Yard signs for democratic socialist Francesca Hong have appeared across rural Wisconsin in recent months. Hong, a single mother and small-business restaurateur, has paired an appealing biography with a platform well to the left of the state’s political center. She has called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and establishing universal health care. Now she leads the Democrat field for governor.

Hong’s rise has also thrown Wisconsin Democrats into a panic. Party leaders must either accommodate a socialist insurgency or risk alienating the working-class voters they need in November. The result is a fractured coalition that could puncture Democrat hopes for a national blue wave.

Wisconsin’s primary may reveal the limit of the coming blue wave: Democrats cannot sweep the country while their own coalition is pulling itself apart.

Republicans avoided that problem. By late January, they had consolidated around Rep. Tom Tiffany, a former dam tender from Northwestern Wisconsin, and began pooling their resources for the general election. Democrats instead produced a seven-candidate field that included two lieutenant governors, the Milwaukee County executive, a businessman, a lawyer, a CEO, and a chef backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

Kirk Bangstad, owner of Minocqua Brewing Company, briefly joined the race after his bar promised free beer on the day President Trump died. His campaign lasted only weeks before election officials disqualified him for failing to collect enough valid signatures.

The Democrat primary soon became a full-blown soap opera. For months, party insiders treated Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez as the preferred candidate of major donors. Rodriguez, who has worked in health care, built her campaign around her biography as a nurse, wife, mother, and experienced public official.

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes also entered the race. He left Gov. Tony Evers’ administration in 2022 to challenge Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. Barnes spent $56 million, lost the election, and earned the lasting resentment of major Democrat donors.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley began building momentum until his administration allowed the county employees’ health insurance contract to lapse. Thousands of workers temporarily lost coverage, and the debacle triggered firings, resignations, and questions about Crowley’s competence.

Crowley dropped out and endorsed Rodriguez. Then Rodriguez’s campaign disclosed nearly $600,000 in campaign-finance reporting errors and suspended its bid. Crowley promptly re-entered the race with Evers’ endorsement. Wisconsin Democrats had managed to replace one damaged establishment candidate with another.

While the establishment candidates stumbled, Hong surged. She has led surveys of likely primary voters and attracted the largest number of individual contributors in the race: 14,000 donors making more than 22,000 contributions. Her average donation is just under $50, evidence of genuine grassroots enthusiasm rather than dependence on a handful of wealthy patrons.

Hong signs and campaign literature now appear from Wisconsin’s rural towns to its deepest-blue cities. During a livestream with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, she expressed support for abolishing prisons, defunding police, and eliminating the U.S. Senate. These are not marginal disagreements over tax rates or spending priorities. Hong represents a direct challenge to the party’s remaining moderates.

RELATED: The revolution will not be televised — it will be livestreamed in 4K

Jason Alpert-Wisnia/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images

Wisconsin may seem like unlikely terrain for a far-left socialist breakthrough. Milwaukee elected three prominent socialist mayors between 1910 and 1960, but the state has spent the past six decades as a fiercely contested political battleground. A movement built around New York City-style democratic socialism should struggle in a state decided by working-class voters outside Madison and Milwaukee.

Yet neighboring states offer warnings. Minnesota has Omar Fateh, and Michigan has Denzel McCampbell. The Midwest may be less resistant to the socialist left than party leaders and Republican strategists assume.

Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary exposes a widening fracture between traditional Democrats and radical socialists. Since Trump returned to office in 2025, the media has promoted a supposed conservative civil war, feeding podcast feuds and trying to cast Marco Rubio and JD Vance as rivals. Those largely manufactured disputes look minor beside the Democratic Party’s genuine struggle for control.

Many major donors hesitate to fund DSA candidates whose platforms repel independents. At the same time, young activists have built increasingly powerful grassroots organizations around socialist candidates. DSA membership is rising rapidly while Democratic Party membership remains comparatively flat. The party’s money and its energy are moving in opposite directions.

