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by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for The one big liberal media lie about Spencer Pratt that no one is mentioning

The one big liberal media lie about Spencer Pratt that no one is mentioning

Spencer Pratt is liberal Los Angeles’ favorite new villain.The former "The Hills" star became an unlikely political gadfly after his house burned down in the January 2025 Palisades Fire. Ever since he launched his increasingly high-profile mayoral campaign, Hollywood’s liberal elite and the prestige media can’t resist conflating the man with the heel he played on the MTV series.'That whole plot was scripted.'But just because it's called "reality TV" doesn't mean it's real.Apparently the smart set now needs a refresher in what it likes to call "media literacy."Rube tubeIn late April, Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" called Pratt "a candidate who makes white women over 40 go 'Oh yeah! That guy ... ew,'" while splicing together clips from the 2000s hit.Host Ronny Chieng described Pratt as exhibiting "TV villain behavior."Rolling Stone referred to Pratt as a villain several times in its piece on Pratt, quoting several lines from the show as evidence of his character.Same goes for "nonprofit & nonpartisan" outlet Cal Matters, which said that being "a villain on a reality TV show" and having one's house burn down are not qualifications to become mayor of Los Angeles.None of the 42-year-old candidate's detractors seem to have considered what most of us find obvious: "The Hills" was made up, and Pratt was playing a role. RELATED: Karen Bass roasted over plan for free dental care for homeless meth addicts Charley Gallay/Getty Images Curtain call-outFor those who require proof, the show — which drew in 6 million viewers at its height — exposed its own artifice in its 2010 finale, with star Brody Jenner watching as the backdrop literally pulled away to reveal a set, complete with producers and lighting. Jenner's co-star then came out of a car that was shown to have driven away just seconds before.So scripted was "The Hills" that producers even shot an alternate ending.Pratt's wife, Heidi, has also copped to the show's lack of reality. "That whole plot was scripted," she said about a storyline involving her job promotion. "I pretend-worked there, so it was obviously a pretend promotion," she noted.RELATED: Jimmy Kimmel's sister-in-law slammed with backlash for reportedly bullying local business — over Spencer Pratt cookies Cuba libreThose scorning Pratt for his fictional villainy might also be surprised by the truth about other well-known "Hills" plots. Spencer dating Audrina? Whitney becoming Lauren's boss at Teen Vogue? "Totally fake."In typical heel fashion, Pratt seems to relish the charges of villainy — even using them against his opponent, Mayor Karen Bass (D). When former "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Lisa Rinna suggested Pratt's reality TV background disqualified him for office, Pratt shot back, "Hey Lisa, if you're against me because I was on a TV show in my 20's, wait til you learn what Karen Bass was doing in her 20's."Pratt was referring to Bass’ involvement in the Venceremos Brigade, a far-left activist group tied to communist Cuba during the 1970s. The organization organized trips for young American radicals to work and train in Fidel Castro’s Cuba at the height of the Cold War, drawing everyone from Maoists to self-described revolutionaries into the orbit of the regime.Bass has acknowledged traveling to Cuba multiple times with the group as a young activist, though she has downplayed suggestions that she held any leadership role.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for Charter school teacher arrested for alleged sexual abuse of student — police say there may be more victims

Charter school teacher arrested for alleged sexual abuse of student — police say there may be more victims

A California teacher was arrested for allegedly having inappropriate sexual contact with a student, and police believe there could be more victims. The Riverside County Sheriff's Office said in a statement: "On January 28, 2026, the Riverside Sheriff’s Moreno Valley Station’s Investigation Bureau began investigating allegations of inappropriate contact with a student at a school in Moreno Valley."The Riverside County Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit suspects that there may be additional victims.Police identified the suspect as 41-year-old Samantha Josephine Watson of Eastvale.The sheriff's office said Watson engaged in "inappropriate contact" with a student between 2017 and 2018. At the time of the alleged inappropriate contact, Watson was employed as a teacher at a charter school in Moreno Valley, according to the statement.While the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office did not name the school, officials noted that the alleged abuse occurred at a charter school campus in the 23000 block of Sunnymead Boulevard, KCBS-TV reported, adding that an online search indicates Options for Youth Public Charter Schools "operates in the area."Watson is not listed as an employee in the staff directory for the Options for Youth Public Charter Schools.RELATED: Female Christian kindergarten teacher pleads guilty to child seduction; court docs reveal she had sex with girl in church mesh cube via iStock/Getty ImagesLaw enforcement on Friday executed a search warrant in Eastvale and took Watson into custody without incident.Watson was booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center on charges of sending harmful material to a juvenile, oral copulation, and digital penetration.The Riverside County Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit suspects there may be additional victims.The New York Post, citing property records, reported that Watson shares a $1.2 million home in Eastvale with her husband.Watson is scheduled to appear June 8 at the Riverside Hall of Justice for her first hearing, according to jail records provided by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. The Options for Youth Public Charter Schools did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment. The Riverside County Sheriff's Office told Blaze News there are no updates at this time. Police said the investigation is ongoing.The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office urges those with information on the case to contact Master Investigator D. Schell at 951-955-1704 or the sheriff’s dispatch at 951-776-1099.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for Knife-wielding Sikh reaps whirlwind after butchering English teen Henry Nowak, falsely accusing him of racism

Knife-wielding Sikh reaps whirlwind after butchering English teen Henry Nowak, falsely accusing him of racism

A blade-brandishing Sikh named Vickrum Digwa has finally been brought to justice after a deadly attack on a white teenager in the U.K. who seemed to be minding his own business.On December 3, 2025, after a night out with his soccer team, 18-year-old Henry Nowak started for his home in Portswood, a suburb of Southampton, England. While happily singing to himself and sending Snapchat videos to friends, the English teen encountered Digwa.In an unprovoked and vicious attack, the Sikh stabbed the University of Southampton finance student repeatedly with an eight-inch blade — a blade that Digwa's mother, Kiran Kaur, would ultimately hide in an effort to aid her killer kin.'In the moments before he lost consciousness, [Nowak] had been handcuffed and arrested.'When police arrived on the scene of the attack, the killer and some of his family members told officers that Digwa was the real victim — that Nowak, then drowning in his own blood, was the real aggressor and a racist who had knocked his turban off.Officers from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary proceeded to arrest and handcuff the dying Nowak. The handcuffs were removed only after the "severity of his condition was becoming clear," police alleged.While police clearly entertained Digwa's tall tale, the jury in the Sikh's murder trial rejected it outright, convicting him on Thursday of murder and carrying a knife in public. The murderer's mother was found guilty of assisting an offender.In his closing remarks, prosecutor Nicholas Lobbenberg said that Digwa — who stabbed Nowak five times, including in the chest, in the face, and twice in back of the legs — "chose to be on the streets of Southampton with a 21cm knife. He wasn’t at a temple; he had been helping with his brother’s work for Deliveroo. This is a man who chooses to sleep in his bedroom with an arsenal of weapons. This is a man who likes weapons."RELATED: Truck-driving illegal alien from India arrested for horrific hit-and-run that killed 2 young Americans L-R: AAron Ontiveroz/Denver Post/Getty Images; Alex Pantling - RFU/The RFU Collection/Getty Images"Racism was his trump card to try to make sure what he had done was lawful. We say that was a wicked lie about a dying man," said Lobbenberg. "This is not a case about racism. This is a case about murder."The murderer will be sentenced on Monday.Robert France, the temporary deputy chief constable for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, apologized for police's grievous mistreatment of Nowak as he lay dying but suggested that police couldn't have saved his life."I am sorry that in the moments before he lost consciousness, [Nowak] had been handcuffed and arrested," France said in a video statement on Thursday. "The facts heard in court should leave no doubt in anyone's mind who was lying to officers that night and why we didn't immediately understand what had happened." "During the 999 call, when officers first arrived at the scene, and even when Henry's condition was deteriorating quickly, his killer continued to divert the blame, obstruct our enquiries, and never admit the serious harm which had been done," said France.Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson, British lawmakers, and others have demanded accountability from the police over what Robinson called their "f**king outrageous" abuse of Nowak.According to France, the constabulary has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, a watchdog that will supposedly conduct an independent investigation into officers' response to the incident.After Digwa's guilty verdict, the United Kingdom's Sikh Federation issued a statement both complaining about the "abuse and hate" the Sikh community allegedly faced during the trial and clarifying that the British law permitting Sikhs to carry a kirpan knife for religious reasons does not allow for its use as "an offensive weapon" in an act of violence.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for Self-driving trucks are about controlling the roads — not making them safer

