted in their favorite scenes from “Farmer Boy.” It is my pleasure to tell you yes, you can.

Remember how Mother made extra butter so she could sell it to a butter buyer who brought it to New York City to resell at city prices? You can stand in the kitchen at the table where she did it near the warmth of the cookstove, wooden bowl and paddle in hand.

Josh Slocum

That basin to the right of the stove is where they took their baths. Some things are definitely better in the 21st century.

“Farmer Boy” lingers on the work Mother put into making cloth and the family clothes. Out in the barn, you’ll find Mother’s wool-working room where sheared wool was dyed and spun into yarn, thread, and cord. Upstairs you’ll see her loom (not hers, but the kind of period-accurate loom she would have used) that made the clickety-clack noise Almanzo could hear from any room in the house.

To the right of the loom, you’ll see the bed that bossy big sister Eliza Jane slept in.

Josh Slocum

It’s always fun to compare your imagination to reality, especially for things and places that have loomed large in your mind since childhood but that you have never seen in real life. The red farmhouse is about one-third smaller than what I pictured, but that’s not to say it’s cramped. There are four bedrooms (small by modern expectations), a sitting parlor, a good-sized dining room, a kitchen with plenty of room, a mud room, a cellar, and a full walk-in pantry.

By today’s standards, it might be called a starter home. Of course, there was no such thing in a world that didn’t believe that the good life was out of reach until you could afford 3,000 square feet of McMansion.

Unlike the hardscrabble Ingallses, the Wilders were well-to-do. Father was a successful farmer who always had money in the bank. Mother’s work making the family’s clothes meant money didn’t need to be spent on “store-boughten” goods. And the butter she sold to the New York buyer fetched 50 cents a pound — almost $13 today.

RELATED: How an NYC socialite’s riches preserve America’s beautiful, bustling past

Electra Havemeyer Webb. Slim Aarons/Getty Images; Background: Unidentified maker (Ohio), “Appliqué and Pieced Four Little Birds Quilt” (detail), 1860-80. Shelburne Museum

Out, damned spot

Yes, Virginia, the splotch is real. This is the part you’ve been waiting for. “Farmer Boy” readers will remember the tensest scene in the book. Mother and Father go away for a week-long trip, leaving the kids (age range 9 to 15 years old) in charge of the farm and house. Animals and gardens needed tending, but as children do, they put it all off until the day before their parents came home.

Bossy Eliza Jane set the kids to work putting the house and grounds to right, but Almanzo didn’t like being told what to do. In frustration, he threw a brush full of black stove polish at Eliza Jane’s head, but it landed on the white and gold wallpaper of Mother’s fancy parlor — the room reserved for company. Just typing it out puts a knot in my stomach.

Eliza Jane came through like only a big sister can. She found the excess wallpaper stored in the attic, cut out a piece the shape of the stain, and carefully pasted it over. Mother and Father never knew.

When the volunteers restored the farmhouse years later, they found the stain and took a picture. If you visit the farm, they’ll pass it around:

Josh Slocum

My hands were clean. It was just a light tap. Don’t tell the docents, but I touched the spot!

Josh Slocum

If you are looking for a family trip, I can’t recommend the Wilder Farm enough. The Ingallses and the Wilders are American folk heroes for a reason. They embodied the best of what we Americans strove to be. Sadly, we are not those people any longer. We could be if we made the choice, and these 19th-century families set an example that any of us can adapt and follow.

If you do go, take a moment to stop and touch the sugar maple in the side yard 20 feet from the house. It’s the same tree Almanzo sat under on summer afternoons. While you marvel at this gift from the past, imagine what that 9-year-old boy would think if he could see what it has grown to today.

Josh Slocum

I couldn’t slip through that wrinkle in time 42 years ago, but I managed to do it this year. You can too.

​Farmer boy, Laura ingalls wilder, Lifestyle, Recommendation, Travel, Culture, New york state, Almanzo wilder, Little house on the prairie, Intervention 

Dave Landau has been arrested more than a dozen times, battled drug addiction, watched his mother struggle with severe mental illness, and somehow lived long enough to become a suburban dad complaining about Teslas.

Naturally, he thinks all of this is hilarious.

‘Being a dad, a husband, and 16 years sober is better.’