RELATED: ‘Need a cop? Thank socialism’ is dumb — but dangerously effective

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images

That conflict could destroy Democrat hopes for a blue wave before November arrives. Party leaders want likeable, moderate-sounding candidates who can win swing voters. Their activist base wants candidates who would abolish immigration enforcement, defund police, eliminate prisons, and dismantle constitutional institutions. Wisconsin Democrats cannot satisfy both constituencies indefinitely.

The problem extends beyond Wisconsin. The collapse of candidates such as Graham Platner in Maine points to a broader struggle over the Democratic Party’s identity and direction.

Democrat leaders may believe voter anger at Trump will carry them through the midterms. But anger alone cannot hold together a coalition fighting over whether reform or revolution should define the party.

Wisconsin’s primary may reveal the limit of the coming blue wave: Democrats cannot sweep the country while their own coalition is pulling itself apart.

​2026 midterms, Blue wave, Civil war, Democratic socialists of america, Democrats, Francesca hong, Graham platner, Hasan piker, Immigration and customs enforcement, Opinion & analysis, Universal health care, Working class voters 

The Powerball lottery is officially expanding into new territory this week.

For the first time in history, a winner of the gigantic Powerball pot could be from outside the United States.

‘More excitement and even greater impact.’

Odds and sods

Powerball announced earlier this month that it will welcome non-U.S. lottery contributions to its jackpot — something it has never done before — and has joined forces with a lottery organization in the United Kingdom.

Tickets for Wednesday’s draw are being sold both in the U.S. and the U.K., meaning the Powerball jackpot could have a winner from across the pond.

As it stands, overall odds for winning a prize are one in 24.9, while odds at winning the jackpot are a whopping one in 292.2 million.

Widening its consumer base will not alter the game’s $2 ticket price, the Multi-State Lottery Association said, nor will the jackpot odds decrease. The MUSL is partnering with Allwyn U.K., the national lottery operators in its jurisdiction.

RELATED: $167 million Powerball winner arrested for 4th time since winning lottery after allegedly stealing cash during burglary

ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images

‘Dream bigger’

The addition of the U.K. customer base will not change the time of Powerball drawings either, which will still take place every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. from the Powerball draw studio in Florida.

The gaming commissions praised their new partnership as a “thrilling milestone” that means the sum of the jackpots will grow bigger and faster.

This brings “more excitement and even greater impact for the communities we serve,” said Rebecca Paul, CEO of the Tennessee Lottery and former president of the World Lottery Association.

Allwyn CEO Andria Vidler said her organization was excited to give U.K. players “the chance to dream bigger, while supporting thousands of Good Cause projects across the U.K. every week.”

Some of the listed projects from the U.K. lottery have included reopening a cinema and providing animals for trips to senior living homes.

RELATED: Ivy League techies invent AI scam callers — but don’t worry, it’s only for ‘research’

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

Charity at home

At the same time, however, Paul added that the expansion into the United Kingdom does not change where the money goes for American players, and “every Powerball ticket sold in the U.S. will continue to support programs and services right here at home.”

Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and now the United Kingdom. This includes England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

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​Lottery, Powerball, United kingdom, Lifestyle 

It has apparently never been easier to order an abortion online.

The American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs released findings from its undercover investigation in which Dr. Christina Francis posed as a 13-year-old pregnant girl with health complications and successfully ordered abortion pills online earlier this year.

‘It was like an Amazon shopping experience. You just pick which pill pack you want, put it in your cart, and check out.’

Investigation footage in a video dated Wednesday shows the drugs arriving by mail in pro-life Indiana without doctor or pharmacist contact information. The return address traced back to a nondescript California building.

“As a medical professional, if I see a 13-year-old in my office who’s pregnant, the first thing I have to suspect is that she has been abused, because that’s very common in young girls who show up pregnant,” AAPLOG CEO Dr. Francis told Blaze News. “We’re mandatory reporters of sexual abuse involving minors. But on this website, they didn’t even bat an eyelash at the fact that I was supposedly 13 years old.”

According to video evidence, Francis ordered the pills via Aid Access, an Austrian nonprofit organization shipping abortion pills to all 50 states. The OB-GYN found the seller via Plan C, another nonprofit that directs women and girls to online abortion pill providers.

