Remember around 2018 or so, when reviews on Rotten Tomatoes suddenly became suspicious?

Like movies that hit all the left-wing, DEI talking points would get 98% Fresh ratings from the critics, but then when regular people started weighing in, the audience meter would drop precipitously?

Paul Dano’s Baranov is fascinating. He’s the opposite of a typical Russian movie character. He’s sensitive, intelligent, creative, and socially aristocratic.

Or when a movie like “Sound of Freedom” came out and all the critics panned it because it was produced by a non-Hollywood Christian studio. But then, everyone who saw it loved it?

Generally, I still consult Rotten Tomatoes. But in any situation where a film can be seen as “political” or might touch on a controversial subject, I become skeptical.

Such was the case with “The Wizard of the Kremlin.” It was already getting roasted months before its release. Apparently, our brave American critics wanted to virtue signal their personal animosity toward Putin.

Because of this, I became interested in the film. If the critics hate it, it’s probably good.

RELATED: MacIntyre: The real reason journalists hate ‘Sound of Freedom’

Getty Images

Vive le cinéma!

Another aspect of the film I was excited about: It was made by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas. Not that the French are so independent-minded, but Hollywood filmmakers are literally incapable of addressing international politics above a sixth-grade level.

The French though. They’ve been through some stuff. They’re not afraid to talk about international affairs in a serious, adult manner.

Another thing that recommended the movie: the casting of Jude Law as Putin and Paul Dano as Baranov, his close personal adviser. (Baranov is a fictional character, almost everyone else is real.)

When I heard this, I thought: “Oh my goodness, this movie is going to be brilliant.”

Another good sign: The film was adapted from an acclaimed French novel by the same name. So the story was already established. The film just had to follow it.

Story of my life

The movie begins in the present, with an American journalist traveling to Russia to interview Baranov (Paul Dano) about his former role in the Putin administration.

Through this interview, Baranov tells the story of his life, which begins in the ’80s and moves through the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Putin.

The film’s portrayal of life at the end of the Soviet Union was super interesting, in part because we rarely see this in films.

The avant-garde theater scene in Moscow in the late 1980s? Could you even picture that? I couldn’t. Until I saw it.

All the Russian interiors were super interesting. And the clothes. And the nightclubs. The supporting actors all looked very Russian. The whole thing was fun to look at. This was the end of the dowdy Soviet Union and the beginning of the reign of the gangster oligarchs.

No rush

It took 40 minutes for Putin to appear. This built suspense. You’re sitting there enjoying Paul Dano as Baranov, and then you remember Jude Law is still to come. Jude Law as Putin!

Meanwhile, Paul Dano’s Baranov is already fascinating. He’s the opposite of a typical Russian movie character. He’s sensitive, intelligent, creative, and socially aristocratic (his father and grandfather were high-level Communist Party members).

He speaks in a soft, unhurried voice. But with his big, wide, puffy face, he still looks totally Russian!

The whole “you’re in Russia” conceit was great. I don’t know if this was actually filmed in Russia, but it sure felt like Russia. (I noticed in the credits there were a few mentions of Latvia. So maybe they shot some of it there.)

Putin on the Ritz

So finally, 40 minutes in, we get our first look at Putin. In the beginning, it’s Baranov and his boss (they both work for Russian TV) who are recruiting the reluctant KGB agent.

They think Russia needs a new style of leader, someone young and energetic. They’ll help him. They’ll guide him. They’ll make sure he wins.

But Putin isn’t receptive. He’s happy where he is.

But once he gets a sniff of power, Putin rises quickly. Only Baranov is able to remain in his good graces, due to his low-key, soft-spoken manner.

Jude Law as Putin was hilarious. I laughed to myself when he first appeared. Not that it was intentionally funny. It was just a relief, and a little bit shocking, to finally see him.

It was actually a very good rendition. It was not politicized. Jude Law did the Putin scowl and facial and body expressions. It was really good. I was kind of blown away.

Smart art

Honestly, I was blown away by the whole movie. It was funny, moving, smart. It did have moments where plot points had to be explained to the audience, forcing characters to make little speeches of exposition. But that always happens when you adapt from a book.

There were also some historical/political plot points that I would maybe question. But this movie is designed for a European/American audience and has to adhere generally to our Western understanding of Putin and his crew. Because of this, Putin is ultimately “the bad guy.”

