The chances of a socialist democrat becoming mayor of Los Angeles appeared to collapse after Spencer Pratt obliterated her during their recent debate.

Pratt crushed City Councilwoman Nithya Raman when she tried to claim that her policies had succeeded in easing the homelessness crisis in L.A., and the moment went viral on social media soon afterward.

‘Before any polls or punditry, prediction markets quantified exactly what we all saw with our eyes: the Titanic hitting an iceberg.’

Although polling since the debate has not yet been released, the Kalshi prediction market documented that Raman’s chances to win the election have absolutely cratered.

At one point in late April, Kalshi predicted that Raman had an astounding 64% chance of winning the mayoral race. After the debate on Wednesday, her chances precipitously dropped to 14% — a loss of 50 percentage points.

Much of that may have been her unsteady and unsure performance during the debate. When challenged on homelessness, Raman stumbled after Pratt beat her down.

“The reality is, no matter how many beds you give these people, they are on super meth,” Pratt explained about the homelessness crisis. “They are on fentanyl. The DEA statistic says 93% of this is a drug addiction problem. I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with [Raman], and we can find some of these people she’s going to offer treatment for. She’s going to get stabbed in the neck!”

While some have doubted the value of prediction markets, BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere explained how they can be a leading indicator before polling can be completed.

“This is something that prediction markets do incredibly well,” he said. “Before any polls or punditry, prediction markets quantified exactly what we all saw with our eyes: the Titanic hitting an iceberg.”

He also pointed out that the large drop in her support was even worse than that of former President Joe Biden just before he dropped out of his re-election campaign in 2024.

“Joe Biden only dropped about 15 percentage points after his debate. That’s how bad she was,” said Burguiere of Raman.

RELATED: LA Times torched for trying to disqualify Pratt for mayor — because his home burned down

Raman has also pulled out of another mayoral debate, though she was preceded by incumbent L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Pratt as well. The debate has since been canceled.

Polling before the debate had Pratt in second place with 10% support and Bass in first place with 25%, but another 40% remained undecided, keeping the election up in the air.

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​Los angeles mayoral election, Spencer pratt, Pratt vs nithya raman, Prediction markets, Politics 

Christian persecution is happening around the world, and in some places that you would never expect — including Mexico.

Open Doors US CEO Ryan Brown tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey that his organization has a World Watch List that tracks persecution across the globe, and what’s happening inside America’s southern neighbor is shocking, to say the least.

“One of the very also present realities there are with the cartels and organized crime,” Brown tells Stuckey, explaining that the cartels target Christians because the church is “bad for business.”

Christianity hurts the cartels, as it keeps young men from getting drafted into their ranks as well as stops potential drug or alcohol users from buying what they make their living on.

This is why many cartel leaders view the Christian church as a threat, and sometimes they “strike with violence” in retaliation.

One Christian church, Brown explains, was targeted by the cartel for not doing as they said.

“The cartels came in one night … with guns ablazing … and, you know, forced people out with the clothes on their back. They corralled them in a school building and held them captive there, wouldn’t allow them to escape, wanted people to see that they were being held there,” he recalls.

“There was one bucket in the middle of the room to utilize as the bathroom for a period of 10 days. No water provided. They had to drink water from puddles,” he continues.

There’s also an area of several states in Mexico called “the circle of silence.”

Geographically these states form a circle and represent an area where Christianity and Catholicism are not heavily represented.

“So, you know, there is not a strong presence of the church there to vocalize and to make the message of the gospel known. So, that’s one area of silence,” Brown tells Stuckey.

“They want no presence of Christianity there. They want it to be silenced,” he adds.

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​Captive hostages, Cartel leaders, Cartel targets, Christian persecution, Circle of silence, Gospel message, Mexican cartels, Mexico, Open door, Organized crime, Presence of church, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Ryan brown, Silencing christianity, Targeted church, World watch list, Threat to cartel, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals 

The Virginia Supreme Court sent Democrats into conniptions with a ruling on Friday striking down as unconstitutional a ballot measure that would have all but guaranteed their party another four seats in the U.S. Congress.