Plan C envisions “a near future in which the ability to end an early pregnancy is directly in the hands of anyone who seeks it,” and aims to achieve this “by normalizing the self-directed option of abortion pills by mail.”

RELATED: The pro-life movement won Roe — so why is it losing the war?

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Nearly 27% of U.S. abortions in 2025 were obtained from telehealth services, according to Plan C.

“This should not be called telehealth, because that’s not what’s occurring,” Francis told Blaze News. “It is truly medical malpractice that this is happening, and girls and women in vulnerable situations should not be receiving substandard care simply because they’re thinking about having an abortion.”

In the video, Francis input outlandish information on the Aid Access online form to test the organization’s screening process. In addition to listing her age as 13, the OB-GYN also claimed to be “on blood thinners, with an intrauterine device in place, and a history of three prior cesarean sections and ectopic pregnancy,” the AAPLOG investigative report said. These are standard contraindications, or circumstances where a medication may harm the patient, that doctors screen for when considering prescribing mifepristone and its companion drug misoprostol.

“If I’m really a 13-year-old girl with these health conditions sitting with a physician, the physician would say, ‘I’m not giving you these drugs. It’s too dangerous,’” Francis told Blaze News. “They had a back button built into the system so if you gave an answer that seemed like it was going to be a problem, it showed you very clearly to just go back and change your answer and keep proceeding.”

“My answers were so ridiculous that anybody — even a nonmedical person — would say, ‘How could a 13-year-old have three previous C-sections?’ But it obviously wasn’t reviewed by anybody,” Francis said. “It was like an Amazon shopping experience. You just pick which pill pack you want, put it in your cart, and check out.”

Plan C, Aid Access, and the Food and Drug Administration did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News.

A fully automated prescription process remains illegal under federal law.

“As soon as I hit submit, literally a minute and a half later, I had an email in my inbox with a payment link confirming my mailing address,” Francis claimed. “So obviously, no human being could have been reviewing it. It was an automatically generated email.”

Aid Access founder Dr. Rebecca Gomperts also supports advance provision, prescribing abortion pills to non-pregnant patients for later use.

“You don’t have to wait until somebody’s pregnant. That way, the laws don’t apply any more,” she told Politico in 2023. Although Aid Access ships abortion pills across the U.S., Gomperts is a Dutch national based in Amsterdam.

Advance provision is easily abused by criminals and violent partners, according to AAPLOG.

“Men who want to serially abuse women can stockpile this. Human traffickers can stockpile this so they can keep their victims from being pregnant, because pregnant women don’t tend to produce money for them,” Francis told Blaze News. “We know that many trafficking victims report multiple forced abortions during the time they were trafficked. And now we’ve just taken that opportunity away from her to potentially be saved out of that situation by interacting with a medical professional.”

An in-person consultation was initially required to prescribe the abortion pill mifepristone. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, legal challenges succeeded in having the in-person consultation requirement temporarily waived.

Former President Joe Biden’s FDA permanently removed the requirement in 2023. The Trump administration has yet to overturn this rule.

“The easiest thing the Trump administration could do today is undo what the Biden administration did and go back to how it was under the first Trump administration, where the in-person dispensing requirement was still in place,” Francis said. “They could reinstate that immediately. The DOJ could decide to enforce the Comstock Act, which says it’s illegal to ship abortion-inducing drugs across state lines.”

“President Trump is the most pro-life president in history, and his track record speaks for itself,” the DOJ told Blaze News. “The Department of Justice represents FDA in these matters, and FDA is continuing to review the safety data for mifepristone.”

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​Donald trump, Joe biden, Mifepristone, Abortion, Politics 

Bluetooth seems harmless enough. It connects your phone to your car stereo to play music or pairs your fitness tracker with your phone to relay data. But did you know Bluetooth hides a hidden danger that could expose your location? Even worse, private companies and law enforcement can use this exploit to monitor your activity without giving notice or obtaining a warrant.

Your phone tattles on you in public (even if you don’t know it)

By its own admission, a marketing technology company called Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions revealed that it can use Bluetooth and WiFi to “identify people of interest by the signals emitted from their electronic devices they travel with” through a service called SignalTrace.