Self-driving trucks are about controlling the roads — not making them safer

Americans have become strangely accustomed to driverless cars. In cities like San Francisco and Austin, people casually summon Waymo robo-taxis the way they once called Uber.Now imagine the same technology attached to an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer moving at highway speed.My fellow truckers already know the problem. Modern collision-avoidance systems have been triggered by shadows, weather conditions, lighting changes, and animals.It’s happening; large carriers are already purchasing hundreds of robotically operated highway trucks as they prepare to eliminate one of the country’s most common occupations: the truck driver.Supermarket swindleThose pimping the technology tell us it is the necessary solution to a catastrophic shortage of truckers, with the additional benefit of making the roads safer. As I explain in my new book, "End of the Road: Inside the War on Truckers," neither claim holds up under scrutiny.This hardly matters, as the demand for more road robots is hardly organic. Instead, it is the product of a massive marketing campaign designed to acclimate us to a radical new future, one that may ultimately curtail the rights of all American drivers. Picture something like the “motor law” envisioned in the classic Rush track “Red Barchetta.” The late Neil Peart was a man who understood the precious freedom of the open road.Waymo robo-taxis already roam San Francisco and Austin, while autonomous tractor-trailers test on Texas interstates. The technology, however, remains immature and heavily dependent on human oversight.You won’t see this mentioned in recent paid content from Aurora Innovation, one of the leading developers of autonomous big-rig systems. Almost seamlessly inserted among actual articles on online news platform Axios, the piece’s headline promises to explain “the link between autonomous trucks and your grocery bill.”The article opens with a bold claim: “Autonomous trucks — trucks that operate without a driver — could lower shipping costs, helping reduce grocery prices while improving safety and supply chain efficiency.”But what the slick interactive video infographic and official-looking statistics fail to reveal is that the cost of trucking, in general, only represents between 1% and 3% of any consumer product. Consider that the industry has spent the last four years in a “freight recession” driven by weak demand, oversupply, and depressed rates. Did you notice your groceries getting cheaper? Of course you didn’t.'Shortage' scamAurora’s advertorial also employs one of the autonomous truck lobby’s favorite justifications: the so-called shortage of truck drivers. This “crisis” has been going on since the 1980s, when deregulation and the attendant sharp decline in truck driver pay and working conditions created massive turnover in the industry. Now it is being used to convince investors and lawmakers that we don’t need truck drivers at all.The problem is that even the trucking industry itself has largely stopped pretending the shortage exists.Bob Costello, chief economist for the American Trucking Associations, allegedly declared that the “truck driver shortage is gone” at a recent carrier conference in Florida; just prior to this, he told trucking media outlet CCJ Digital that “what we have in the United States is a quality problem around drivers, much more so than an absolute number.”That distinction matters because the trucking industry, like much of the country, has spent years lowering standards. The Biden administration’s de facto open borders policy opened the industry to large numbers of illegal aliens, refugees, and dubious asylum-seekers. Truckers — and the motoring public — have been dealing with the consequences ever since.RELATED: The deadly trucker crisis — and why mass migration is to blame Justin Hamel/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesUnsafe at any speedRoad safety could improve overnight by revoking the questionable CDLs and driver’s licenses handed out to poorly vetted, poorly trained migrants in recent years. Instead, declining standards are quietly accepted while automation is presented as the solution. One doesn’t have to be a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist to wonder whether a more chaotic and less trustworthy driving environment makes the public easier to sell on “safer” autonomous systems.As mentioned above, however, these “driverless” systems still depend heavily on human oversight. Aurora, for example, requires remote operators to monitor its trucks. In a July 2024 investor report, the company promised to reduce the number of such operators by increasing the number of trucks under each assistant’s watch. In the report, that number is 100.Most readers will understand how difficult it can be to keep an eye on all of the traffic around you while operating one vehicle. What Aurora is proposing here is that the company will hand off the responsibility for 100 tractor-trailers to one remote “driver.”Controller cowboysAnd what skills does it take to pull this off? Anyone with a CDL or actual road experience can move to the back of the line; apparently this is a job for gamers and flight simulator enthusiasts.The autonomous taxi industry is no better. Waymo has admitted it uses remote operators in the Philippines. An insider tells me Kodiak Robotics, whose supposedly driverless trucks operate in Texas’ Permian Basin, does the same. America’s highways already resemble "Mad Max" often enough. Soon they may look more like "Grand Theft Auto: 18-Wheeler."To be fair, language recently added to the proposed Build America 250 Act would require remote operators to possess CDLs and be based in the United States. Whether that language survives the lobbying process remains to be seen.Virtual insanityThe industry’s safety claims deserve skepticism for another reason: Much of the confidence behind autonomous systems comes from “virtual miles,” simulations where AI software learns by effectively playing billions of miles of video games. Real-world highway testing – which subjects drivers to less predictable, more challenging situations — remains only a tiny fraction of that total.Waymo, the current leader in autonomous cars, already accounts for most autonomous vehicle incident reports filed with the California DMV. Those are only the incidents publicly reported. What happens once thousands of autonomous semis begin operating across Texas?Texas became the center of autonomous truck testing precisely because regulators took a light-touch approach. Investors certainly appreciate that; the public, unwittingly enlisted in the beta testing of this technology, may not.Phantom menaceA major potential danger is phantom braking, a problem the industry is barely willing to acknowledge. As Dr. Missy Cummings, a former Navy fighter pilot and director of the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center at George Mason University, recently warned the New York Times: “There is no identified solution on the horizon for phantom braking. And it will not be addressed soon, because nobody wants to admit that it’s happening.”Cummings added that this malfunction — which has already caused incidents with robo-taxis — will likely have far more dangerous repercussions in significantly heavier class-eight semis.My fellow truckers already know the problem. Modern collision-avoidance systems in human-operated trucks have been triggered by shadows, weather conditions, lighting changes, and animals, sometimes causing jackknife accidents.Human touchAutonomous driving technology is clearly flawed, and there’s no reason to assume that more bugs won’t emerge in the future. Yet developers continue to insist that software-driven vehicles are safer than those operated by humans. The steady drip of dramatic dashcam crash footage on social media subtly encourages this view.But human drivers are already remarkably safe overall. Automotive site Jalopnik calculated that autonomous vehicles would need to avoid crashes 99.999819% of the time just to outperform human drivers.Even if autonomous driving were capable of meeting such a high standard, we would have to consider the economic impact. What is being proposed here is not some minor technological upgrade. Truck driving directly employs roughly 2.5 million Americans, while the broader trucking industry supports around 8 million jobs and contributes an estimated $200 billion annually in wages.The math pushed by autonomous vehicle boosters is absurd. They tell us that every 1,000 autonomous trucks will “create” 190 jobs, while conveniently ignoring the hundreds — perhaps thousands — of driving jobs simultaneously eliminated.Who gets to DRIVE?If we take the inevitability of driverless vehicles as a given, at the very least the people pushing that inevitability should be much more honest about the consequences. Lawmakers ought be more concerned for their constituents, rather than pandering to tech investors or indulging in baseless fearmongering about China flooding the market with robot vehicles.At least three bills currently before Congress seek to accelerate autonomous vehicle deployment. One of them, sponsored by Republican Rep. Vince Fong of California, would effectively prevent states from regulating autonomous vehicle technology on their own roads.So much for federalism.The name of Fong’s bill? The “America DRIVES Act.” Ironic, considering that the people behind these policies seem to want a future in which Americans no longer drive at all.As a trucker who has spent nearly 30 years on the road without a single collision, I have one response to all of this: No thanks. I’m sure millions of Americans agree.