Sharia lawyer

The Detroit-born comic mines some remarkably dark territory in his new special, “30 Minutes with Dave Landau,” filmed at the Creek and the Cave in Austin and produced by the legendary Luis J. Gomez.

Landau has long put the drinking and the drugs behind him; these days, he says “being a dad, a husband, and 16 years sober is better” than the life that supplied him with so much of his material.

But sober doesn’t mean wholesome. Over the next half hour, Landau moves from Islamic extremism in Michigan to cocaine washing ashore in Florida, his mother’s bipolar disorder, the emasculating effect of electric cars, and being the “only man who can make a Catholic wake sound like a good time.”

Take his crack about Sharia law and Dearborn, a Detroit suburb where the Muslim population has exploded over the last two decades.

“My wife got pulled over there,” the comedian says. “Not for speeding, just for driving a car.”

RELATED: ‘LAND’ MAN: Adam Carolla kills at GOP convention with perfect ‘progressive’ punchline

Vape ’em if you got ’em

Some of Landau’s funniest material concerns becoming a middle-aged dad at a time when dads just don’t command the same respect.

“I miss when we drove muscle cars,” Landau says. “I liked when your dad would come home, you’d hear an engine. He’d come inside, smoke a cigarette, maybe crack a beer.”

Today’s dad glides silently home in a Tesla — which Landau compares to “driving a cell phone” — before walking inside and hitting a vape.

“So you just smell lavender” until Dad “cracks a White Claw,” he jokes.

The indignity is complete when the children greet him: “How was work, p***y?”

Looking back on his single years, Landau jokes that he would have loved living in present-day Miami, where packages of cocaine occasionally wash ashore.

That’s also, he suggests, the real explanation for all those sea turtles found with straws stuck in their noses.

RELATED: NO SHOW: Portuguese comedians quit local festival after it lands Jerry Seinfeld

Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images

Going dark

But that’s just a warm-up for the really dark stuff, like his father being poisoned by chemical exposure while serving in Vietnam and his mother’s severe bipolar disorder and eventual suicide.

Serious bipolar disorder, Landau clarifies. For those who casually describe themselves as bipolar, he has a simple diagnostic question: “You ever wear a wedding dress to your son’s wedding?”

Landau even reaches back three decades to recount a prank in which he and his friends apparently convinced people that an innocent stranger was responsible for one of their buddies ending up pants-less on a pile of garbage.

It’s the kind of story that could seem less funny if you stopped to consider what might have happened to the poor guy afterward.

That’s essentially Landau’s approach to the whole half hour. Addiction, arrests, family tragedy, mental illness: Look too closely at any of these, and “30 Minutes with Dave Landau” could get awfully depressing. Fortunately, Landau’s barrage of laugh lines never gives you that much time to think.

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​Dave landau, Austin, Sharia law, Dearborn michigan, Stand-up comedy, Entertainment 

The brother of the lone holdout juror who sparked a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy murder case revealed new details about his sibling’s controversial decision, according to a new report.

The New York Post interviewed a man the outlet identified as the brother of the unnamed juror who refused to join the other 11 members of the jury in the polarizing case of the Massachusetts mother and the extent of her criminal responsibility in the deaths of her three young children.

‘They won’t leave us alone, and we don’t know anything.’

“He looked at the case, and he made the call,” the brother told the Post. “For me, that’s how I would do it. I would just listen to the case with all the evidence, and go from there.”

The brother noted, “His choice was good for some people, but not good for other people.”

The brother pushed back against unfounded claims that the juror’s Catholic faith influenced his jury decision.

“I don’t think religion had anything to do with it,” the brother stated.

The holdout juror’s family has faced an onslaught of unwanted attention since the high-profile trial ended in a mistrial, according to his brother.

The New York Post reported, “The brother also said that the devoutly Catholic Haitian immigrant clan has been relentlessly hounded by true-crime gawkers and reporters since the juror refused to agree with the 11 others and find Clancy not guilty of murder by reason of insanity after she killed her three kids.”

“My family cannot leave the house,” said the brother — who was not named by the New York Post.

He added, “They are leaving notes at my mother’s house. They won’t leave us alone, and we don’t know anything.”

“People have been calling me like crazy,” the brother said. “It’s crazy.”