Its immense power can easily be abused to follow practically anyone.

All electronic devices emit signals that exchange data and information. Cellular data connects to local cellphone towers in the area. WiFi connects to the nearest router in a building. Bluetooth talks to other devices within the vicinity, just in case it needs to send or receive a message, a photo, or a song.

These technologies are especially precise these days. For instance, Bluetooth 6.0, the latest version of this protocol, features proximity-level location tracking that can pinpoint the position of a target device down to 10cm. At the same time, WiFi 7 includes indoor device positioning that can help identify the placement of a device inside buildings. Together, they offer powerful location-tracking capabilities that reveal where a device exists in real time.

From a marketing perspective, this kind of technology is used in combination with Bluetooth Low Energy beacons for proximity marketing campaigns. BLE beacons are tiny devices that can be placed on store shelves beside certain products. When you walk beside the product, the beacon notices your phone and sends a notification or discount code for that item directly to your device via Bluetooth. It’s a clever marketing tool, and while it’s a bit creepy, it’s virtually harmless.

However, groups like Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions can also gather this data and hand it over to law enforcement to create digital profiles of people of interest. Targets can include anyone from suspected criminals to the average citizen who’s simply trying to mind his or her own business.

Which devices are trackable with SignalTrace?

If you’re wondering which electronic devices are most likely to reveal your location, the sad truth is that it’s most of them.

RELATED: The latest iPhone security threat has a nasty fix

Moor Studio/Getty Images

Virtually any gadget with a WiFi and/or Bluetooth connection can be tracked. Here’s just a quick list of the types of devices that may reveal your public whereabouts:

Smartphones (including iPhones and Android devices)Smartwatches (Apple Watch, Pixel Watch, Galaxy Watch, etc.)Fitness trackers (Fitbit, Garmin, Whoop, etc.)Smart rings (Oura Ring, Galaxy Ring, etc.)Wireless earbuds/headphones (AirPods, Galaxy Buds, etc.)Smart wallets (some models include location tracking technology to help users find a lost wallet)Tracking tags (AirTag, Galaxy SmartTag, Tile, etc.)Other devices (laptops, tablets, e-readers, etc.)

Is SignalTrace legal?

The question on everyone’s minds is whether or not this type of tracking is legal. The answer, unfortunately, is yes.

Private companies and law enforcement are able to skirt legal hurdles and warrants due to the fact that Bluetooth and WiFi signals coming off of electronic devices are all publicly visible. SignalTrace is merely capturing this information and drawing correlations between the data. For instance, it can see when a device is in motion, where it’s located, if a group of devices regularly travel together (like in a convoy), and it can even monitor devices inside buildings and other locations. All of this data is openly available and fair game for collection.

For what it’s worth, Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions claims to respect users’ privacy rights by not decrypting any information it receives from targeted devices, not that that will matter all that much if law enforcement simply wants to pin your location to the scene of a crime.

How to protect yourself from signal spies

With SignalTrace in place, effectively every gadget you own can be a tracking device. Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions only intends to work with law enforcement to target and track criminals, but its immense power can easily be abused to follow practically anyone.

The only way to thwart tracking attempts through WiFi and Bluetooth is to nullify your devices’ electronic signals. This means you would need to put your devices into Airplane mode with all connection features turned off, lock them in a Faraday cage that manually blocks electronic fields, or simply leave your devices at home when out in public.

Otherwise, you can assume that your phone, watch, ring, or any other gadget on your body is broadcasting your location to anyone who wants to see it at all times.

​Bluetooth, Security, Data, Privacy, Tech 

Anarchism and tyranny have been around since time immemorial, but it wasn’t until the early 1990s that the term “anarcho-tyranny,” denoting a synthesis of these two opposites, entered the popular lexicon, courtesy of the late ultraconservative Sam Francis.

Francis, among the many men vilified by the Southern Poverty Law Center, observed in the United States and elsewhere:

both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny — the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through “sensitivity training” and multiculturalist curricula, “hate crime” laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures.