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for Jason Whitlock blasts George Floyd memorials on Memorial Day: ‘We’re so far removed from the truth’

Jason Whitlock blasts George Floyd memorials on Memorial Day: ‘We’re so far removed from the truth’

“George Floyd Square” in Minneapolis was packed this Memorial Day as residents came to remember the sixth anniversary of Floyd’s death — which BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock finds “extremely unhealthy.”“He’s set off a toxin in global society and particularly in American society. His death, a tragedy, has been exploited to spark more racial division and, you know, George Floyd-19 disease,” Whitlock tells his panel on “Jason Whitlock Harmony.”Shemeka Michelle agrees, asking, “What exactly are we celebrating?”“This man should not be any type of hero to the black community. He didn’t even lay down his life willingly. ... To actually acknowledge this, in my opinion, on Memorial Day when we had people who actually went into battle to fight for our freedom, who lost their lives, and we’re acting as if he compares in some type of way,” Michelle explains.“He didn’t raise his hand to say, ‘Hey, let me die for a cause. Let me die for America. Let me die for the freedom of people.’ This just happened because he was high on drugs,” she continues, pointing out that even Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, Bernice King, was publicly honoring Floyd.“What? Your father was Martin Luther King Jr. ... How is George Floyd even coming out of your mouth?” she asks.And those celebrating George Floyd could use a little history lesson.“We’re so far removed from the truth and our own history that we have no reverence for Memorial Day. And it was started by black people that were thanking Union soldiers for fighting in the Civil War and sacrificing their lives,” Whitlock explains.“And somehow celebrating George Floyd takes precedence over celebrating Memorial Day. It’s just sad and tragic to me,” he adds.Want more from Jason Whitlock?To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll faces criminal perjury probe involving Democrat mega-donor: Reports

Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll faces criminal perjury probe involving Democrat mega-donor: Reports

E. Jean Carroll, a co-founder of multiple hookup sites whom Elle fired as a columnist in 2020, has accused numerous men of sexual abuse decades after the alleged incidents supposedly happened.Whereas other allegations didn't go much further than the pages of her imaginative tell-alls, Carroll's allegations against President Donald Trump ended up centering a pair of civil lawsuits — one in which she alleged that Trump sexually abused her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan back in the 1990s and the other in which she alleged defamation over Trump's denial that the incident happened.'Her counsel sat by and allowed her to do so, knowing full well that her testimony was false,' Trump's attorneys claimed.Carroll's legal offensive ultimately left the president on the hook for a $83.3 million jury award — but now, she may have to go on defense.The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into Carroll, sources familiar with the matter told multiple publications, including CNN and the New York Times. Investigators are reportedly looking into whether the fired columnist committed perjury in testimony linked to her lawsuits against Trump.The probe reportedly focuses on Carroll's assertion in a 2022 deposition statement that she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, which was later shown to be demonstrably false.RELATED: Trump’s anti-weaponization fund puts GOP cowards on trial Anti-Trump activist Reid Hoffman. Jason Alden/Bloomberg/Getty Images.When asked on Oct. 14, 2022, whether anyone else was paying her legal fees, Carroll definitively answered, "No."A jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation in May 2023.However, several weeks earlier, Carroll's attorneys admitted in an April 10, 2023, letter that LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a big-time Biden donor and anti-Trump activist, had been funding Carroll's lawsuit, prompting Trump's legal team to raise hell.Attorneys for the president said in an April 13, 2023, letter to U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan — the Clinton-appointed judge overseeing the case — that the belated disclosure "raises significant concerns as to plaintiff's bias and motive in commencing the instant lawsuit."Trump's attorneys also rejected the suggestion that Carroll suddenly remembered all that money didn't come ex nihilo:Of course, the proposition that plaintiff has suddenly “recollected” the source of her funding for this high-profile litigation — which has spanned four years, spawned two separate actions, and been before numerous state, federal, and appellate courts — is not only preposterous, it is demonstrably false. Indeed, it simply defies logic to believe that plaintiff’s attorneys — four of whom were present at her deposition — were unaware that their own firm had “secured additional funding from a nonprofit organization” to bankroll their client’s various lawsuits and ensure their bills were being paid.Trump's attorneys noted in summary that Carroll "apparently perjured herself during her deposition; her counsel sat by and allowed her to do so, knowing full well that her testimony was false; and then they conspired to conceal the truth for nearly six months, only to disclose it on the eve of trial."At the time, Kaplan denied the request by Trump's attorneys to delay the case so they could properly investigate the funding issue.Carroll's lawyers, meanwhile, suggested that the outside funding — from the largest donor to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin — was irrelevant, even though it buttressed Trump's 2019 claim that the lawsuit was a setup intended to "carry out a political agenda."Carroll's lawyers also claimed that she had nothing to do with securing the outside funding or outsider funding source.The inquiry into Carroll was reportedly launched by the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Andrew Boutros. Having previously represented Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has allegedly recused himself from the investigation.Carroll did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News, and the DOJ declined to comment.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for Tony Hinchcliffe: Chelsea Handler's 'Nazi' insult is the brainchild of 'mentally ill liberals'

Tony Hinchcliffe: Chelsea Handler's 'Nazi' insult is the brainchild of 'mentally ill liberals'

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe says Los Angeles writers are living in an unfunny liberal bubble of mental illness, and that includes those who write for Chelsea Handler.Hinchcliffe's reaction to Netflix's roast of Kevin Hart aired on Monday during his show "Kill Tony," which was filmed the day after he went head-to-head with Handler in front of the world.'They just read what the writers wrote for them without any originality whatsoever.'Heil HandlerDuring the roast, Handler called Hinchcliffe and fellow star Shane Gillis white supremacists and Nazis who would rather spend their time burning crosses, while Hinchcliffe poked fun at how the 51-year-old comedienne constantly brags about being childless and single.Hinchcliffe wasted no time getting right into the good stuff on Monday, saying that the roast was the first time he had been "called a Nazi multiple times in just a few hours."The Ohio native recalled that while everyone human he has interacted with told him his performance was "unbelievable," fake news media was busy trying to convince the general public otherwise."There's news articles — because the news isn't real. Nothing is real — that say that I got lit up by Chelsea Handler, which is very, very funny because that's not what happened at all."The "Kill Tony" host described Handler as a "c**t" who "just kept coming at me" despite making false claims like he had taken money from Saudi Arabia."The teleprompter only went down during my set," Hinchcliffe recalled. "And it gave me a lot of opportunity to remind Chelsea Handler what she looks like and where her life is, because she had it coming."RELATED: Chelsea Handler learned a valuable lesson — if you're going to attack Tony Hinchcliffe, don't go first Bubble-brainedHinchcliffe blamed Handler's lack of creativity on her writers, describing L.A. writing circles as "a lot of mentally ill liberals" who call him a Nazi but somehow can't tell that his show is performed with a bunch of "blacks and Jews and Mexicans" around him. Hinchcliffe was referring to his trio of Mexican brass musicians, his Mexican drummer, and his black keyboard player and black guitarist (who is also blind)."I guess I'm a f**king Nazi somehow," Hinchcliffe added. "I guess the guy that pulls names out of a bucket, giving everybody an opportunity, is a Nazi. Isn't that something?"Hinchcliffe described those putting racist labels on him as people who have "never written anything in their lives," summing them up as being cue-card and teleprompter readers."They just read what the writers wrote for them without any originality whatsoever," he explained. While some of the others are good writers, the 41-year-old admitted, "the rest of them are just living in a bubble of mental illness, and it's very exciting."RELATED: 'ROAST' BEEF: Chelsea Handler scolds fellow comics for 'racist,' 'sexist' jokes Kevin Mazur/Getty Images Roast reduxWhile Hinchcliffe disagreed with the idea that comedians like Handler should go first in the broadcast, he said it gave him the opportunity to watch what she was doing and prepare for the onslaught he was about to deliver.Hinchcliffe paraphrased that even though he "got called a Nazi, gay, [and] a racist over and over again," he is "none of those three things," but those he made fun of are in fact "fat, ugly, black, [or] Jewish."The "Kill Tony" crowd went wild after those comments, as Hinchcliffe concluded, "Anyway, it was fun."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for College towns bred the next plague on rural America: The fail-lib