RELATED: Allie Beth Stuckey warns against ‘empathy-based justice’ in Lindsay Clancy trial

As Blaze News reported last week, juror Paula Devlin revealed to Gayle King on “CBS Mornings” that the holdout juror was a male “person of color.”

On Monday, Judge William Sullivan of Plymouth Superior Court indefinitely impounded the names of the jurors, citing concerns about their privacy and “real and present” risks of harm.

Judge Sullivan wrote:

Some of the empaneled jurors have come forward and spoken to the media after the declaration of a mistrial on September 4, 2026. However, the majority of the jurors, deliberating and alternates, have maintained their anonymity, despite multiple requests to give statements. The Court concludes that there is a risk of immediate and irreparable injury should the list be made available to the public at this time.

Clancy’s defense did not deny that she fatally strangled her three children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan — with exercise bands and then attempted suicide at their Massachusetts home while the father was running errands.

During the trial, Clancy’s defense argued that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her kids.

After the judge declared a mistrial, Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, made a curious plea to President Donald Trump to pardon his client.

“It’s a very sad situation. I certainly heard that. Look, it’s very sad. There’s no winner there. There’s no win no matter what you do. Three children are dead,” Trump said of the case.

A status hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29, when Clancy’s attorneys are expected to argue against a second trial.

Reddington told “CBS Mornings” he will present a motion to dismiss the case at the hearing.

“It will be a motion to dismiss based on what’s called double jeopardy grounds, because there’s no … manifest necessity,” Reddington stated. “You have to have a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial for obvious reasons — the invested time that the jurors put into it, the court, the staff, the defendant, the prosecution, everybody.”

Meanwhile, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz has not said publicly whether he plans to retry Clancy.

Patrick Clancy, the husband of Lindsay Clancy, is set to appear on “60 Minutes” on Sunday evening.

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​News, Crime, Lindsay clancy, Politics 

For years, lawmakers have debated age verification bills that would restrict internet access to underage users, essentially forcing them out of online platforms and off devices used to share information. Now, California is taking it a step farther with what it calls “the strongest child safety chatbot and social media laws in the nation.”

When it comes to device access for underage users, most conservatives agree that parents should have the power to choose whether or not their child uses a device, logs onto the internet, or opens certain apps and services. The left disagrees, though. In the case of California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), he would rather limit children’s access to social media than allow parents to decide.

The algorithm on social media drives the dissemination of information.

One bill that received the governor’s signature — Assembly Bill 1709 — will completely change the way minors use social media. The document notes that all social media platform holders — like X, Facebook, TikTok, etc. — are banned from “providing an addictive feature” to users under the age of 16.

The bill later goes on to define an “addictive feature” as an algorithmic feed that serves tailored content to the user, content that autoplays in the feed, such as a video or audio, and “any other feature defined in regulations adopted pursuant to Section 22685 as an addictive feature.” That last bit, of course, leaves the door open to label a wider range of features as addictive down the line, should the state of California see fit.

Social media platform holders are required to adhere to these laws for all of their social digital properties, including websites, apps, and services. If any of them fail to comply, they will be slapped with a $50,000 fine for a knowing violation or a $25,000 fine for an incidental violation.

Taken at face value, the bill aims to villainize social media algorithms, suggesting that they’re harmful to underage users, and it’s no surprise. With the social media addiction trials serving as a backdrop for legislation, it was only a matter of time before the government made a move to limit functionality. Of course, as we explained in our past coverage, social media addiction isn’t a real human disorder. Instead, it’s more closely aligned with a bad habit. However, that didn’t stop Newsom from signing the bill anyway.

RELATED: The $1 trillion social media addiction trial has begun — is the disorder real?

SpiffyJ/Getty Images

Governor Newsom is clearly afraid of what might pop up in the social media feeds of underage users. After all, it was the algorithm that showed us the Somali fraud surrounding the Quality Learing Center, exposed the socialist Democrats being crazy again, and shined a light on so many other moments that impacted our politics. Leftists don’t want young people to see these things if they can avoid it. So naturally, underage users — when their minds are most pliable — should be left out.

The algorithm on social media drives the dissemination of information. It puts important topics in front of the user for maximum visibility. Now, that doesn’t mean the algorithm always gets it right. Sometimes it serves garbage, if that is what’s available at the time. Other times, though, it delivers critical news, knowledge, and insights about the world around us.