Democrats’ desperation to force through their illegal power-grab in the wake of the 4-3 decision now has them considering truly extreme options, including lowering the retirement age for justices on the Old Dominion’s high court, purging its current lineup, and stacking it with liberals.

‘Baby steps.’

While their comrades plot alternative ways of disenfranchising millions of Republican voters in Virginia, Democratic state officials are trying to get the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their gerrymandering initiative.

The Democrats behind the likely doomed petition are, however, having difficulties with spelling and differentiating between disparate courts.

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, House Speaker Don Scott, and President Pro Tempore of the Virginia Senate Louise Lucas filed a joint motion late on Friday asking the Old Dominion’s Supreme Court to delay its order invalidating the gerrymander referendum and the corresponding constitutional amendment proposed on the ballot while they appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) highlighted a glaring spelling error in the court filing, which was submitted by state Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge. Near the top, Virginia House of Delegates was spelled “Virgnia House of Delegates.”

RELATED: Democrats propose purging Virginia Supreme Court so they can force through illegal power-grab

Mike Kropf-Pool/Getty Images

Miyares wrote, “If you are going to appeal to SCOTUS maybe don’t misspell Virginia?”

Other keen observers — including Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon — pointed out that in the document, “senator” was spelled “sentator.”

Miyares continued: “This is a motion that has zero chance to succeed and is [a] Hail Mary to save face after wasting $70 million in political money and $10 million in taxpayer money on an illegal, unconstitutional gerrymandering amendment. This motion will be declared dead on arrival.”

Democratic Virginia officials — evidently willing to test Miyares’ theory that their motion “will be declared dead on arrival” — filed an emergency application on Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting a stay of the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision that they claimed was “deeply mistaken on two critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.”

The emergency application not only contained the Democratic officials’ previous embarrassing spelling mistakes but a brand-new error on the first page, referring to an “emergency application to the Supreme Court of Virginia,” rather than the Supreme Court of the United States.

“Good News: Dems managed to spell Virginia correctly,” Miyares wrote on Tuesday. “Bad News: They sent their emergency application to SCOTUS to the wrong court. Baby steps.”

U.S. Supreme Court

Miyares’ quip aside, the Virginia Democrats managed to get their mistitled petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Even still, Edward Whelan, a legal scholar and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, discovered other possible problems. “Very weird that cover page states ‘On Emergency Application to the Supreme Court of Virginia,'” noted Whelan. “That’s the styling for a petition for a writ of certiorari, but it makes no sense to say that the emergency application is ‘to’ the Supreme Court of Virginia.”

But the greater blunder, suggested Whelan, is that the Democratic petitioners do not appear to be asking for the right relief.

“Even if the Supreme Court were to grant Virginia’s emergency application for a stay (it won’t), that would still leave in place the lower-court injunction that the state supreme court affirmed,” wrote Whelan.

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​Appeal, Assistant attorney general, Democrat, Democrats, Emergency application, Gerrymander, High court, Humiliation, Jay jones, Legal scholar, Political money, Richmond, Spelling error, Supreme court, Unconstitutional ballot measure, Us congress, Us supreme court, Virginia, Virginia attorney general, Virginia supreme court, Politics 

A large group of teenagers on e-bikes allegedly ganged up on a man who was riding a scooter with his wife on the boardwalk in Huntington Beach, California, over the weekend — and kicked and stomped him and hit him in the face with a glass bottle, KTLA-TV reported.

The Huntington Beach Police Department confirmed to KTLA that a report was taken in connection with the incident, which occurred around 8 p.m. Saturday in the area of 103 Pacific Coast Highway.

‘Come here on Friday night, on Saturday night. … It’s chaos; it’s terror.’

Sam El-Said — a business owner — told the station he and his wife were riding home when he noticed a few hundred teens, many of them with e-bikes, gathered on the beach, the boardwalk, and a nearby grassy area.

El-Said told KTLA he slowed down to navigate through the crowd, when someone threw a glass bottle that hit him in the face; he added to the station that bottle either shattered on impact or was already broken, and it left him with minor injuries.

After he stopped and got off his scooter to see what happened, El-Said told KTLA someone knocked him to the ground from behind, after which as many as six teens kicked and stomped him while he was down.