College towns bred the next plague on rural America: The fail-lib

Traditionally, one advantage of living in rural America was the ability to escape insufferable leftists. The trade-offs were obvious: fewer jobs, fewer restaurants, less entertainment, and fewer institutions built for upward mobility. But distance from liberal cultural centers meant the average community could preserve a sane, conservative, patriotic outlook — the kind of place where normal people could still breathe without asking permission from their urban cultural commissars.That escape has narrowed. As media and universities became more radical, their disciples moved into rural America through government-mandated institutions like schools and libraries. Progressivism became harder to avoid no matter how far someone moved from the city. Thus the hicklib was born.The fail-lib was promised luxury and elite influence. Now she serves people she despises while searching for any opportunity to make their lives worse.The hicklib is usually a social outcast, a failson who needs a moral explanation for why he hates the community he never fit into. His resentment searches for a theory that will dignify his rage, and the progressive missionaries installed in local institutions are happy to provide one.Teachers tell the hicklib his country is evil. His family and neighbors are racist, sexist, backward religious fanatics destroying the lives of minorities who do not even live in town. The white Christian culture that dominates rural America is primitive and responsible for the evils of the world. The hicklib’s failure to fit in becomes proof of moral superiority.So the hicklib shows up at town council meetings in a Black Lives Matter shirt to denounce minority oppression in a community with no actual black people. That absence, naturally, becomes further proof of the town’s intolerance. He loudly organizes Pride events attended by two other hicklibs. The clique stages protests, distributes flyers, and imitates urban activist rituals.By practicing the sacraments of their faith, they hope to summon the spirit of the age to judge their reactionary little town.The hicklib has become one of rural America’s petty plagues. But as the value of college degrees collapses, a new breed is emerging: the fail-lib.The fail-lib worked hard in high school and gave progressive teachers every approved answer. She wrote her college entrance essay on the oppression of transwomen of color in coal mining. On campus, she became an activist. She secured a degree in some woke humanities discipline and earned straight A’s by repeating everything her communist professors told her.The path to success was laid out before the fail-lib was born. She followed it perfectly. All that remained was the cushy corporate HR job and her rightful place making ordinary people miserable.Then the plan failed.RELATED: Your enemies aren’t mentally ill. They apparently just want to kill you. Blaze Media IllustrationThe college degree that cost $100,000 was supposed to guarantee success. The debt would be worth it because the credential would deliver a salary large enough for an apartment, a car, and monthly student loan payments. But the degree was not merely about financial security. It was also a symbol of status. College graduates were supposed to rule over the simple plebs who never left home.The degree would confer wealth, power, and privilege. Instead, it turned out that too many people held degrees and too few jobs required them. Corporations began cutting HR departments that wasted resources and reduced productivity. Poor oppressed immigrant workers somehow found work while the fail-lib remained unemployed, though a good progressive would never complain. She could never explain how, but she knew the white Christian patriarchy was responsible for this injustice.Earlier generations of college students had an insult for the ordinary residents of college towns: townies. The townie was contemptible because he was not merely passing through before collecting a credential and moving on to rule the world. He belonged to the place the student planned to use and abandon.The arrogance required to insult the permanent residents of a community while you are a temporary visitor is staggering, but the slur was common. It revealed the sneering condescension of the would-be liberal elite. Now the tables have turned.The college degree was once a ticket to the top. Now it is an expensive lottery ticket with worsening odds. More graduates emerge from extended stays in higher education with mountains of debt and few prospects.The fail-lib spends a year unemployed, desperately seeking even the entry-level positions her fancy degree was supposed to let her bypass. After burning through savings and taking on more debt, she accepts a management job at the local Starbucks or retail outlet. If she gets lucky, she might run the local Apple Store.The hicklib may be insufferable, but the fail-lib is worse. She was destined to leave the college town behind and move to a big liberal city like New York. She was supposed to be the person ordering lattes and $30 burrito bowls for important work lunches, not the person making them. Once, she mocked the parochial townies trapped in their backward existence. Now she is stuck among them with no escape.RELATED: Almonds feed a people. AI feeds a machine. Blaze Media IllustrationThe fail-lib is not merely trapped in the backwater town. She is poor and low-status. A management job at Target might provide a decent life in a small town where prices remain low, but the fail-lib has a mountain of student debt she can never repay on a retail wage.Plumbers, cops, firefighters, and mechanics all seem to make more money and enjoy more status in the community. The fail-lib was promised luxury and elite influence. Now she serves people she despises while searching for any opportunity to make their lives worse.Artificial intelligence will intensify the problem. The bureaucratic make-work jobs progressive college graduates once dominated are among the easiest to automate, consolidate, or eliminate. The bitter entitlement of a psychology major with $100,000 in debt helping you find the cereal aisle will become more common.The fail-lib may make less money than you. She may be less respected than you. She may even be despised by the townies she once mocked. But in her heart, she knows she is superior.Nothing could convince her otherwise.And she will spit in your burrito just to remind you who was supposed to be in charge.

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for Google's AI overhaul of Search will overfish the internet to extinction

Google's AI overhaul of Search will overfish the internet to extinction

This week at Google I/O 2026, the company announced what it called "the biggest upgrade to our Search box in over 25 years." Translation: It's officially done pretending Search is about helping you find websites.The centerpiece is a new AI-powered Search box running Gemini 3.5 Flash. It expands as you type, accepts text, images, files, videos, even Chrome tabs as input, and spits back AI-generated answers where the blue links used to be. Google also unveiled "Search Agents," AI systems that monitor blogs, news sites, and social platforms around the clock to proactively ping you when something matching your criteria happens. There are agentic booking features and custom AI-generated interfaces that build dashboards instead of sending you to actual websites.It's seamless. It's free. And the traffic to the websites that actually created the information? That's not Google's problem anymore.Google's AI is a factory trawler scooping up everything in its path, indifferent to whether the fishery collapses behind it.A slow suffocationThis didn't happen overnight. Google has spent three years systematically strangling the open web that built its empire.September 2023: The helpful content updateGoogle pushed an algorithm change targeting content "created for search engines instead of people." Sounded reasonable. Then, independent publishers watched their traffic crater. Recipe bloggers, how-to sites, product reviewers. They never got that traffic back. The message was clear: Your content exists at Google's pleasure, and Google decides what's "helpful."March 2024: Core and spam updateGoogle promised to reduce "low-quality, unoriginal content" by 40%. It folded the Helpful Content system into its core engine and introduced spam policies against scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, and expired domain abuse. The targets sounded like bottom-feeders. By April, Google announced it had exceeded its 45% reduction target. Translation: 45% fewer reasons to visit the websites that used to rank.From there, the updates kept coming: August 2024 core update, November 2024 core update, December 2024 core update, March 2025 core update, June 2025 core update, August 2025 spam update, December 2025 core update, and March 2026 core update. Nine major confirmed updates in under two years, each tracked by Search Engine Journal. Each one was another announcement that Google had "improved quality," with no real transparency, no appeals process worth the name, and zero accountability for the livelihoods it flattened.What the numbers actually sayThe data is not ambiguous. Multiple independent studies tracking billions of search queries tell the same story, compiled in aggregate by the SEO Spot from Chartbeat, Seer Interactive, Ahrefs, and similar data providers:Organic click-through rates on queries with AI Overviews dropped 61% between June 2024 and September 2025;Position-one CTR fell 34.5% on queries triggering AI Overviews;Overall CTR across the top 10 positions dropped 36% as AI Overviews went from under 7% of queries to nearly 30%;Global Google search traffic to publishers dropped 33% year-over-year; in the U.S. it fell 38%;When an AI Overview appears, only 8% of users click any link below it. When there's no AI summary, 15% do;58.5% of U.S. Google searches result in zero clicks at all.Even when users click a link inside an AI Overview, 43% of those links don't go to external websites. They just run another Google search. Google replaced the web with a layer of summaries that links back to itself.The casualtiesNPR reported extensively on the damage. The travel blog the Planet D lost 90% of its traffic and shut down entirely. CNN dropped roughly 30% year-over-year. Business Insider and HuffPost both saw traffic plunge around 40% year-over-year. Business Insider cut 21% of staff. NPR reported the Verge's publisher calling it an "extinction-level event."RELATED: 'Anti-clanker': Why millions of people are cheering this android's humiliation Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images Digital Content Next, a trade organization for digital publishers, measured median referral traffic from Google Search down 10% in just eight weeks. Non-news brands lost 14%. News brands lost 7%. Declines outnumbered gains two to one. Meanwhile, Google's own advertising revenue shifted from a roughly 50/50 split with the rest of the web to over 90% flowing to Google itself.The question Google won't answerHere's the part that should worry everyone, not just publishers.Google's AI is trained on the open web. It ingests billions of pages written by journalists, researchers, hobbyists, bloggers, doctors, chefs, and travelers. It paraphrases their work, synthesizes their expertise, and presents it as its own answer. Then, it sends fewer readers to the originals. Then, the originals, starved of traffic and revenue, stop publishing. Then, the AI has nothing fresh to train on.This is the information ecosystem equivalent of overfishing. Google's AI is a factory trawler scooping up everything in its path, indifferent to whether the fishery collapses behind it. The only thing that could force a course correction is monopoly accountability, and Google is fighting that on multiple fronts, from the Justice Department's search antitrust case to EU antitrust complaints.Google's sitting on 95% of the mobile search market. Publishers who want out of AI training must opt out of Google Search entirely, which is corporate suicide. As the News/Media Alliance put it, "Google is using our content without compensation, offering no meaningful way to opt out, and then turning around and using that same content to compete with us."The endgameWhat Google announced at I/O 2026 isn't innovation. It's enclosure, the final stage of the monopoly playbook. You build the infrastructure everyone depends on. Then, you extract rent. Then, you replace the producers entirely and capture all value inside the platform.The Search Agents Google launches this summer for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers will monitor publisher blogs and news sites in real time, pull the information, and deliver it to users without the user ever visiting the source. Google's Search box won't just summarize the web anymore. It will replace it.Google executives say users prefer this. Sure. People prefer free music, free news, and free social media too, right up until the platforms that gave them those things finish strip-mining the industries that produced them.The open web worked because it was a virtuous cycle. Search engines indexed content. Users clicked through. Publishers earned revenue. Publishers produced more content. Search engines had better results. Google's AI strategy breaks that cycle. It takes the content, kills the revenue, and hopes nobody notices that an AI trained on a shrinking corpus of old information is just a very expensive echo.Liz Reid, Google's head of Search, called the new Search box "the biggest upgrade in 25 years." For the publishers who built the web Google is now devouring, it's the biggest downgrade since Search began.