‘Choose your words carefully, or you’ll end up in jail.’

The Biden administration’s approach to the crisis at the southern border in recent years and various blue states’ approaches to crime now certainly illustrate the concept Francis discussed at length.

There is, however, no better example today of an anarcho-tyrannical state than the United Kingdom. It is a nation that has seen, in recent months and years:

a dying white teen handcuffed and arrested at the feet of the Sikh who fatally stabbed him in an unprovoked attack, then falsely accused him of racism — even though the murderer himself was never handcuffed;a 20-year-old white man attacked and arrested by police immediately after an apparently unprovoked assault by multiple black aggressors;a Jewish Londoner threatened with arrest for attempting to cross a road down which pro-Hamas protesters were marching in support of Palestine;a Briton arrested for criticizing Palestinian flags flying in his neighborhood;multiple Christians charged, and in at least one case convicted, for praying silently in the neighborhood of an abortion clinic;judges ignoring the law requiring a minimum prison sentence for repeat offenders caught with knives in four out of every 10 cases;a forceful crackdown on protesters who took to the streets of Northern Ireland after a Sudanese asylum-seeker suspect attempted to carve off a Briton’s head;Northern Irish authorities apparently treat Black Lives Matter protesters with kid gloves, going so far as to refund the minor fines handed out to a handful of agitators, but cracked down on an Irish Lives Matter protest, where they made numerous arrests;police detain a man who attempted to move climate alarmists out of the road, where they were apparently illegally blocking traffic;the systematic rape of thousands of white girls go largely ignored by the relevant authorities over fears that properly policing the Muslim Pakistani community might be read as racist;law enforcement repeatedly treating anti-jihadist activist Tommy Robinson as a potential terrorist;authorities permit a Pakistani child rapist to remain in the U.K. because he feared repercussions back home;authorities refuse to deport a Ugandan mobster who clubbed a man to death in the back of an ambulance because his third-world homeland supposedly lacked sufficient mental health facilities;the prompt conviction and imprisonment of a man who posted stickers that read, “It’s OK to be white,” “Natives losing jobs; migrants pouring in,” and “Labour loves Muslim rape gangs”; andfemale police officers jogging around in plain clothes in hopes of eliciting catcalls and catching catcallers.

Every week comes with more evidence of anarcho-tyranny in the isles.

Neil O’Brien, a Conservative member of the U.K. Parliament, noted just last week that Essex Police have been logging two “Non-Crime Hate Incidents” every day over the past three years but have solved only 6% of burglaries and 3% of rapes.

RELATED: International pro-life leader assassinated at home

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

“Our politics are upside down,” said O’Brien. “We pamper those who do the wrong thing, while we punish those who try to do the right thing. It’s anarcho-tyranny. Don’t like it? Well, choose your words carefully, or you’ll end up in jail.”

Samuel Francis wrote that it is a big mistake for conservatives to think of anarcho-tyranny — a term that bothers some liberals — as a “deformation of the traditional system of government” or a sign of decadence. It is, instead, a choice.

Francis noted, for example, that “the state today is perfectly capable of enforcing laws against illegal immigration and catching and deporting the illegals who are already here.”

“It is also entirely capable of catching and imprisoning or executing the killers, rapists, and robbers who continue to haunt our streets and neighborhoods, just as it is entirely capable of catching speeders and red-light runners,” added Francis.

Francis said in conclusion, “Only if the serfs are willing and able to assume the tasks and duties of governing themselves rather than merely to endure whatever their masters hand down to them will the twin anarchy and tyranny that the current system imposes begin to crumble. ‘Who would be free,’ wrote Lord Byron, ‘himself must strike the blow.'”

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​United kingdom, Anarcho tyranny, Henry nowak, Vickrum digwa, Politics 

A 19-year-old Texas man was sentenced to decades in prison for his part in a horrific “nihilist” online child sex extortion cult, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.

The online networks labeled as “nihilistic violent extremist” groups by the Justice Department seek to push society toward collapse and chaos by corrupting and exploiting vulnerable groups online, including young children.

‘These groups ultimately seek nothing less than the destruction of our society.’