Cellphone video caught the final moments of the alleged attack, and it shows one teen dressed in a dark Playboy hoodie being pulled away from the victim, who was on his hands and knees in the sand.

Some teens are heard hooting and laughing on video during the aftermath of the attack.

KTLA said that when El-Said rose to his feet, blood was running down his face, red marks were visible near his left temple and cheekbone, and blood also was on the fingers of his left hand.

RELATED: Mom of teen thug arrested after body-slamming, head-stomping much smaller girl says he’s a ‘humble,’ ‘quiet’ Christian

Police told the station that El-Said was able to detain one of the teens involved, and that teen was arrested and cited for misdemeanor battery.

Authorities told KTLA that the victim declined medical treatment at the scene.

El-Said, who also suffered a black eye, noted to the station that he and his wife moved to Huntington Beach three years ago for a better quality of life — and the incident demonstrates to him that law enforcement needs to take a stronger stance against such crime.

“Come here on Friday night, on Saturday night, to this very spot and see what this looks like,” he told KTLA. “It’s chaos; it’s terror. If nothing happens and things don’t change, we’re going to keep seeing incidents like what happened to me, but far worse.”

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​California, E-bikes, Ebikes, Huntington beach, Man attacked, Misdemeanor battery, Physical attack, Teen arrested, Teen mob, Crime 

The U.S. Dept. of Justice announced that the mayor of a city in Southern California has agreed to plead guilty to operating as a spy for China for two years.

Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang agreed to resign from office after she was federally charged with acting as an illegal agent for a foreign country, according to statements on the city’s website.

‘How many more are there?’

“Mayor Wang admitted to acting as a foreign agent from at least 2020 through 2022 — promoting PRC propaganda in the U.S. and acting at PRC’s direction to promote their interests,” wrote FBI Director Kash Patel on social media. “She has agreed to resign from office and plead guilty.”

Wang pled guilty in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday and now faces 10 years in prison, the New York Post reported.

Wang ran a website called the U.S. News Center that claimed to be a resource for the local Chinese-American community along with Yaoning “Mike” Sun.

Sun was Wang’s campaign manager and fiancé. Both admitted to receiving and executing “directives from PRC (People’s Republic of China) government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website.” They also “sometimes sought approval from PRC government officials to circulate other pro-PRC content,” the DOJ said in the plea agreement, according to ABC News.

In one example from Nov. 2021, Wang wanted to promote an article about the Chinese and Russian ambassador calling on Americans to respect the “democratic rights” of the PRC, the DOJ said.

A statement from the Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said that none of the spying activity was conducted while Wang was in office.

“We understand this news raises serious concerns, and we want to be direct with our community about what we know and where we stand,” wrote Lazzaretto on the city’s website.

“The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling,” he added. “We want to be clear: This investigation concerns individual conduct, and the charges are for conduct that ceased after Ms. Wang was sworn into office in December 2022.”

Lazzaretto indicated no city actions need to be invalidated despite accusations that the mayor worked as a spy for China.

“Following an internal review, we can confirm that no city finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved,” he added.

Sun had been arrested in Dec. 2024 on suspicion of conspiring with Chen Jun, aka John Chen, a Chinese national who had been convicted of federal crimes, as previously reported by Blaze News. Sun was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison in Jan. 2025.

RELATED: Retired Air Force major allegedly trained Chinese pilots — spying, hacking network involved

The alarming development bolstered critics of China, who warned about communist-funded infiltration into American society, including local governments as well as institutions of learning.

“How many more are there?” wondered Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.

“Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States that they represent,” said John Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for National Security.

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​Arcadia mayor eileen wang, Chinese spy convicted, Communist china infiltration, Socal chinese spy, Politics 

The Department of War has begun releasing the UFO files — and the most recent footage has left Americans questioning what they’re really seeing.

Ross Patterson of the “Drinkin’ Bros Podcast” tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales that conversations he’s had with insiders over the years have left him convinced that something far stranger may be happening behind the scenes.

“I’ve got some insight into this. It’s super weird,” he says, recalling a conversation with the late producer John Brenkus, who used to “host all of those UFO shows on Sci-Fi Channel for years.”

“I asked him, ‘Hey, let’s get real here. What’s the actual sitch?’ And he goes, ‘Look, do I think they’re manned by an alien, like a person?’”