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for United Airlines pilot allegedly threatens passengers with FBI intervention over Wi-Fi hot spot name

United Airlines pilot allegedly threatens passengers with FBI intervention over Wi-Fi hot spot name

A pilot allegedly threatened to call authorities this month over a Wi-Fi name that was determined to be a potential security threat. The story came from a person who claimed to have been a passenger on a United Airlines flight that featured an awkward moment when the pilot addressed the travelers and issued a warning. The alleged passenger said the pilot came over the speaker "sounding extremely serious" and said the name of the Wi-Fi hot spot was being interpreted as a potential threat and security issue. According to the witness, the pilot warned whoever was hosting the network labeled "Free Palestine, F Zionists" had "30 seconds" to disable it or remove it from public view or he was going to have the FBI meet the aircraft when it landed. The social media user also claimed that while some of the passengers looked nervous, others were laughing because they thought it was an absurd situation. The storyteller said it felt like an example of hyper-political-polarization, where regular people are bringing political messaging into almost any situation, causing institutions to react with full force rather than risk missing a warning sign. In February, Hungarian airline Wizz Air had fighter jets scrambled during a flight from London to Tel Aviv over a Wi-Fi network labeled "Terrorist" written in Arabic. PYOK also reported on an incident from January when fighter jets from both France and Spain were scrambled over a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Barcelona. This incident related to a network named "I HAVE A BOMB. EVERYONE WILL DIE." United Airlines did not respond to a request for comment about the recent alleged incident.

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for The left spots fake reality only when Hollywood gets hurt

The left spots fake reality only when Hollywood gets hurt

The left has developed a strange blind spot when it comes to artificial substitution. In entertainment, its leading voices warn that AI threatens to replace real actors, writers, voices, and images. In women’s sports, many of those same voices insist that biological reality can be redefined without consequence.The two issues may seem unrelated. They are not. Both turn on the danger of allowing what is artificial to replace what is real.The left sees the problem when the artificial threatens its own institutions. It refuses to see the problem when women and girls pay the price.Charlize Theron recently criticized Timothée Chalamet for disparaging ballet and opera after he said, “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though, like, no one cares about this anymore.’”Theron not only defended ballet and opera but also warned performers to recognize the threat AI poses to their livelihoods.“In 10 years, AI is going to be able to do Timothée’s job,” she said, “but it will not be able to replace a person on a stage dancing live.”Theron is hardly the first performer to sound the alarm. Earlier this year, a 15-second, AI-generated fight scene featuring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise sent shock waves through Hollywood. The clip looked polished, and its creator claimed to have produced it with a two-sentence prompt. One top screenwriter responded bluntly: “I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”Hollywood has reason to worry. AI-generated images, voices, scripts, scenes, and performances could overwhelm an industry already weakened by self-inflicted creative problems and growing competition from other forms of entertainment. Actors, writers, and many others could find themselves displaced by a few keystrokes.On this point, the left sees the threat clearly. Hollywood, one of the left’s most reliable cultural strongholds, understands what happens when an artificial substitute can perform at or above the level of the real thing.Yet many celebrities, athletes, journalists, and activists refuse to apply the same logic to women’s sports. They insist that biological males who identify as transgender should compete against women. Many more likely stay silent because objecting would alienate their peers.The difference in perspective is stunning.If the left fears AI-generated images, voices, and writing because artificial creations can displace real performers, why does it deny the consequences of allowing biological males to compete against biological females?RELATED: Jack Osbourne takes message to Capitol Hill: Celebrities need to ‘keep their mouth shut’ about politics Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesThe threat to female athletes is clear. Biological males have a competitive advantage in female sports. Beyond the headline examples of individual male athletes dominating female competition, many women’s teams have competed against male teams — often much younger male teams — and lost decisively.The advantage moves in only one direction. Biological females do not enter men’s sports and outperform males at scale. The controversy exists because biological males entering female competition changes the competitive field.The more institutions accept that advantage, the more common it will become. That is why advocates fight so aggressively for acceptance. The goal is not merely access in a few isolated cases. The goal is normalization.The stakes grow as athletes move up the competitive ladder. At first, the rewards involve satisfaction, recognition, and the opportunity to keep playing. But anyone who follows sports understands that money enters the picture early.High school athletes compete for scholarships, especially at expensive private schools. College athletes compete for even more valuable scholarships. Those opportunities can shape a young person’s education, finances, and future. At the top of the ladder, professional athletes earn money for competing and often gain endorsement opportunities as well.As the rewards grow, so does the incentive to win. Economics does not change because an athlete identifies as transgender. Without clear rules reserving female sports for biological females, more biological males will have an incentive to enter female competition.The current debate exists because this is already happening.The threat does not exist only at elite levels. Biological males displacing females anywhere on the ladder can affect who keeps playing, who develops, and who moves up. Girls who do not get a fair chance in grade school may never prepare for high school sports. Girls pushed aside in high school may never reach college competition. Women displaced in college may never receive professional opportunities.Title IX was created to address exactly this problem: to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities to compete in sports. That meant female sports, with females competing against other females.The left once championed that principle. Now it champions the greatest threat to it.The irony should be impossible to miss. The same cultural class that fears AI because it can imitate and displace real performers now insists women should accept biological males in their own sports. Hollywood understands substitution when the threatened class includes actors, writers, and directors. It becomes strangely confused when the threatened class includes girls and women.Artificial creations threaten the real when they can perform at similar or superior levels. AI can. Biological males in female sports can too.The left sees the problem when the artificial threatens its own institutions.It refuses to see the problem when women and girls pay the price.

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for Women Arrested in Alleged Torture and Murder of 7-Year-Old Sent Sadistic Texts: 'Can't Hit Her Face. You Gotta Hit Her Body.'

Women Arrested in Alleged Torture and Murder of 7-Year-Old Sent Sadistic Texts: 'Can't Hit Her Face. You Gotta Hit Her Body.'

An elderly woman, her 50-year-old daughter, and her 24-year-old granddaughter were all arrested Wednesday for the alleged "horrific abuse and torture" of a 7-year-old girl. Paramedics were sent to a residence in Bayport on December 29, 2025, at about 10:30 a.m. after being alerted about a child who was unresponsive. 'This was not an alleged single act of violence. It was months of alleged systematic cruelty and sadistic abuse, meticulously documented.' Jor'Dynn Duncan was rushed to NYU Langone Hospital-Suffolk, where she was pronounced dead from a cardiac arrest. Prosecutors said Barbara Renner, her daughter Emily Kelly, and Kelly's daughter Elyssa Seymore each had a part in the "prolonged torture, abuse, and the brutal murder" of the "defenseless, innocent child." The Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office was able to document 90 injuries to the child's body at her death, which led to a homicide investigation being opened. Investigators said Duncan was the daughter of Kelly's fiance, who is incarcerated, and that Kelly requested the child be placed into her care in Dec. 2024 by Child Protective Services. By April 2025, Kelly obtained full custody and guardianship of the girl. Digital evidence from Kelly's cell phone and cloud services allegedly revealed "prolonged abuse and torture" of the girl that included physical injuries, prolonged restraint, and lack of medical attention for the injuries since Jan. 2025. One of the texts allegedly read, "You can't hit her face. You gotta hit her body if you going to hit her. That's another thing we gotta hide." The girl was also kept from attending school for a total of 40 days, allegedly in order to conceal the torture and her injuries. Kelly was indicted on numerous charges that included murder in the second degree, Renner was indicted for second-degree manslaughter, and Seymore was indicted for unlawful imprisonment in the first degree. "This was not an alleged single act of violence," Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said. "It was months of alleged systematic cruelty and sadistic abuse, meticulously documented. The child was allegedly left to die while these defendants watched her deteriorate. No child should ever endure such horror, and we will seek justice for Jor'Dynn." Officials are now calling for accountability from the government organizations that were intended to detect these kinds of cases. "How was this child placed in the hands of somebody who could be this unfit and this abusive?" County Legislator Rebecca Sanin asked. "How could the school not see her for 40 days over the course of a year and not ask questions?" RELATED: AZ mom shoots woman she found with her husband — then sends him horrific photo of their child Neighbors said they were shocked to find out about the horrific abuse allegedly perpetrated on the child. "The cutest little thing that you want to see in your life," Tim Lowe said. "I never saw any marks on her face." Relatives of the 7-year-old girl refused to comment to CBS News about the case. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for 'Directed beam teleportation': Ashton Forbes claims US intelligence is hiding INSANE truth about missing plane