Alexis Aldair Chavez targeted victims under the online names Zack and Zack8884 as part of the 8884 network, which is related to the better-known 764 online cult.

In 2023, Chavez and a co-conspirator tried to make a minor female kill herself by overdosing on pills. They intended to record the suicide and then use the media to increase their status within the 8884 group.

Later, Chavez and the minor victim compelled another female to “strip naked on camera, cut herself, and engage in sexual acts.”

Another victim was extorted into cutting the word “Zack” into herself.

Around Dec. 2023, Chavez and a co-conspirator coerced a female victim to torture and kill a cat on a video call and also to cut her own tongue.

Another victim was made to light her arm on fire on a recorded video chat in the 8884 channel and let it burn through the skin into her flesh.

Another female victim was made to drink her own urine and attempt to overdose on pills.

In Jan. 2024, Chavez coerced a minor female to commit “sexually obscene activities and other egregious acts.”

He was arrested in Oct. 2024 and pleaded guilty in Dec. 2025 to one count of distribution of child pornography, one count of possession of child pornography, and one count of racketeering.

In July, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison, restitution of $10,000, and lifetime supervised release.

The Justice Dept. says it will continue to pursue the NVE groups and stop them from coercing victims into acts of “self-mutilation, online and in-person sexual acts, harm to animals, sexual exploitation of siblings and others, acts of violence, threats of violence, suicide, and murder.”

RELATED: ‘Pure evil’: Feds charge alleged leader of ‘unthinkably depraved,’ violent group involved in child sextortion

“Chavez’s crimes reveal the ruthless exploitation and manipulation at the core of NVE groups,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in the press release.

“These organizations target children as part of their broader mission to spread terror,” he added. “These groups ultimately seek nothing less than the destruction of our society. NSD will use every resource at its disposal to identify and prosecute 764-linked criminality and to protect the most innocent among us from these predators.”

Experts warn parents to monitor their children’s online activity and limit or completely restrict their access to online apps and websites.

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​Department of justice, Sexual exploitation, Suicide, Crime, Nihilistic violent extremist 

Until late 2025, the Republican Party appeared likely to carry the MAGA coalition more or less intact into the 2028 presidential election. No successor can reproduce Trump’s personality or political style. But the coalition he assembled — working-class voters, growing numbers of Latinos and other former Democrats, and disaffected liberals such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard — seemed durable.

JD Vance also appeared ready to clear the field. Marco Rubio, the only other plausible heir with national support, said just a few months ago that he would back Vance in 2028 if the vice president ran. The nomination looked less like a contest than a succession plan.

Much of the base may share Vance’s instincts, but the right is far from unanimous. His victory in an open contest cannot be assumed.

When I wrote my book, “JD Vance and the Future of the Republican Party,” the first sustained examination of Vance’s political thought and his place in the post-Trump GOP, that outcome seemed nearly certain. Vance would declare around the 2026 midterms. Rubio would endorse him. A few marginal candidates might enter, but none would reach double digits.

That scenario remains possible. It is no longer inevitable.

Two related developments have changed the equation: the fight over the U.S.-Israel relationship on the right and the war in Iran.

The first does not implicate Vance directly, but it has fractured the political world he must lead. Far-right podcasters and pundits have fixated on Israel and Jews for years. The dispute moved from the fringes toward the center when Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes on his podcast in October 2025, one month after Charlie Kirk — one of the right’s most effective coalition builders and gatekeepers — was assassinated. Influential voices soon moved beyond debating the wisdom and limits of the U.S.-Israel alliance to entertaining conspiratorial claims that Jews themselves threatened America.

The conservative movement has never been intellectually uniform. Libertarians, social conservatives, anti-communist liberals, nationalists, and other factions have long competed under the Republican tent. But the past nine months have produced something more corrosive. Positions on Israel, American Jews, and even individual media personalities have become loyalty tests. Conservatives increasingly sort themselves into camps and excommunicate dissenters.

Every presidential nominee must unite competing factions. Vance faces an unusual version of that task because he entered politics through the world of conservative intellectuals, think tanks, and media. He has friends and allies across rival camps. Preserving those relationships without appearing captive to any of them may become one of his hardest political tests.