But he’s definitely a fully fleshed-out character in the film. When they show him hanging out with his old KGB buddies, you get a sense of the man behind the scenes.

“The Wizard of the Kremlin”: It was the most intelligent movie I’ve seen in years. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommend.

A version of this review originally appeared on the Substack Travels to Distant Cities.

​Jude law, Paul dano, Sound of freedom, French filmmaker oliver assayas, Culture, Movies, The wizard of the kremlin, Vladimir putin, Rotten tomatoes, Review 

Much of the internet is advertising in disguise, according to digital marketers who have worked with some of the biggest names in entertainment.

The information backs the popular Dead Internet theory, which alleges that most of what is seen online is populated mostly by bots, not actual human accounts.

‘Popular opinion is being formed, measured, and manipulated all at once.’

A recent interview with Joe Lim revealed the disturbing truth about the online marketing industry. Lim told Vulture that he ran a company called Floodify, which positioned itself as an agency that spreads content “organically.”

However, Lim told the outlet that 90% of online content is advertising, a lot of which he did himself. At his company’s peak, he controlled 65,000 dummy accounts on social media in order to fake trending content for paid clients.

Lim said he promoted music for all the major record labels and worked with top celebrities, saying that he garnered 40 million views for an artist who only had 100,000 followers.

A Billboard interview from late March revealed much of the same. Co-founders of digital promotion agency Chaotic Good Projects Jesse Coren and Andrew Spelman said they promoted artists’ songs by getting them plugged into fan pages, meme pages, and sports clips as the background music.

Spelman called the tactic “trend simulation” and used the motto “everything on the internet is fake.”

At the same time, Coren added, “I don’t know if this will make anyone feel better, but a lot of what we do on the narrative side is controlling the discourse. … That first comment [users] see becomes their opinion, even when they haven’t heard the whole album.”

RELATED: Trump phones begin shipping as liberal media melts down: ‘You got scammed’

Xinhua/Chen Junqing/Getty Images

New York Magazine noted that a writer named Lane Brown has been monitoring paid campaigns for artists like Justin Bieber. Lane said the idea or the “feeling” that everyone is talking about or seeing the same thing organically is a product of online manipulation.

“On social media, popular opinion is being formed, measured, and manipulated all at once, and every signal the platforms produce — a trending song, a backlash, a talking point, the feeling that ‘everybody’ is suddenly talking about the same thing — can now be fabricated by unseen actors with hidden agendas,” Brown said.

According to Vulture, these campaigns come from the labels or studios and even political operatives; it could be anyone. They hire a company to turn their content into clips by sending it out to a network of editors, who then push the material out to “normal-looking accounts.”

RELATED: Swedish government wants tracking devices on children — and it’s already watching them

Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg/Getty Images

All of this lends credence to the Dead Internet theory, which has its basis in the fact that internet traffic from bots surpassed human traffic in 2016. That view has been perpetuated well into the modern era, with some now stating that simple bots have been taken over by AI bots, with AI bots reportedly growing by more than 8,000% since 2025.

As for Lim, he shut down his company after he accidentally posted the same video to 7,000 accounts, which he said got them all banned.

Lim said people will soon stop trusting social media — he claims in three to five years — and his plan is to start distributing content through AI, which he believes will find a way to convince humans of what they want.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Ai, Ai chatbots, Online bots, Online marketing industry, Social media, Tech, Trend simulation tactic, Ai bots growth, Trends, Online trends, Online advertising, Return 

With so much bad news in the world, it is worth pausing for one encouraging development: Marty Makary finally resigned as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration last week.

Makary’s tenure at the FDA was marred by internal scandals, forced resignations, dreadful morale, and record staff turnover. More important, he actively sandbagged President Trump’s push to expand clinical trials for rare diseases through the aptly named “right-to-try” framework.

Trump’s next appointee should restore the spirit of right to try and make safe, effective treatments available to children as quickly as possible.

The idea behind right to try is straightforward. Patients with rare conditions, especially those for whom conventional medicine has failed, should have the freedom to pursue experimental treatments that have not yet received full FDA approval. Families fighting the clock have little left to lose. Government should not stand between them and a potentially lifesaving breakthrough.

Makary did.

