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 

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 

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 

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

Blaze Media Illustration

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

Blaze Media Illustration

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 

A former businessman looking to unseat an incumbent senator made a desperate move to win the Democratic Senate primary in Delaware — to disappointing results.

On Tuesday, E. No-Trump Hansen finished a distant fourth in the primary. Sen. Chris Coons, who has held the seat since 2010, won in a landslide, carrying 78% of the expected vote, according to NBC News.

‘The name E. (Eric) No-Trump Hansen isn’t a gimmick — it’s his complete commitment to positive change.’

Hansen earned about 3,400 votes, or just 3.9% of the expected total. Jeff Appelhans and Mary Louve finished second and third, respectively.

Just after 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Coons, who turned 63 last week, claimed victory on social media: “Thank you to every volunteer and grassroots donor who supported this campaign, and to every Democrat who raised their hand to run for office in Delaware. This moment requires all of us, and I’m proud to be in this fight with you.”

With a powerful incumbent like Coons seeking re-election, Hansen was always a long shot in the race, but he changed his name from Eric Hansen to E. No-Trump Hansen to prove his “commitment” to the cause.

RELATED: Democrats admit to weaponizing shutdown for ‘leverage’ against GOP while Americans feel the sting

Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images

“The name E. (Eric) No-Trump Hansen isn’t a gimmick — it’s his complete commitment to positive change,” his campaign website reads.

When he made the name-change is unclear, but Fox News noted that he used it on his official statement of candidacy, dated July 20, 2026.

“Trump has said he’ll go after his critics by any means available,” Hansen explained to WHYY last month. “He will go after me, but I’m willing to bear that risk anyway — because the alternative is letting things get worse for Delawareans.”

His name is not the only major change Hansen has made lately.

In 2024, he ran for Senate in Delaware as a Republican, suffering a crushing defeat by Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester, 56% to 39%. State records show he ran under the name “Eric Hansen.”

Hansen did not respond to request for comment from Blaze News.

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​Chris coons, Delaware, Democrat, Donald trump, Republican, Politics 

At the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas last week, Vice President JD Vance said, “Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we have seen the foreign-born share of our population drop by 3 million people. That’s illegal aliens that we sent back home.” That is not true, and I wish he hadn’t said it.

The first sentence appears to round a recent estimate that the total foreign-born population fell by 2.9 million. The second recasts that estimate as 3 million illegal aliens whom the administration sent home. That is not what the underlying study says. But Vance said what he said, and if we are going to be straight shooters with Americans, then we need to hold all our political leaders to the same standard. That is especially true when it comes to the base’s favorite candidate for the next Republican presidential nomination.

It’s one thing not to mention mass deportation, but quite another to throw out numbers that nobody believes and the government’s own public data does not support.

With all due respect to the vice president, who has earned a deep reservoir of trust and support, we still need to be clear-eyed if we are going to build momentum for a mass deportation campaign.

As the vice president himself has said, “We need people to be pushing back from inside the tent.” We cannot accept premature celebrations in place of action. There could be a million explanations for how that statistic made it into the speech instead of the term “mass deportation” itself. My read is that someone ordered them not to speak about mass deportation at the convention, so it may have been hard to come up with something to say in its place. I have drafted and edited my fair share of speeches over the years. Group projects can take on lives of their own, and things end up in speeches that should not.

I was on the ground in Dallas, and I heard no speaker use the term “mass deportation.” It was a noticeable departure from the term’s prominence at the 2024 Republican National Convention, where viewers and attendees saw signs calling for “mass deportation now” while President Trump promised the “largest” deportation operation in history.

The promised mass-deportation campaign has not come to pass, and the absence of any reference to it just two years later speaks volumes about the abandonment of the cause.

The only reference to mass deportation I caught at the convention came from Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin during an offstage interview. “Our base wants mass deportation. We need mass deportation,” he said. Mullin, who receives the sharpest mix of criticism and encouragement, including from yours truly and the Mass Deportation Coalition, deserves credit for at least being willing to say it. Obviously, doing it is what matters, but it starts with saying it.

Instead of mass deportation, we have a growing scandal over basic deportation data. ICE has not released its fiscal year 2025 annual report, which congressional appropriators directed the agency to issue within 90 days of the fiscal year’s end. The ICE dashboard that was regularly updated, even during the Obama and Biden years, has not posted new removal data since November 2024.