“He goes, ‘No, I think the tech is so advanced. If they’re sending things here, … you don’t need to man that,’” he explains.

Patterson likens it to manning a drone, where there’s no risk of an occupant being injured.

And while he admits he’s “not a conspiracy dude,” he explains that some of the “crazier stories” he’s heard from “friends over there” involve “communication” with other “beings” over the years.

“They have a unique way of talking,” he tells Gonzales, noting that according to his source, it took years to figure out a code in order to communicate.

“I said, ‘Well, what were the conversations like?’” he recalls. “And they said it was mostly about energy and how they were able to use magnetic fields.”

While Patterson admits he doesn’t “know what’s real and what’s not,” there are a few theories he’s entertaining regarding the files — one of them being that their release is a “cover-up” to distract from the Epstein files.

“But I don’t know,” he says, adding that another theory is that “Hollywood has always been in communication with the White House and then pumping out movies to get Americans used to what’s coming.”

The most recent example is a new Steven Spielberg film about an alien encounter that will be released in June. The film is called “Disclosure Day,” which Spielberg himself said is “more truth than fiction.”

“He didn’t expand on it,” he adds.

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​Alien encounter, Blaze media, Blaze news, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Blaze podcast network, Blaze podcasts, Blazetv, Conspiracy theories, Department of war, Disclosure day, Epstein files, John brenkus, Magnetic fields, Ross patterson, Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Scifi channel, Steven spielberg, The blaze, Truth than fiction, Ufo files, Ufo shows, White house 

The Amazon Kindle was released on November 19, 2007. A little tablet full of countless books you can take with you anywhere — it was a cool idea then, and I suppose it’s still a cool idea now. Over the years there have been a bunch of new versions. Amazon updated theirs, and other companies have released their own versions of what is now known as an e-reader.

My wife’s got one. She just bought it a few months ago. She wanted it because she was sick of looking at her phone when nursing our daughter in the middle of the night. It’s worked well. She hasn’t been scrolling; she’s been reading instead.

Sometimes I like thinking about my kids coming across my books when I’m old or dead and gone and finding these little things I’ve written.

I’ve held hers and played with it a little. It’s very cool, and I want to like it. I want to load one up with lots of books, read it on the airplane or right before I drift off after midnight with all the lights off in the bedroom, and join the future with all other fellow e-readers (the people, not the object).

But I just can’t; I like books too much.

Judging covers

I like the way the real pages feel on the pads of my fingers. I like how it sounds when I flip the page. I like to fold back the edge and mark my spot. There’s something about the smell too, especially the old books. You know that smell, don’t you? If you put your nose near the inside of the binding and sniff, you will get it. It’s the faint scent of a college library and an old house.

I love the covers of paperbacks and how they change over the years as new editions are released. I most particularly love the old(ish) ones most. I can always pinpoint the decade based on the fonts and colors. It’s funny how deeply infused a book is with the aesthetic sensibilities of the decade in which it was printed and just how easy it is to discern when one was released.

The 60s were simple and modern. The 70s had loopy fonts with lots of brown, greens, and yellows. The 80s were colorful with floral patterns, some neon, and sharp lines. The 90s were classy and simple with understated serifs and an air of sophistication.

Paperback delighter

One of my favorite things to do is lie in the hammock on a Saturday afternoon reading. A small, flimsy paperback in my right hand, two fingers on the inside holding the pages open, and three others on the outside for support. The summer breeze, the leaves on the birch above, the ropes of the hammock on my back, and a little paperback.

I love to write in my books too, mostly the more intellectual ones. I underline sentences, bracket paragraphs of importance, and write things in the margins. They are things I want to remember. Even if I don’t know when I will come back to the book again, I want to make a note in the event I do. Sometimes I like thinking about my kids coming across my books when I’m old or dead and gone and finding these little things I’ve written. Maybe they will want to read what I wrote; maybe they won’t.

I’ve heard that we don’t remember words we read on the screen as much as words we read on a page. I don’t know the science behind it, but I feel like it’s true — or at least it is for me and my wife. I asked her what she thought as a newly minted e-reader enjoyer, and she said she agrees. She said it feels like she remembers ever so slightly less. Like it doesn’t stick quite as much or like it just doesn’t go deep enough into her brain.