'Directed beam teleportation': Ashton Forbes claims US intelligence is hiding INSANE truth about missing plane

Over a decade after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished without a trace, Ashton Forbes believes the public still isn’t getting the full story — arguing that the United States government knows what happened to the missing Boeing 777 and is actively concealing critical information from the public.“There’s clearly a cover-up going on with respect to that missing plane,” Forbes tells BlazeTV host Pat Gray on “Pat Gray Unleashed," pointing out that the government has satellites everywhere. “We’ve got over-the-horizon radar systems. We can detect every whale in the ocean and every submarine,” he continues, before pulling out a stack of responses to Freedom of Information Act requests Forbes has sent, which he calls “glamour responses related to MH370.”“I figured out everything, and I’ve been FOIA requesting everything from them. Every single thing’s being met with a rejection, including a transcript of a communication that the U.S. Navy supposedly intercepted of the plane having a mayday and then a document related to the fate of MH370 that was given to the Malaysian government from the United States,” he explains.“Why would the CIA glamour response that if they don’t have information about it, right?” he asks, adding, “So the evidence to me is overwhelming, there’s something going on regarding the missing plane.”Forbes goes on to say he thinks “it’s clearly some type of espionage.”“I would say it’s got to be China versus the United States, given the proximity, given the South China Sea, given the fact that there’s 20 engineers on the plane that were working for an American company that were flying to Beijing,” he explains.“The scenario seems pretty obvious that that’s had to be generally what was going on. As to why they did this, I’m not entirely sure,” he says.“But I can tell you ... the director of the science and technology of the CIA is where they’re hiding this super advanced technology,” he adds.As to what they did with the plane, Forbes tells Gray that it’s a “directed beam teleportation.”“This sounds crazy as hell of course,” he says. “‘Cause you would think, hey, if you can wormhole something, why can’t you just wormhole it anywhere you want? And in theory you can, but there are limitations in physics.”“You can’t signal faster than the speed of light,” Forbes explains, calling this the “no communication theorem.”“You couldn’t do teleportation. But there’s ways around this. And one of those ways if you have an anchor, like if you have a preset anchor, you could think of like a warp gate in sci-fi. If you have an anchor like that, now you have a pre-established connection bridge,” he says.“So what I think is happening specifically is that when they’re spinning around that plane, they’re aiming exactly the direction in which they want that plane to show up through an extra dimension and then it goes in a straight line,” he continues.“And that’s where your anchor comes into play. They aim it in a direction, it hits this point, and there’s an opposite polarity charge. Like, let's say these orbs have a three positive charge polarity. Then there’s an opposite polarity. So it hits that point and then just reemerges in our spacetime,” he adds.“That is so cool,” Gray comments, shocked.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.

by Blaze Media

May 28 2026
Cover image for JD Vance might be unstoppable in 2028

JD Vance might be unstoppable in 2028

Conventional wisdom suggests that the 2028 Republican primary is shaping up to be a chaotic affair. Supposedly, it’s anyone’s game, as Vice President JD Vance is weaker than he appears, while potential adversaries, including Marco Rubio, are gaining an advantage.This view is untethered from reality. The fact is that the 2028 Republican nomination is Vance’s to lose. The faulty prevailing opinion has calcified for two reasons: a poor reading of history and a deficient understanding of the political landscape.JD Vance has had one of the fastest rises to the executive branch in modern American political history. “George H.W. Bush is the only sitting vice president in the last 190 years (since 1836) to be elected president,” an MS Now analyst recently wrote. He is not alone: the “190 years” number has been trotted out by those who contend that Vance stands little chance of winning the presidency in 2028.On its face, this line of argument should be ignored because comparing the politics of 1840s America to the present is a fool’s errand: The country has changed significantly in that time, as has the party system.Looking to history But even if one disregards this, another historical fact emerges: For much of American history, the vice presidency wasn’t “worth a bucket of warm piss,” to borrow an infamous line from Vice President John Nance Garner. It was mostly used to balance a presidential ticket geographically and had little power on its own, as the office was typically a capstone to one’s career rather than a stepping stone to the presidency.Particularly ambitious politicians instead sought the position of secretary of state, which often acted as the president’s chief adviser. Every commander in chief from Thomas Jefferson through John Quincy Adams served as secretary of state, as did Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, and a host of individuals who lost the presidency.Andrew Jackson broke this mold by picking Van Buren, his ideological successor, to be his vice president, as Jackson was specifically seeking to undertake a long-term political revolution. He was the only president to select his second-in-command for such a purpose — that is, until Donald Trump picked JD Vance.Since Van Buren won the presidency in 1836, only three incumbent vice presidents sought to succeed a two-term president of their own party: Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and Al Gore. Nixon and Gore lost razor-close contests. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 and would likely have been president had the infamous butterfly ballot not confused a few thousand voters in liberal Palm Beach County into voting for arch-conservative Pat Buchanan.Out of the remaining incumbent vice presidents who ran, two did so after one-term presidents suddenly dropped out — Hubert Humphrey after Lyndon Johnson and Kamala Harris after Joe Biden — and were therefore forced to run abbreviated campaigns. The third, John Breckinridge, ran in the four-way 1860 election in which his party was split in two, a situation that’s not analogous to today. The final incumbent vice president, John Adams, ran after George Washington and won, but he did so under an entirely different electoral system.The tally of incumbent vice presidents running after a two-termer of their same party is two large wins (Van Buren and Bush) and two incredibly narrow losses (Nixon and Gore). The wins tally jumps to three if Adams is included.This is hardly a reason for Vance to be concerned with history being a hindrance to his hopes of winning the White House. Plus, neither Nixon nor Gore was running as specific ideological inheritors of their respective presidents’ legacies. Gore arguably ran away from Bill Clinton, while Van Buren and Bush were successors — and they both won.RELATED: The Trump administration is cracking down on fraud Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesAhead of the pack“It’s anybody’s to win” is a second piece of conventional wisdom stated without evidence. Polling on the GOP 2028 nomination so far reveals an indisputable picture: Vance is dominating his competition. The RealClearPolitics average has him at around 40% — which is 20% ahead of his nearest competitor. A recent Echelon poll had Vance similarly ahead, as have a bevy of others. Only a recent Atlas poll shows Marco Rubio leading Vance. But there are numerous reasons to question that poll, from the sudden massive swing to Rubio to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leading the pack among Democrats.In the Trump era, political analysts have grown accustomed to one man dominating the Republican Party’s primary contests. But Vance’s dominance two years out is also historically stronger than most previous nominees not named Trump.In 1986, although George H.W. Bush was leading, he was stuck at 29%, in front of Senator Howard Baker by only 13%. In 1998, his son George W. Bush led with 30%, only 16% ahead of Elizabeth Dole, who had not yet been elected senator. Other than Trump, no Republican has so clearly led the field in the history of modern presidential primary elections — and Vance has done this without a definitive Trump endorsement, which would likely send his numbers even higher.Then there are Vance’s prospective challengers. Though Secretary of State Marco Rubio often places second, the secretary has repeatedly ruled out running against Vance, saying at one point, “If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him.” The specificity of Rubio’s statements, seen with his and Vance’s repeated expressions of praise for each other, would make any Rubio candidacy extraordinarily difficult.Running now would destroy Rubio’s relationship with Vance and his wing of the party, and arguably with some in the administration. Rubio would need to explain why he changed his mind on Vance, and he would also likely have to resign from office a year and a half early to campaign. Many outside observers insist that a race between the two is on, but that seems based on a desperation for clicks — or a desperation to stop Vance — rather than on real evidence.The secretary of state is an extremely effective politician, is careful with his words, and is incredibly experienced. He will make a phenomenal president. But if he wanted to run in 2028, he would not have said what he said.What about the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr.? He also polls rather well, usually placing third but sometimes second. The younger Trump, like Rubio, has been at the center of endless presidential chatter for months. In the past few weeks alone, multiple articles from outlets as diverse as the Los Angeles Times and the American Conservative have talked up a Trump Jr. candidacy.But there is one person not talking up a Trump Jr. presidential run: Trump Jr. Like Rubio, he has explicitly and repeatedly made clear he will not run against Vance. He has expressed frustration at the constant speculation, at one point angrily castigating a Mediaite article, and following it up with another condemnation of the idea on X.Other candidates known to voters, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, are unlikely to catch fire. If Americans wanted to support them, they would already be polling well.RELATED: Spencer Pratt is showing conservatives how it’s done Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesStaying the courseOf course, there is the possibility that Vance may not run. Those who are desperate for him to stay away from the White House have seized on reporting that Vance would wait to decide to run until after the summer, when his fourth child is born. His desire to wait to make a decision is eminently reasonable; any parent can attest to the change a new child brings, particularly if it is one’s fourth.But Vance’s statement was also entirely standard. He will be going on a book tour this summer, a perfect soft launch for an unofficial candidacy — unofficial because he would never announce his run before the midterm elections, and there are still two and a half years left in his term. Until he formally announces, which will likely happen next year, Vance will continue doing what he’s been doing: supporting the president and the administration, fundraising for Republican candidates, and dominating the polls.It is easy to forget that JD Vance has had one of the fastest rises to the executive branch in modern American political history. Even Barack Obama, who seemed to ascend quickly to the presidency, followed a relatively traditional political path: state senator to senator to president over the course of 12 years. Vance, by contrast, won a U.S. Senate race in 2022 and then the vice presidency only two years later. Now he is the obvious ideological successor to two-termer Donald Trump.The future is never certain. But in our era of shocking twists, too many have been primed to expect the unexpected. Sometimes reality is obvious: JD Vance is the clear front-runner for the 2028 Republican nomination.Editor’s note: This article appeared originally in The American Mind.