RELATED: Trump’s mass-deportation promise needs receipts

Megan Varner/Getty Images

In place of numbers are far-fetched claims and surface-level figures tossed out on social media and suspiciously amplified by networks of influencers. I suspect the amplification is not organic. Many of the posts are not even logical on their own terms, including one I saw recently claiming that ICE achieved a monthly record of 50,000 arrests. It then multiplied that “record” by the 20 months President Trump has been in office and claimed that 3 million people had therefore been deported. But 50,000 multiplied by 20 is 1 million, not 3 million. And arrests are not deportations. Nonetheless, the 3 million claim made the rounds on social media.

Then came another 3-million claim, this time drawn from a study based on the Current Population Survey, a voluntary monthly household survey used to measure the labor force. The study estimated that the total foreign-born population fell by 2.9 million from January 2025 to July 2026. It also preliminarily estimated that the illegal immigrant population fell by 2.3 million, from 15.8 million to 13.5 million. Importantly, that is an estimated net change in population, not a count of people deported. The study says the change can reflect new arrivals, deportations, voluntary emigration, legalizations, and deaths.

Vance also said Americans had competed for jobs and homes against “25 million new illegal immigrants.” If you are confused, then you are in the right place. The new claim that 3 million illegal aliens were sent home rests not on administrative deportation records but on an extrapolation from the survey, which does not ask respondents about their immigration status. It is a stretch to turn that estimate into 3 million illegal aliens “sent back home,” especially after claiming moments earlier that 25 million new illegal immigrants had competed with Americans for jobs and homes.

RELATED: The conservative base will remember this betrayal

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty Images

None of this should even be part of the argument or public conversation. The Trump administration has administrative data on removals and returns; it is choosing not to release a detailed public accounting.

This should be among the easiest data to track and compile in all of government. Each formal removal or return generates case records and departure paperwork. Officials review those figures regularly. They know what I know: Actual interior deportations are far below the estimates being bandied about.

My estimate is that interior removals are probably closer to one-sixth of the 3 million the administration claims. I have sued the DHS with the Oversight Project to obtain this data, but the agency is still spending taxpayer money on lawyers to keep it hidden. It is a cover-up and a scandal, and there are unfortunately no better words for it.

It’s unfortunate that the ascendant vice president decided to jump headfirst into the deportation-data mess. It’s one thing not to mention mass deportation, but quite another to throw out numbers that nobody believes and the government’s own public data does not support.

​Mass deportation, Illegal aliens, Border patrol, Ice, Republicans, Jd vance, Trump, Midterm convention, Dallas, Markwayne mullin, Mass deportation coalition, Immigrants, Americans, Border security, Dhs, Opinion & analysis 

In today’s digital world, it’s easy to think that everyone loves everything digital. After all, many businesses conspicuously post a “No Cash Accepted” sign in their windows, and it’s getting increasingly harder to remember the days when no one needed a charged cell phone to get into a concert or board an airplane.

But don’t let this electronic ubiquity fool you. Lots of people still prefer paper bills, statement printouts, physical mail, and other such hard copies.

The proposed rule plays right into the hands of scammers and identity thieves.

Let’s dig in a little on this.

The U.S. Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission are each proposing a rule, “Regulation E-Delivery,” that would switch from paper to digital the default way that Americans receive certain critical communications. In other words, this new rule would mean that Americans would automatically receive communications electronically and would affirmatively have to ask to revert to paper delivery.

Let’s look at each one of these entities separately.

The DOL’s proposed rule would automatically move Americans to electronic delivery of their health plan documents, unless they actively work directly with their insurers to revert to paper delivery. This move would risk vulnerable Americans having more difficult access to — or missing altogether — critical health insurance information if they miss a notice or can’t reliably access the internet.

Americans should have the right to choose how they receive critical health plan documents, like HIPAA and COBRA notices, benefits summaries, and other important disclosures. Regulation E-Delivery would flip the choice from automatic-paper to automatic-digital, resulting in major hurdles for specific populations, particularly seniors, rural residents without reliable internet, and low-income households.

The proposal would automatically move people to Regulation E-Delivery, unless they actively work with each insurer to restore paper delivery. This is the opposite of how the system should work. People should not default because they miss a notice or because — like most people — they have trouble navigating large corporate bureaucracy.

The people most comfortable with Regulation E-Delivery are the most tech-literate folks and can much more easily opt-in under the current system. Those who depend on paper often lack that same digital literacy. This effort seems like a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.