Slightly foxed

The books on the e-reader remain perfect forever. They look the exact same on every single device. In the event the device falls in the lake, you might be out $200, but soon enough you’ll have a new one, and all 500 books will appear on that little screen just as they were before.

Real books don’t stay perfect for very long. The pages get bent, the binding gets broken, the margins are full of ink, and the edges of the pages yellow as the years pass. The more we read a book, the more we know a book, and the more beaten a book becomes. Old floppy paperbacks that look like they’ve been through a war are coveted in the same way leather bags with beautiful patina are.

I want to like the e-reader. I want to join the future. I would feel so futuristic and so efficient with one in my hand. But I can’t, and I won’t. I like the physicality of books too much. I like the wear they have; I like the time they show; I like the fact they tell a story of who and where we were when we read them.

​Men’s style, Books, Kindle, E-readers, Amazon, Lifestyle, Culture, Family life, The root of the matter 

Last month, while many veterans celebrated Joe Rogan and President Donald Trump’s support for psychedelic drugs, those in the Huntington’s disease community like me faced another disappointment. UniQure, a company with a promising treatment, may be abandoning the U.S. market because of bureaucratic roadblocks.

I’m not the president or the world’s most popular podcaster. What I am is a daughter who has tested positive for the Huntington’s disease gene and will one day exhibit the same symptoms of this disease that ate away at my father’s personality and his mind until he took his own life.

The FDA’s answer always seems to be the same when it comes to rare disease treatments: Wait, wait, and then wait some more.

I have advocated for the Huntington’s disease community, both in my father’s memory and with the hope that my future will be different from his. The outlook is dim for those like me unless the Food & Drug Administration allows access to treatments like AMT-130, which UniQure is now advancing first in the U.K. after the FDA’s unreasonable demands pushed the United States down the priority list.

Those demands are disastrous for Huntington’s disease patients. Launching a placebo trial under the FDA’s proposed new criteria would require non-therapeutic injections into the brains of study patients — hardly aligning with medical ethics.

Even without the basic inhumanity of this type of trial, Huntington’s patients simply cannot afford the years it would take to complete it. We are living on a much shorter timeline, defined by a merciless disease that is both progressive and fatal.

I’m glad that veterans are getting the attention they deserve and that they have the support of influencers like Rogan. But it raises an important question: Why should it take a celebrity and the president to push the FDA to follow basic common sense and medical best practices?

For years, the rare-disease community has done everything we were told would make a difference. We organized, advocated, and pushed for change with whatever strength we had, often while managing devastating diagnoses and worsening symptoms.

Parents of children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Sanfilippo syndrome, to name but two groups, have advocated while watching their children decline.

The FDA’s answer always seems to be the same when it comes to rare disease treatments: Wait, wait, and then wait some more. That means we’re running down hours on a clock that ticks ominously louder with every passing month. We don’t have time for years of unnecessary testing.

RELATED: Want to live to 100? Don’t expect Big Pharma to help.

Tom Merton/Getty Images

Rogan’s intervention shows that the system can move quickly when it wants to — certainly the president will listen when voices with direct access amplify a cause. Now we need to see that same urgency applied to treatments for rare diseases.

Families like mine are not looking for special treatment. We are only asking for the choice to take the risk of trying new medicines when all the old options have failed. After all, we know the future that awaits us.

President Trump already made the right move with the Right to Try Act, which gives terminally ill patients a pathway to access potentially lifesaving or life-extending treatments. It is critical that he push FDA officials to commit to the same right-to-try principles he championed in his first term.

Scientists are making incredible strides in treating rare diseases. But that innovation only matters if patients are allowed to use treatments already developed. Adults like me, and kids with terminal rare diseases whose parents approve, are absolutely willing to accept any risk that comes with trying a new therapy.

Until someone steps up to bat for people like me, our only alternative is the certainty of an illness that will slowly, relentlessly ruin our lives and then snuff them out.

​Big pharma, President donald trump, Veterans, Innovation, Huntington’s disease, Right to try act, Fda, Clinical trials, Experimental treatment, Medical ethics, Opinion & analysis