Members of the MPS community sent more than 10 letters asking Makary for a meeting. They got a form letter in return. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) later announced an investigation into the FDA’s denials. Makary’s agency responded by claiming approvals were already “at their peak.” The Wall Street Journal took notice of the FDA’s foot-dragging last year, yet the agency kept rejecting relevant rare-disease treatments in early 2026, including RGX-121 and drugs from Biohaven and Saol Therapeutics.

That stonewalling forced families to escalate.

In March, more than 100 mothers and other advocates staged a mock funeral outside FDA offices. Dressed in black and carrying a real coffin, they sought to draw attention to a group of rare metabolic disorders known as mucopolysaccharidoses. These disorders can show up as mild symptoms such as depression or hyperactivity, or as devastating conditions such as heart disease and skeletal abnormalities.

Many MPS disorders still have no approved treatments, even though they can severely diminish children’s quality of life or kill them outright. The FDA’s regulatory process serves a legitimate purpose. But when a bureaucracy grows so rigid, self-protective, and arrogant that it blocks desperately ill children from access to promising therapies, it stops functioning as a safeguard and starts functioning as a death sentence.

Mark Dant of the Ryan Foundation told Newsweek that some of these drugs were denied because of the FDA’s institutional “dislike” of the accelerated-approval pathway. “For decades we waited for science to find our tomorrows,” he said. “Now it has, and bureaucrats within the agency we pay for are keeping those treatments from our children. We know they are there. … We just cannot reach them.”

RELATED: The FDA seems to care more about celebrities than sick Americans

Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Makary’s resignation will not undo the damage. But it does create an opening. We may not yet know what the FDA’s next leadership will look like, but Trump’s appointee should restore the spirit of right to try and make safe, effective treatments available to children as quickly as possible.

Across the world, in the nation of Georgia, parents have staged a protest lasting more than 500 consecutive days, maintaining a round-the-clock presence outside the main government building in Tbilisi. They are willing to risk everything to give their children the best chance at life. Americans should not have to camp outside federal offices for 500 days to get their government to listen.

The new FDA leadership must explain denials of right-to-try clinical trials with enough specificity that sponsors and families understand what evidence could change the decision. Patient and caregiver testimony should shape decisions early, not get folded in at the end as a token gesture. And Congress must demand transparency without turning each drug review into a partisan circus.

Children’s lives are not bargaining chips. The FDA exists to serve the public, not to protect its own bureaucracy from embarrassment. If Makary’s departure opens the door to that truth, families battling ultra-rare diseases may finally have reason to hope.

​Bureaucracy, Drug approval, Fda, Marty makary, Mps, President trump, Science, Transparency, Opinion & analysis 

Thousands of Americans gathered Sunday on the National Mall for Rededicate 250 — an event aimed not only at preparing the United States for its 250th birthday with prayer, Scripture, and song but also recommitting America to uniting as “one nation, under god.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, among those who addressed the multitudes, led believers in a prayer of rededication.

‘Quoting the Declaration of Independence is now putting God over the Declaration of Independence, I guess?’

In his prayer, Johnson noted that God’s “mighty hand has been upon our nation since the very beginning”; that God is the source of America’s many blessings; and that America is a nation premised on biblical and foundational principles.

Johnson also emphasized twice in the prayer that Americans’ inalienable rights derive from the Creator.

In the second instance, the Republican stated that individuals captive to “sinister ideologies” have “sought to distort the self-evident truth that we know so well and that our founders boldly proclaim in the Declaration: that our rights do not derive from the government. They come from you, our Creator and heavenly Father.”

MS NOW talking head Katy Tur evidently had difficulty processing the ancient and self-evident truth that rights aren’t sourced from men or their documents but from the Divine.

“What about this passage from Mike Johnson declaring that our rights do not derive from government? ‘They come from you, our Creator and heavenly Father,'” Tur said on Monday to panelists on her show. “Is this him putting God over the Declaration of Independence?”

RELATED: When Archie Comics found Jesus: Strange artifacts from a once-Christian culture

Photo12/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

The very document that Tur apparently fears being subordinated to the Creator states in its preamble, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

One of Tur’s panelists, Atlantic writer McKay Coppins, responded by noting that the “idea” that man’s rights come from God “is not wholly uncommon” and not “totally abnormal.”

Tur subsequently suggested that Johnson’s remarks, in the “context of this rally,” signal “the move toward Christian nationalism being more embedded in this culture.” She added that “the idea that the rights divine, or are divined from a higher power — you can say that across multiple religions, yes, but this is not representing multiple religions.”