RELATED: JD Vance reveals opinion on Epstein files, explains ‘demon’ alien theory, slams ‘full of s**t’ Gavin Newsom with Joe Rogan

Nathan Howard/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

The war in Iran has made that test harder. Trump’s coalition has always included incompatible foreign-policy factions: George W. Bush-era interventionists, advocates of a restrained and more hemispheric strategy, and hard-line isolationists. The alliance held as long as the administration avoided wars that lacked a clear connection to the American interest.

Iran forced the disagreement into the open. Will the Republican Party continue military campaigns in the Middle East, or will it reserve force for direct threats to the United States? Republicans answer that question very differently, and the war has split the party. Any 2028 nominee will have to navigate the divide.

Vance is no isolationist, but his instincts favor restraint. He is also more willing than many senior Republicans to question the scope of U.S. commitments to Israel. Those positions may appeal to much of the base while alarming interventionists, pro-Israel conservatives, and establishment donors.

Can Vance maintain relationships with controversial figures such as Carlson, reconsider American commitments in the Middle East, and still hold the Republican coalition together? A competitive 2028 primary would force those questions into the open. Much of the base may share Vance’s instincts, but the right is far from unanimous. His victory in an open contest cannot be assumed.

Rubio remains the likeliest challenger. He has said he will not oppose Vance if the vice president runs, but supporters continue to promote the popular secretary of state as a candidate. Rubio’s greater acceptability to establishment Republicans and his more interventionist foreign policy would turn the primary into a direct contest over the party’s future. He could expose every fault line Vance must bridge.

One factor may matter more than all the others: Trump’s endorsement.

RELATED: The GOP’s 2028 ticket math is already brutal

Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images

After the Iran war, Vance is less likely to coast through a genuinely open primary, especially if Rubio changes his mind. But Republicans may never receive an open primary. Trump still commands the party he reshaped, relishes the role of kingmaker, and will want to choose his successor.

An unequivocal Trump endorsement of Vance could end the contest before it begins. Other candidates could run, but they would struggle against a Trump-Vance succession. If Trump chooses Vance, the vice president may become the 2028 nominee by anointing rather than competition.

Trump has spoken more than once about the race to succeed him. Once he speaks definitively, the question may no longer be whether Vance can win the Republican primary. It may be whether the party is willing to hold one.

If Trump names Vance, he will likely become the future of the Republican Party. Trump will decide whether the party gets a primary or an anointing.

​Donald trump, Jd vance, Joe rogan, Marco rubio, Middle east, Nick fuentes, Presidential election, Republican party, Tucker carlson, Opinion & analysis 

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s testimony at a July Senate hearing raised troubling questions about accountability in judicial education.

Kagan acknowledged that she wrote the foreword to the Federal Judicial Center’s “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence” without reading its climate-change chapter — a chapter later removed after critics identified serious bias concerns. She also admitted that she still had not read it.

Kagan’s admission offers a cautionary example. Rank does not excuse a failure of diligence.

Her foreword presents the manual as an objective resource for judges handling cases involving complex scientific evidence, from epidemiology to emerging technologies. Yet Kagan placed her authority behind a volume whose most contentious material she had not taken the time to examine.

That failure weakens the manual’s credibility and raises a broader question: How carefully are judges scrutinizing the scientific authorities placed before them?

The fourth edition of the influential manual, used by thousands of federal judges, drew immediate objections. The Federal Judicial Center withdrew the climate chapter in February after state attorneys general cited imbalances and potential conflicts of interest.

The problems did not end there.

A separate chapter on the nature of science remains in the manual despite presenting a distorted account of scientific inquiry. Kagan’s foreword also remains, still attesting to the volume’s reliability and impartiality.

Earlier editions offered a clearer standard. Physicist David Goodstein emphasized empirical testing, falsifiable predictions, reliable data, and other central principles of scientific reasoning.

The new chapter moves in a different direction. It elevates social considerations and consensus among experts while giving less attention to the rigorous testing that separates science from assertion.