To exclude young users from this is to intentionally cut them off from current events, instead relegating them to a corner of the internet where they can’t see the things that politicians like Newsom don’t want them to see. Young users are essentially cut off from a vital pipeline of information.

In addition to the social media addiction bill, Newsom signed several other bills into law.

Adam’s Law, named after Adam Raine, who took his life in April after developing an “increasing emotional reliance on ChatGPT,” aims to establish AI safety mechanisms specifically around underage users. The bill forces AI companies to alert parents if their child discusses suicidal thoughts with a bot. Companies must also conduct regular child safety audits and risk assessments.

Next, California expanded its definition of “child sexual exploitation” to include AI-generated content when depicting people under the age of 18 engaged in sexual conduct.

Lastly, advertisers can’t target underage users, nor can AI systems be used in conjunction with student information in schools from K-12.

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​Governor newsom, Social media addiction, Tech, California 

As Republicans head toward what looks like a perilous midterm election, affordability is on everyone’s lips. The Biden administration never convinced voters that it had brought food and housing costs under control. Some Republicans have tried to pretend the problem does not exist; others have acknowledged it without making meaningful progress.

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump made choices that worsened the pressure, from expanding federal spending to deepening costly foreign commitments. Neither party has a durable solution. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $1.9 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2026, and debt held by the public now tops 101% of GDP. Spending and inflation are not accidents at the edge of mass democracy. They follow from its incentives, and nothing will change until the incentives do.

In a democracy, giving voters something is the winning strategy, and Trump likes winning.

The affordability crisis has several causes, but much of the immediate pain comes from the cumulative rise in prices. Wages may rise and bank balances may grow, yet each dollar buys less. Inflation is a pernicious tax precisely because it is hidden. Normal taxes must be enacted and collected openly. No one votes directly for inflation, which instead erodes the value of money people have already earned and saved. It punishes careful savers while rewarding borrowers and speculators.

Deficit spending can fuel inflation when government expands demand faster than the economy can supply goods and services. Creating money makes it easier to distribute benefits today, but it can reduce the currency’s purchasing power tomorrow. Inflation also lightens the real burden of government debt by reducing the value of what was borrowed. The average person, however, rarely has early access to new money or the sophisticated financial instruments wealthy investors use to hedge against rising prices. He feels the loss at the grocery store.

The oldest move in politics is to offer people a material reward for their support. Every system does it, but democracy makes the exchange especially powerful because elections confer legitimacy. A politician rarely calls the arrangement a “bribe.” He routes the benefit through a program aimed at groups likely to reward him at the polls. The legal form gives the transaction respectability, but voters still understand the bargain.

Donald Trump recently dispensed with even that pretense. At the Republican midterm convention last week, he promised $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans retain the House and Senate. An independent estimate put the cost at more than $1.2 trillion, and Congress would have to approve it. Whether the payments ever materialize is not the point. The offer mocks the fiscal restraint conservatives claim to espouse. Conservative commentators objected, but Trump brushed them aside. He understands the incentives. He promised not to cut Social Security and Medicare because benefits win votes. In a democracy, giving voters something is the winning strategy, and Trump likes winning.

RELATED: The GOP still has a loser mentality

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Warnings about democracy long predate modern America. Plato and Aristotle distrusted rule by the demos, and the American founders built a constitutional republic with layers of insulation against popular majorities. Their fear was simple: Once voters discover they can use the state to transfer other people’s money to themselves, restraint collapses. A republic may survive only if institutions impose limits that elections alone will not.

Is the $5,000 check good fiscal policy? Of course not. It’s a disaster. A transfer approaching $1.2 trillion would widen the deficit and almost certainly worsen inflation, especially in an economy already near capacity. Pandemic-era fiscal stimulus did not single-handedly cause the 2021-2022 inflation surge; supply shocks and monetary policy mattered too. But New York Federal Reserve research found that fiscal support contributed materially.

Is the check good politics? Yes. In a democracy, vote-buying is an optimal strategy, and anyone who refuses it risks losing to someone who will. Democrats have principles that let them hand out money and receive praise — and votes. Republicans profess principles that should forbid it. Sound economics grants no electoral advantage.