Tur’s attempt to concern-monger over Johnson’s statements prompted swift backlash and mockery from conservatives and others familiar with the Declaration of Independence.

Sean Davis, co-founder of the Federalist, wrote, “Unreal. Literal retards.”

Texas state Rep. Mitch Little (R) tweeted, “Quoting the Declaration of Independence is now putting God over the Declaration of Independence, I guess? Someone run to the gift shop and get Katy a copy, pls.”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz expressed confusion about how Tur could “be so historically ignorant.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Ms now, Katy tur, Liberal media, Christian, Rededicate 250, Christianity, Faith, Religion, God, Self-evident truths, Rights, Unalienable rights, Divine, Government, Mike johnson, Politics 

A female candidate running for Congress in Michigan is testing the old adage that, when it comes to politics, there’s no such thing as negative attention.

Shelby Campbell, a 32-year-old apparently self-described “c***,” is looking to unseat far-left radical Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar in the 13th district of Michigan, which includes Detroit and some neighboring cities. Thanedar was first elected in 2022.

There is also at least one video in which she imagines the genitalia of one of her male commenters.

To draw attention to her campaign, Campbell has released dozens of TikTok videos discussing, among other vulgar topics, how “f***able” she is, the explicit alleged circumstances surrounding the conception of the unborn child she claims to have aborted in 2023, and the fact that she “got some last night.”

In multiple videos, Campbell flips the bird, while in other videos, she performs highly suggestive dance moves to songs with pornographic lyrics. In some, she even dances on a stripper pole, sometimes with a flag that reads “p***y power” in the background.

In one particularly uncouth alleged video that appears to have been deleted, she positions the camera to film up her shorts, then says, “I am a c***. Great. But would you know a cl** if you saw one?”

There is also at least one video in which she imagines the genitalia of one of her male commenters.

According to her campaign website, Campbell believes she can represent the 13th district well because she speaks the “language” of the people there and “can translate the lived experiences of working people into real policy.” Perhaps to demonstrate her street cred, Campbell admits on the site that she has “been to jail” and even provides mug shots that document four arrests between 2012 and 2015.

“I’m not here to pretend I’m perfect,” her website says.

“Leadership is shaped by lived experience, not perfection.”

Her crude videos may have made the news, but she does have a political platform. She supports the Green New Deal, denounces capitalism as obsolete, demands “housing justice,” slams “white women” for letting down their black sisters, and even though she claims to be a member of the United Auto Workers union and is vying to represent the Motor City, Campbell wants to increase public transportation and “reduce car dependency.”

A caption in a video Campbell posted in December said that Charlie Kirk “died for what he believed in quit crying about it.”

She also attended a No Kings rally in March and brought a sign reading “F**k ICE.” Another similarly themed sign reads, “I like my ICE crushed.”

RELATED: Democrat plagued by primary challenges announces 7 articles of impeachment against Trump

Photo of Rep. Shri Thanedar by Elizabeth Frantz; Washington Post/Getty Images

Campbell professes to detest the two-party system in America but claims that if forced to choose, she sides more with Democrats. The New York Post and some social media accounts have also characterized Campbell as a Democratic candidate, as does her Ballotpedia page.

However, the truth about her party affiliation is a bit more complicated.

Campbell confirmed in a statement to Blaze News that she completed “the necessary paperwork and collected enough signatures to qualify for the Democratic primary ballot” but ultimately decided to run as an independent.

“As an independent candidate, I have until July 15 to submit the required valid signatures for ballot access. I am confident I can do that because I already demonstrated the ability to organize and collect enough support during the Democratic primary process,” she told Blaze News in an email.

A spokesperson for the Michigan Bureau of Elections confirmed to Blaze News that, as of Monday, Campbell had not yet formally filed petitions to run for Congress either as a Democrat or as an independent and that the deadline to file as a Democrat has already expired.

Multiple Republican candidates have filed to compete in the race, but the district is considered deep blue. The Michigan primary election will be held on August 4.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Shelby campbell, Michigan, Shri thanedar, Democratic party, Democrats, Detroit, Politics 

As headlines surrounding hantavirus continue to spark fear of another pandemic, BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler is urging Americans to take a breath and look at the actual numbers.