by Blaze Media

May 27 2026
Cover image for Five standout denunciations and warnings in Pope Leo XIV's new papal encyclical

Five standout denunciations and warnings in Pope Leo XIV's new papal encyclical

Pope Leo XIII issued a papal encyclical in 1891 titled "Rerum Novarum," which the Vatican notes "became the document inspiring Christian activity in the social sphere and the point of reference for this activity."In that groundbreaking document about the just ordering of society, Leo XIII applied Catholic doctrines to the modern conditions that manifested as a result of the Industrial Revolution.Besides rejecting socialism as a means of remedying social ills and setting the stage for localism, the late pope expounded on the Church's doctrine on work, private property, the rights of workers, the obligations of the rich, the dignity of the poor, and other timely terms and issues.'It can only bring about conflict more quickly and render it more impersonal.'The current pope, Leo XIV, has set out in his first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," to do for his era what his predecessor did 135 years ago.The Roman pontiff has, accordingly, scrutinized "the great trends of our time, particularly technological advances," through the lens of the Church’s Scripture- and tradition-based social doctrine — that living "legacy of wisdom, where we find principles for thought, criteria for discernment and judgment, and concrete guidelines for action."While the pope covers a great deal of ground in his encyclical, five remarks stand out as especially provocative and/or memorable.1. The two citiesAt the outset, Pope Leo XIV raises the questions of where man is going and toward which goal does he wish to orient himself.Leo XIV notes that in the era of AI, mankind is faced with a choice — not whether or not to embrace technology, which he does not regard as a force intrinsically antagonistic to humanity — but of whether to "construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together."RELATED: It’s not easy being pope — Leo's big new tech encyclical proves it Alessandra Benedetti - Corbis/Corbis/Getty ImagesThe American pope suggested that the choice will inevitably dictate how the transformative technology of the age is employed, given that this technology takes on the "characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it."Following in the footsteps of Nimrod and choosing the first option would mean giving way to an ancient temptation and pursuing "a single language, a single technology, a single direction"; building a society "on pride and the claim to self-sufficiency"; and working toward a "future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means."The second option would not similarly mean dominating the heavens but rather patiently cultivating a "space in which humanity rediscovers its solid foundations and its final end" — a place "less visible and less spectacular" that is founded on the common good and has for its bedrock a firm relationship with the Almighty.Building for the common good necessitates resisting the "Babel syndrome" that animates transhumanism and other vainglorious efforts to correct what God has created and instead "accepting the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected," said the pope.2. Falling victim to achievementLeo XIV observed that within the ascendant technocratic paradigm previously denounced by Pope Francis, there is a "tendency to let the logic of efficiency, control, and profit alone shape personal, social, and economic decisions."Speed and efficiency should never be the supreme motivating force for the irreversible decisions.'This contagious way of looking at the world — which threatens to reduce "creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency" — has spread in concert with "the expansion of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology," said the pope.Pope Leo XIV warns that unless technological progress advances with corresponding ethical and social progress, "the result may be an increase in means without a growth in humanity: 'having more' without 'being more.'"3. More dehumanization on the battlefieldSensitive to the increasing ease of war-making, "tragically marginal" efforts to prevent conflicts, and the "perpetuation of conflict as a source of power and income," the pope discussed the need to rein in and regulate the use of AI where the battlefield is concerned.Leo XIV noted that moral judgments of a lethal or irreversible nature cannot be reduced to calculation and should not be entrusted to artificial systems.RELATED: Killer drones have conquered the skies. Can we ever be safe again? ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesLeaving the work of killing and ruination to machines neither makes war more morally acceptable nor removes the intrinsic inhumanity of conflict, said the pope; rather "it can only bring about conflict more quickly and render it more impersonal, lowering the threshold for resorting to violence, transforming defense into threat prediction and thus reducing victims to data."Decisions now seem to be driven almost exclusively by economic calculations, justified through media distortions.'Where AI and automated systems are involved, the pope advocates for:holding those who design, train, authorize, and employ the technology used in strikes accountable;ensuring that "speed and efficiency should never be the supreme motivating force for the irreversible decisions made in the context of war";requiring technology that facilitates attacks to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants and factor in the impact on defenseless populations;requiring weapons systems to retrace and reconstruct their decision-making processes "so that accountability and blame are not collapsed into 'the machine'";keeping decisions to use lethal force under human control; andavoiding an international AI arms race.Leo XIV notes, "While AI can enhance the defense and protection of civilians, it can also lower the threshold for the use of force, shield people from responsibility, and foster a culture in which the enemy is reduced to a statistic and the victim to 'collateral damage.'"4. The new colonialismAfter noting that the "Church renews her firm condemnation of all forms of slavery, trafficking, and the commodification of persons," Leo XIV discussed a novel form of colonialism incubated in the digital economy that "appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information."The pope railed against the mining, aggregation, and analysis of individuals' data — especially information about their health and genetics — noting that such information affords the powers that be "structural leverage over the future, for they can shape needs and markets. They can also decide, before others, to whom medicines, investments, and protections will be allocated."The remedy, according to the pope: restore "to individuals not only the data that describes them, but also the ability to decide how it is used, by whom, and for whose benefit."5. A false realismThe pope rails in his encyclical against realpolitik — politics based on doing what is regarded as expedient rather than what is understood as morally or ethically right — particularly as it relates to war.Leo XIV, certain that "we live at a time of significant spiritual and cultural blindness," characterized realpolitik as a "truly irresponsible" form of false realism that "sows in consciences and in society an attitude of resignation to the inevitability of war and dismisses peace and dialogue as utopian or irrational positions that ignore the risks at stake."While stressing that "peace is neither a naïve hope nor merely the absence of war" and is "always possible as the fruit of justice and charity," the pope recognized that the prevailing climate of pragmatism and nihilism has nevertheless set the stage for "new wars that are perhaps even more dangerous than those of the past, since they tend to disregard all ethical limits.""Decisions now seem to be driven almost exclusively by economic calculations, justified through media distortions, manufactured enthusiasm, and 'dreams' that inevitably shatter, generating frustration and further violence," wrote the pope. "When people come to believe that nothing is genuinely true and that principles are hollow words, then the fuse in their hearts is lit for new eruptions of intolerance and aggression."Just as he rejects this "false realism," the pope rejects the encompassing "culture of power," highlighting an alternative: the "civilization of love.""Christians see the darkness and acknowledge it for what it is, yet they do not merely gaze upon it passively, for they know the light and understand that the darkness has not overcome it and cannot defeat it (cf. Jn 1:5)," wrote the pope. "For this reason, even when suffering seems to have the last word, Christians serve the good and are sustained by a theological hope that gives reality both meaning and direction."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 27 2026
Cover image for Trump-endorsed Paxton DEMOLISHES Cornyn in GOP Senate primary runoff