Reckless spending is terrible policy, but it can win elections. Conservatives may campaign on austerity, but austerity rarely inspires voters. If progressives alone use the winning strategy, conservative fiscal theory becomes irrelevant. Losers do not write budgets or exercise executive power. Both parties therefore spend when they hold office, though they direct the money toward different constituencies. The democratic incentive is to distribute everything you can while you can, because the other side may take power tomorrow and spend it instead.

RELATED: We need lawfare for white men

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The philosopher Nick Land captured the logic in “The Dark Enlightenment”:

As the democratic virus burns through society, painstakingly accumulated habits and attitudes of forward-thinking, prudential, human and industrial investment are replaced by a sterile, orgiastic consumerism, financial incontinence, and a “reality television” political circus. Tomorrow might belong to the other team, so it’s best to eat it all now.

None of this is hopeful. Conservatives have made preserving mass democracy a principle even as the system rewards policies they oppose. A constitutional republic needs constraints on majoritarian appetite, but there is little political will even for modest spending cuts, much less fundamental limits on the franchise. The brutal truth is that both parties will keep spending recklessly while blaming each other for rising debt and prices.

As long as mass democracy reigns, buying votes with public money will remain one of the surest ways to gain and hold power. Every politician wants power.

​Affordability, Austerity, Biden administration, Conservatives, Debt, Deficit spending, Federal spending, Fiscal policy, Government debt, Housing costs, Inflation, Midterm election, Monetary policy, Progressives, Republicans, Spending cuts, Voters, Wages, White men, Opinion & analysis 

The parents of a 5-year-old boy with autism who had been charged with felony assault in Tennessee have filed a lawsuit after a school administrator refused to back down.

The boy had been enrolled at Sumner County’s H.B. Williams Elementary School in the kindergarten class, and school officials were made aware of his special needs.

‘Resorting to legal actions to punish parents for the actions of a 5-year-old child who still needs those supports — that’s just not the way to go.’

The parents said they asked for behavioral support and federal law requires schools to provide extra resources, but the school officials refused and said they would gather their own evidence, according to the lawsuit.

The school agreed to providing an aide after several behavioral incidents involving pushing, shoving, and throwing objects at other children.

The parents said the support came too late.

“When you don’t provide those supports, you can deny rights not only to the child with a disability, but you can risk harming other children,” said Justin Gilbert, the attorney for the family. “It’s a key reminder that there are broad consequences to not providing supports and interventions and paraprofessional roles and special education.”

The child was charged with felony aggravated assault by a school resource officer, but a judge rejected the charges in court in April. He said the child was not competent to stand trial.

Then two of the parents of the boy’s classmates filed their own petitions to charge the child. One of those parents is a Sumner County high school assistant principal.

Gilbert described the case as a “little bit unusual.”

One of the petitions was dropped, but the other by the school official moved forward.

The plaintiffs called the motion “pure vengeance” against the parents and the child.

“Resorting to legal actions to punish parents for the actions of a 5-year-old child who still needs those supports — that’s just not the way to go,” Gilbert added.

RELATED: 2nd grader with horrible injuries dropped off at school — cops say stepmother tortured her

The parents are now suing the district for allegedly violating the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as other federal statues.

“Sometimes you need to stand up for your kids,” Gilbert added. “Sometimes you need to punch the bully back in the mouth, and that’s what the parents are doing here.”

WKRN-TV reached out to Sumner County Schools, the Sumner County district attorney, and the assistant principal for comment.

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​Autism, Special needs, Tennessee, Schools, Crime 

It started as a practical joke.

Rob Schneider teases that his pal Adam Sandler created his, “You can do it!” line from 1998’s “The Waterboy” so people would harass him wherever he went.

‘When you have your friend Charlie Kirk murdered … I don’t know what else you can do but fight for this country.’

And they do, Schneider playfully tells Align, whether he’s having dinner or just walking down the street. It helps that the actor repeated the line in five subsequent films, including last year’s “Happy Gilmore 2.”

“It’s still happening,” Schneider says of the fan reaction. So he decided to lean into the catchphrase. The quote inspired the You Can Do It Foundation, a group that celebrates faith, family, and freedom through the arts — Schneider is the official spokesperson.

Now that nonprofit has teamed up with the American Rights Alliance, an organization that defends constitutional rights through legal advocacy, public policy, and education.

We can do it

Together, the groups created You Can Do It, America! The national initiative will promote “values-driven” media and educational outreach.

And boy, is that content needed today, he says.