While the virus carries a frighteningly high fatality rate for those infected, Wheeler argues the odds of even contracting hantavirus remain astronomically low compared to everyday risks Americans routinely ignore.

“So, here are your odds of dying from hantavirus: 1 in 30 to 35 million,” Wheeler begins. “That’s your odds of dying from the hantavirus. You can compare that, and I suggest you do, to your odds of dying from being struck by lightning: 1 in 15 to 20 million. So, you are more likely to die from being struck by lightning in the United States than you are to die from the hantavirus.”

“Your odds, by the way, of dying in a car accident: 1 in 8 to 9,000. Your odds of dying from a medical error: 1 in 1,000 to 1,400. By the way, dying from a medical error is the third leading cause of death in our country after heart disease and cancer,” she continues.

“If someone is telling you to be frightened of the hantavirus, they are lying to you. If someone is telling you to be more worried about a 1 in 30 to 35 million odds chance of dying from the hantavirus while ignoring the approximately 350,000 people in the United States who die from a medical error from doctors messing up every year, you should mute them,” she adds.

While the fatality rate for hantavirus is high, the amount of cases per year in the United States is not.

“There’s an average of 30 cases of hantavirus per year that result in approximately 8 to 12 deaths per year. So, that is a case fatality rate, by the way, that’s extremely high. That’s 35 to 38% case fatality rate, which is a frightening statistic,” Wheeler says.

Hantavirus cases also historically mostly occur in a concentrated region, with 94% of the cases occurring west of the Mississippi River.

“They all happen around spring cleaning time when people in the Southwest, you know, clean out a shed that has the feces of the deer mouse, for example. That’s where the deer mouse is, in the Southwest. The dust, they inhale the dust, and they contract the hantavirus from it,” Wheeler explains.

Patient zero on the cruise ship also happened to put himself in a dangerous situation before contracting the virus.

“Before he boarded the cruise ship, [he] visited a dump, a landfill, that was contaminated with rodent feces. He went there, as an ornithologist might, to bird watch, despite the fact that local residents avoided the area because they knew it to be contaminated,” Wheeler says.

“They knew it to be dangerous to health. He did this anyway,” she continues, pointing out that while it may sound harsh, it was his decision.

“We should have societal recognition of decisions made by individuals that are bad decisions. For example, … this man died, and so maybe people don’t want to talk about his decisions because he’s dead, but are we avoiding the personal responsibility entirely?” Wheeler asks.

“He did something unwise. He did something imprudent. He hurt himself. He hurt his wife,” she says, “He hurt other people.”

And while there has been speculation that it’s a new strain, Wheeler explains that “it is not a new strain.”

“Has the virus actually mutated?” she asks. “Well, according to the science, according to an analysis of what the DNA looks like, the answer to that is no. In fact, it’s very, very similar to the strain of hantavirus that caused an outbreak in Argentina in 2018.”

“That is not a new strain,” she adds.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Americans, Blazetv host, Car accident, Case fatality rate, Concentrated region, Cruise ship, Deer mouse, Fatality rate, Hantavirus, Leading cause, Lightning strike, Liz wheeler, Medical error, Mississippi river, Odds of dying, Pandemic fears, Spring cleaning, The liz wheeler show, Rodent feces, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals 

An 18-year-old New Jersey male is accused of stabbing his elderly grandmother to death — and police found knives protruding from the victim’s body Monday morning.

Louis Brown of Jackson Township on Monday was charged with murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a weapon, all in connection with the death of his grandmother, 69-year-old Darlene Brown also of Jackson Township, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said.

‘An unbelievably nice person — the nicest person to talk to, intelligent, just always helpful, always kind.’

Jackson Township Police Department officers around 7 a.m. Monday responded to a residence on Justin Way in reference to a 911 call stating that someone had been murdered, officials said.

Officers found Louis Brown standing at the front doorway of the residence, officials said, adding that Brown exited the residence with his hands up and was immediately taken into custody while officers conducted their investigation.

Officers entered the home and found the body of a deceased female — later identified as Darlene Brown — in an upstairs bedroom with apparent stab wounds to her face and neck, officials said, adding that officers observed two knives protruding from the victim.

An investigation — which was conducted by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit, Jackson Township Police Department Detective Bureau, and Ocean County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit — revealed that Louis Brown was the individual who called 911 and was responsible for his grandmother’s death, officials said.