Scientific collaboration matters. Consensus can also provide useful evidence. But “widespread agreement” cannot substitute for disciplined scrutiny, especially in court.

The Supreme Court’s Daubert standard requires judges to assess whether expert testimony rests on testable methods, peer review, known error rates, and general acceptance — all tethered to observable reality.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stated the principle plainly: “If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.”

History offers repeated warnings about confusing consensus with truth.

RELATED: Out of order: Courts shouldn’t rule based on ‘trust us’ science

Nadzeya Haroshka

Dominant scientific views have often yielded to better evidence. In darker cases, governments have enforced consensus through political power. Under Joseph Stalin, Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko rejected genetic science in favor of politically favored theories of inheritance. The state elevated his ideas into doctrine, silenced dissenting scientists, and inflicted lasting damage on Soviet agriculture.

The lesson is not that expert agreement has no value. It is that agreement must remain answerable to evidence.

That principle matters especially in courtrooms, where scientific claims can determine enormous legal and economic consequences.

The revised chapter also raises questions about authorship. Several contributors have ties to climate-policy negotiations, including work involving international financial mechanisms. Those backgrounds do not automatically disqualify them. But in an era of sprawling climate litigation, involving more than 1,000 active cases and potential liabilities reaching into the trillions of dollars, such ties create at least the appearance of imbalance.

Prominent scientists, including widely published physicists, have urged Chief Justice John Roberts and the Federal Judicial Center to revisit the chapter. They argue that the manual should restore clear explanations of hypothesis testing and empirical verification rather than rely on sociological descriptions of how scientific communities operate.

Courts increasingly adjudicate scientific disputes with consequences affecting millions, and sometimes billions, of people. The reference materials judges rely on must therefore withstand the strictest tests of objectivity.

Kagan’s admission offers a cautionary example. Rank does not excuse a failure of diligence. Judicial integrity depends on personal responsibility, especially when a justice lends her name and authority to a supposedly impartial guide.

RELATED: Justice Amy Coney Barrett describes SWATTING attack against her family

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The Federal Judicial Center can still repair the damage. It should restore the manual’s emphasis on empirical verification, seek broader input from experts without policy entanglements, and reaffirm the manual’s limited role as a procedural guide rather than an arbiter of scientific truth.

Judges should also treat such manuals as starting points, not substitutes for primary research, adversarial testing, and careful examination of the evidence before them.

Kagan endorsed a manual without reviewing one of its most disputed sections. That lapse compromised the diligence her foreword implicitly promised.

The Federal Judicial Center should now restore the manual’s credibility by recommitting it to empirical evidence, falsifiability, and genuine viewpoint diversity. The integrity of judicial decision-making demands nothing less.

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Following the sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R) has officially appointed Graham’s younger sister, Darline Graham, to finish out the remainder of his term in Washington.

The decision is backed by an endorsement from President Donald Trump.

“I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina. This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social.

However, BlazeTV host Pat Gray isn’t sure that a U.S. Senate seat is something to be passed down as a “tribute.”

“I don’t want a fabulous tribute to Lindsey Graham. It should be somebody who would make a great senator. If she’s the one, that’s fine,” he says. “But is she the one?”

“Conservative, smart, capable. That’s what you want. … It wasn’t Lindsey’s seat to own and then hand off to a family member,” he adds.

“Well, it kind of was,” Jeff Fisher argues.

“That’s the way those Senate seats have been. That’s why John Cornyn was so shocked that he got booted,” Fisher continues.

“That’s the way we treat it, but it’s not that way. It’s not that way. And we need to stop treating it as such,” Gray says.

And in a speech, Gov. McMaster announced the appointment of Darline to Graham’s seat.

“Today under the law, it’s my duty to and honor to name someone to serve in the place of this irresistible man — this irreplaceable man,” the governor said, correcting himself.

“Lindsey took care of his little sister in years long departed. It’s my honor to ask his little sister, Darline Graham, to finish his work for him now,” he added.

“So, I guess she’s got a duty to serve,” Gray comments, adding, “but he never said anything about her being the best candidate for that position.”

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