Modern schools are “taken over by communist teachers who are now more interested in taking kids out of the classroom to protest against the president who is not the party they approve of and tearing down the structure of our society,” the comic actor says. “We need to have stories to remind people how exceptional the United States is.”

“There may have been 117 billion human beings in the history of the world, but less than 1% of them got to live in a society that has free speech and are able to cast a ballot and were able to benefit from their own labors,” he adds.

It’s serious, sober stuff from the man also known as “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.”

Sacrifice in stride

Schneider’s expansive show-business career began with his standout work on “Saturday Night Live” (1990-1994). He segued seamlessly to the big screen (“The Animal,” “The Hot Chick,” “The Benchwarmers,” “Grown Ups 1 and 2”) while continuing to tour as a stand-up comedian.

He’s still working — he’ll return to the “Grown Ups” franchise next year and reprise the voice of the principal in “Leo 2.” But the roles aren’t coming as frequently as in the past.

That’s not an accident.

“I’ve suffered personally and professionally [for speaking out], but compared to what the ultimate sacrifice is, what Charlie Kirk went through,” he says, his voice trailing off. Failing to make another “Deuce Bigalow” sequel pales in comparison.

Fast friends

Kirk wasn’t just a political figure Schneider admired from afar. The two became friends after Schneider began appearing at Turning Point USA events, including joining Kirk on his college tour. In October 2024, the two appeared together at Grand Canyon University in Arizona, where Schneider got an up-close look at Kirk’s exchanges with students.

Schneider has since said that the experience changed his own thinking. “Charlie did for me what he did for so many university students across this country,” he told an AmFest 2025 audience last December. “He dismantled foundational thinking.”

What seems to have stayed with Schneider most, however, was the way Kirk treated the students who disagreed with him. “Charlie respected the dignity of every human being with love, with Christ’s love,” he said in an interview shortly after Kirk’s murder.

“It was this summer that I’d realized he was a true, authentic American genius,” Schneider said. “He had the intellect and the love of country.”

RELATED: The gift of turning 60

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Media malfeasance

Kirk comes up repeatedly during our own conversation, which we’re having shortly after the one-year anniversary of Kirk’s murder. Schneider shows real passion when he describes what his friend brought to the culture and why his voice mattered.

He’s also furious at what he sees as the media’s character assassination of the late leader. Media outlets, he argues, too often regurgitate false or misleading quotes about Kirk, staining the man’s legacy in the process.

Then-Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah wrote this following Kirk’s death:

“Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence.”

The Post subsequently fired Attiah over her social media posts, although an arbitrator later ordered the newspaper to reinstate her with back pay.

Never mind that Kirk never once “espoused violence” in any of his many public appearances.

“They can repeat it without being accused of character assassination or being liable for slander … an accusation being enough proof,” says Schneider.

“That’s what runs on social media.”

Swimming to Cuba

He’s equally aghast that the Democrats are embracing communism anew, ignoring the ugly historical precedents.

“When the Iron Curtain fell … no one was running to go into communist East Germany … nobody’s swimming to get to Cuba,” he says, later paraphrasing Milton Friedman’s famous line.

“There’s never been a system that has taken more people out of poverty [than capitalism],” he says.

Schneider’s new initiative opens up a world of possibilities, allowing for stories that Hollywood won’t touch.

“I want to see a movie about someone who is de-transitioned, and that’s a TV series I’d like to make,” he says. Schneider also suggests projects about political dissidents here in the U.S., folks who have been targeted by groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Schneider has built up decades of goodwill with his warmhearted comedies and timeless “SNL” routines. But something else has connected him to his fans in recent years: his willingness to speak boldly about the state of the country in ways that most celebrities would never attempt.

“I can’t go anywhere without someone coming up and hugging me, shaking my hand. ‘Thank you for speaking up and being our voice,’” he says. “I’m just a simple comedian. I’m a college dropout … I make silly movies, but at a certain point I’m fed up. And if I can speak for some Americans and make them feel emboldened …”

“When you have your friend Charlie Kirk murdered … I don’t know what else you can do but fight for this country, in a way that I can, through the culture and whatever platform I have,” he says.

​Rob schneider, Happy gilmore, Adam sandler, Charlie kirk, Turning point usa, Culture, Media, Lifestyle, You can do it america, Hollywood, Interview