Brown was charged and taken to the Ocean County Jail, where he remained Tuesday morning. There is no hearing information in Brown’s jail record, which also lists no bail.

RELATED: Florida thug allegedly stabs his grandmother 11 times on Mother’s Day — after being asked to help carry in groceries

Image source: Jackson Township (N.J.) Police

Jasmina Perazic, a resident of the complex where the stabbing took place, told NJ.com Darlene Brown lived in a unit with her grandson, Louis Brown, a high school senior.

Perazic — the head women’s basketball coach at Georgian Court University — told the outlet that Louis Brown moved in with his grandmother after his mom died of sickle cell anemia. Perazic described Darlene Brown as a friendly person whom she spoke to at least five times a week, NJ.com added.

“An unbelievably nice person — the nicest person to talk to, intelligent, just always helpful, always kind,” Perazic said to the outlet in regard to Darlene Brown. “It just looked like she was working so hard to take care of him.”

Perazic added to NJ.com that Louis Brown was quiet and had been bullied in school, but she saw no warning signs that anything was wrong. In fact, Perazic told the outlet that his grandmother said Louis Brown was a good kid who was doing well in school.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Murder charge, Possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, Unlawful possession of a weapon, Jackson township, New jersey, Louis brown, Knives, Fatal stabbing, Elderly victim, Arrest, Jailed, Knives in victim’s body, Grandmother, Crime 

Former President Barack Obama joined other liberals earlier this year in championing an unlawful power-grab in Virginia that would have delivered to Democrats 10 of the state’s 11 congressional districts, and now they have a new plan cooked up in Georgia.

To Democrats’ chagrin, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled on May 8 that the costly gerrymandering scheme there was illegal, thereby preserving the 2021-era congressional maps in which Democrats and Republicans enjoyed a 6-5 split.

‘It’s unfortunate the other side, backed by money that’s from outside the state …’

On the eve of power-mad liberals’ humiliating defeat in Virginia, Obama turned his gaze southward to another opportunity for a potential increase in Democrat power.

“State supreme court justices play a critical role in defending your rights and freedoms, which is why the election happening in Georgia right now is so important,” wrote Obama. “Make sure you have a plan to vote for Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin, the only two candidates in the race with strong records of standing up for all Georgians.”

Eight of the Georgia Supreme Court’s nine justices are presently appointees of Republican governors. Two GOP-appointed, conservative-backed justices — Sarah Warren and Charlie Bethel — are, however, fighting for re-election on Tuesday, and another three GOP-appointed justices will face re-election in 2028.

RELATED: Perpetual victim Fani Willis cries RACISM and SEXISM again, this time over common-sense election law

Megan Varner/Getty Images

Obama and other Democrats, unhumbled by their blunder in Virginia, appear keen to ideologically flip the Georgia court over the next two years.

As Obama indicated, Justice Warren is facing off on Tuesday against former Democrat state Sen. Jen Jordan, while Justice Bethel, a former Republican state senator, is facing off against Miracle Rankin, a personal injury attorney. Both of the Democrat-backed candidates are pro-abortion radicals who enjoy the backing of anti-natalist groups.

“This is the first time we’ve gone on offense, and we have raised a bit of money for it,” Charlie Bailey, chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party, told CNN.

“It’s unfortunate the other side, backed by money that’s from outside the state, is trying to make a nonpartisan race political,” said Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is backing both Warren and Bethel. “That’s not how our judiciary works in our state. And I would urge people to vote for the incumbents. They have bipartisan support from people who really understand how important it is to have a nonpartisan judiciary.”

Outside money and influence are hardly the only issue that has come up in this race.

A special committee within Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission revealed over the weekend that the Obama-endorsed candidates likely violated the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct, reported the Georgia Recorder. Not only did Jordan and Rankin publicly endorse one another; they apparently conveyed that they would restore abortion rights — problematic because judges and judicial candidates are not allowed to make statements about issues likely to come before the court.

These damning accusations were suppressed, however, ahead of Election Day by Leslie Gardner, an Obama-appointed federal judge who is the sister of failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

Gardener blocked the special committee from issuing its statement, claiming that the candidates’ apparent abortion pledges were constitutionally protected and not explicit enough to constitute violations.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Georgia, Supreme court, Georgia supreme court, Barack obama, Jen jordan, Bethel, Miracle rankin, Democrats, Power grab, Misconduct, Atlanta, Election, Politics