Right now, people who want electronic delivery can easily choose it, and those who want paper can keep getting it without having to do anything. There’s no reason to flip that on its head.

Some people argue that this proposal is a cost-saving measure, but is that really believable?

Health insurance companies have a history of pocketing savings and not passing them along to their customers. Also, has anyone done a serious analysis of the costs to consumers for missed notices or out-of-date information? This proposal leans heavily on cutting corporate paper, printing, and postage costs, without seriously weighing what that means for the people on the receiving end.

RELATED: Silicon Valley is building a god in its own image

Gremlin/Getty Images

The SEC’s proposed Regulation E-Delivery would make electronic delivery the default for sensitive financial documents, reversing today’s arrangement where those documents arrive on paper, unless for them electronically.

The Regulation E-Delivery hurdles would be much more complicated than a simple “opt-out” checkbox. Investors could be required to contact each financial firm separately — through multiple websites, portals, or telephone systems — to preserve or restore paper delivery across their accounts.

This mandate disadvantages folks who either are not as savvy with digital communications or who have unreliable internet/cell service. These people would be the least likely to successfully navigate the many barriers that this new rule would require to preserve paper communication.

The proposed rule plays right into the hands of scammers and identity thieves by requiring the same basic “click the link” actions that investors have been conditioned to avoid.

Some people simply prefer physical copies of certain things. Perhaps you’re the type of person who prefers a physical book — not an e-reader — to read on the beach. Or perhaps you’d rather have a printed, rather than a texted, receipt from a restaurant. Similarly, many Americans still prefer important health care and financial documents in paper form, as they can be easier to read, file, and refer to.

It also is questionable whether a paper option would even remain that long if Regulation E-Delivery goes into effect. Millions of Americans have learned the hard way that the federal government’s promise of consumer choice is not always worth the paper it’s printed on.

Remember when President Obama promised Americans that they could keep their doctors under Obamacare? Forgive us if we take the Regulation E-Delivery promise of enduring choice between paper and electronic delivery with a similar dose of skepticism.

The DOL and the SEC should reject this proposed rule and keep the current system, where Americans can keep what they have now or choose for themselves whether they want to switch to digital.

​Sec, Department of labor, Regulation e-delivery, Insurance, Banking, Hippaa, Cobra, Seniors, Opinion & analysis, Health care, Tech, Rural 

Republican Rep. Keith Self of Texas called for the Treasury to investigate the Islamic Society of North America for allegedly illegal campaign donations.

Self said that the nonprofit violated financial rules by supporting Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat candidate for one of the two U.S. Senate seats from Michigan.

‘Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize a nonprofit acting like a campaign committee for the Red-Green Alliance.’

Self cited a report in the Middle East Forum that said the campaign had set up a booth at the Huntington Place hall during an Islamic Society of North America convention.

“The booth displayed large ‘Abdul for U.S. Senate’ and ‘Muslims for Abdul’ campaign banners, urging attendees to elect Mr. El-Sayed. Campaign personnel reportedly distributed campaign literature, solicited donations, and promoted a $50 contribution in exchange for campaign [T-shirts],” the letter read.

“Attendees were also provided with QR codes directing them to donate or volunteer for the campaign, as well as given invitations to a campaign fundraiser,” he added. “Campaign personnel were also reportedly active participants throughout the convention. They were observed waving campaign posters, distributing campaign flyers, and placing campaign materials on seats. A campaign volunteer reportedly distributed literature to attendees as they exited the hall following Mr. El-Sayed’s speech.”

Self wrote that the candidate would be allowed to attend the event but that 501(c)3 rules strictly forbid that group from endorsing the candidate or allowing fundraising for the campaign to occur.

He also pointed out that the group was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, involving the provision of funding for the Hamas terror group.

Self called on Scott Bessent, the secretary of the Treasury, to investigate the group and review its tax-exempt status.

RELATED: ‘He’s full of s**t’: Trump RIPS INTO Abdul El-Sayed after his victory in Democratic primary

“Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize a nonprofit acting like a campaign committee for the Red-Green Alliance,” Self wrote.

“These circumstances warrant a thorough examination of whether ISNA participated or intervened in a political campaign,” he concluded.

Blaze News requests for comment from both the Islamic Society of North America and the El-Sayed campaign were not returned in time for publication.

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​Abdul el-sayed, Hamas, Islam society of north america, Muslim, Scott bessent, Politics