Trump-endorsed Paxton DEMOLISHES Cornyn in GOP Senate primary runoff

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's challenge to incumbent Sen. John Cornyn went unresolved in the heated Republican primary race on March 3, as neither candidate proved able to secure 50% of the total vote.Though Cornyn confidently warned Paxton that "Judgment day is coming," Paxton ultimately proved victorious in Tuesday's runoff election, handily beating the four-term senator by double digits.AP News and NBC News called the race for Paxton around 9 p.m. ET, at which time 49.1% of the vote was in and Paxton was leading Cornyn 62.5% to 37.5%.'Our Country needs Fighters.'Cornyn's campaign blew over $24 million on advertising, including the attack ads that unsuccessfully tried to turn Republican voters off Paxton, reported the Texas Tribune.Tens of millions of dollars more were blown by various pro-Cornyn groups, including the super PAC Texans for a Conservative Majority, which squandered $32.9 million on total advertising. The group even dropped $9.5 million in runoff-only ad-spending to help the senator.The Lone Star State's AG, whose campaign spent only $4.8 million on advertising, stated in a runoff Election Day interview that "John Cornyn has never done anything significantly good for the state of Texas in 42 years."In his final argument against maintaining the status quo, Paxton faulted his opponent for "siding with Joe Biden on restricting Second Amendment rights, siding with Joe Biden on bringing Afghan refugees here without vetting them, going against Donald Trump on the border, going against Donald Trump's re-election, going against Donald Trump's first election, fighting for amnesty, open borders — that's John Cornyn."RELATED: GOP congressman sort of reappears after going AWOL for months, missing over 100 votes Richard Rodriguez/Getty ImagesToward the end of the race, Cornyn's team framed the senator — who received donations from elements of the GOP old guard including former President George W. Bush and Rupert Murdoch — as a steady and proven conservative and Paxton as "morally bankrupt" and a "mortal threat to the America First agenda."President Donald Trump evidently did not share Cornyn's vision for the future or his concerns about Paxton.The president endorsed Paxton last week, touting him as "a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate."While signaling goodwill to Cornyn by referring to him as a "good man," Trump emphasized that Paxton is a fighter and that "Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness."Trump wasted no time celebrating Paxton's win on Tuesday, posting to social media an image of himself and the victor along with a reminder of his endorsement.Paxton will now face Democrat state Rep. James Talarico — a part-time Presbyterian seminarian who has attempted to use Scripture to justify abortion, protested the public display of the Ten Commandments, concern-mongers about traditional Christian views, voted against sparing kids from sex-rejection mutilations, and claimed there are six sexes.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 26 2026
Cover image for WATCH: Gay student says his middle school is built on racism and homophobia during viral grad speech

WATCH: Gay student says his middle school is built on racism and homophobia during viral grad speech

Video of a gay eighth-grade student's expletive-filled graduation speech from Kentucky went viral after his uncle posted it online.Daniel Mattingly called Stuart Academy in Louisville "f**king ridiculous" in the crude apex of the series of woke insults he tossed at school officials on Thursday.'This school is built on racism, sexism, and homophobia. I encourage everyone here today to stand up for yourself, even if it makes a scene.'Mattingly claimed that officials turned down versions of his speech that were inappropriate for the event before launching into the insults."The theme that I was given for the speech was acceptance," the eighth grader explained to WAVE-TV. "A majority of it was just explaining that I see that people are going through trauma and going through oppression today."He went on to claim that teachers at the school told him his speech wasn't positive enough and was too controversial. On the day of the speech, he defied them and accused them of being homophobic and racist. "Apparently this school doesn't know better than to give an angry gay kid a microphone," he said during the speech. "No shade at all, but I came to this graduation planning to give a speech about my trauma influencing me as a person, and black, brown, and mixed youth are facing oppression nowadays and being forced to fear their own identities," he added. He went on to say that all of the school's students are "oppressed" youth. "This school is built on racism, sexism, and homophobia. I encourage everyone here today to stand up for yourself, even if it makes a scene," he added. "This school is f**king ridiculous!" He got a lot of applause from the students, and the woke speech got even more recognition after his uncle posted video online."All these teachers told me to speak from my heart for this speech, and I realized I shouldn't chicken out, because I need to speak from my heart and tell these people what they need to be told," Mattingly told WAVE. RELATED: Parents protest after student who posted 'up-skirt' photos of female schoolmates is allowed to return to class The student told WAVE he didn't want to make the school look bad when he claimed that it was "built" on "racism, sexism, and homophobia."Video of his unedited speech was posted to social media. Jefferson County Public Schools did not issue a statement about the school in their district. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 26 2026
Cover image for Democrats forced to delete 'incredibly distasteful' Memorial Day post after getting INCINERATED online

Democrats forced to delete 'incredibly distasteful' Memorial Day post after getting INCINERATED online

The Democratic National Committee got absolutely lambasted for trying to politicize the death of U.S. military members on Memorial Day in order to attack President Donald Trump.The post included photographs of 13 Americans who died during the U.S.-Israeli joint military strikes on Iran in recent weeks.'It's wrong to politicize this day. I won't hesitate to call out my own team when we fall short.'"Today, we honor the American heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in Trump's war with Iran," the post read.The DNC was immediately criticized, even by Democrats."It is incredibly distasteful to use our heroic dead for a political attack on Memorial Day. I'm a Democrat and I condemn this post by the DNC," responded Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois."If we want the moral high ground, we have to be better," replied Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.). "I fought for our country and served with those who made the ultimate sacrifice. It's wrong to politicize this day. I won't hesitate to call out my own team when we fall short."Others pounced on the disrespectful post."Just when you think the left can't go any lower ... Absolutely disgusting but not surprising," replied Republican Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida."Yes, we honor these heroes for defending America and our allies with their lives. What we won't do is dishonor their sacrifice by turning Memorial Day into a cheap political attack. Their memory deserves better," wrote Sen. Tim Sheehy (R) of Montana."Using Memorial Day to politically exploit fallen service members is appalling and disgraceful. One of the most disgusting posts I have ever seen," said Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters.RELATED: The Iran war is causing another shortage — and it will directly affect every American The DNC eventually deleted the post, but screenshots of the offensive message were widely circulated.Trump has been seeking a peace deal to end the strikes on Iran, but the surviving members of the regime have made demands that the president has called "unacceptable" and "garbage." The war continues to be unpopular among Americans as the economic fallout has led to higher gas prices and increased inflationary pressure. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 26 2026
Cover image for Former DNC chair accused of 'dismantling ... black political power' over newest announcement

Former DNC chair accused of 'dismantling ... black political power' over newest announcement

A former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee announced a campaign running for Florida's 20th Congressional District and was immediately accused of "dismantling" black "power."Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) was redistricted out of her previous seat and opted to run in the 20th district, which is composed of about 50% black residents.'DWS is everything that's wrong with the Democratic establishment.' In a statement released Tuesday, nearly all the DNC members from Florida condemned the decision by Schultz."Our party cannot credibly denounce the dismantling of black political power by Republicans while treating one of Florida's few remaining majority-black districts as a political opportunity for an incumbent seeking a safer seat," the statement reads.Schultz, who has been in Congress for more than two decades, would likely win an easy contest in the general election in the left-leaning district. However, other Democrats accused Schultz of using her power to make her campaign easier."Debbie Wasserman Schultz is carpetbagging to FL-20, a black opportunity district instead of running in her own," said Elijah Manley, another Democratic candidate running for Florida's 20th district. "DWS is everything that's wrong with the Democratic establishment. ... I look forward to retiring her from public office permanently." Others like former 2 Live Crew rapper and black activist Luther Campbell, who is also running for the seat as a Democrat, warned Democrats that the black community is taking notice. "To the Florida DNC members who stayed silent — we see you too. We’re taking receipts," Campbell wrote on social media. "Congressional District 20 is not a political opportunity seat. Black representation matters. Lived experience matters. Make sure you're on the right side of history.""This decision reinforces the same message Republicans have pushed for years: that black representation does not matter," the Florida Democrats continued in their letter. "It does matter. Representation matters. Lived experience matters." RELATED: USC accused of racism after minority candidates don't qualify for gubernatorial debate — so USC makes drastic decision Schultz ran the Democratic Party from May 2011 until July 2016, just a few months before President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. The late Harry Reid, a top Democratic leader, blamed Schultz for the devastating loss. "We need a full time DNC chair and what they should do — they can take my model if they want — it's not rocket science," Reid said at the time. "It doesn't take a lot of brain power to figure out what needs to be done." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

by Blaze Media

May 26 2026
Cover image for 'The View' Melts Down Over TrumpRx Drug Plan to Lower Prices: 'We're All Going to Die'

'The View' Melts Down Over TrumpRx Drug Plan to Lower Prices: 'We're All Going to Die'

President Trump’s latest effort to lower prescription drug prices is drawing fierce criticism from the hosts of "The View," even after the administration partnered with billionaire Mark Cuban on the TrumpRX.gov initiative. “I think honestly, by this point, President Trump could cure cancer and Democrats and crazy libs would still be against it. They’d be like, ‘But let me tell you why cancer is good, actually,’ because they’re just so unhinged,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments. “Like they have terminal cases of TDS,” she adds. After billionaire Mark Cuban and President Trump teamed up to promote TrumpRX.gov, Joy Behar called the president a “dog.” “First of all, you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas,” Behar said. “And you know, I like Mark Cuban,” she continued. “I’ve always liked him, but this is a mistake. And once Trump puts his name on prescriptions, we’re all going to die, OK?” “He is a failed businessman,” Sunny Hostin chimed in. “And if you heard what he said, he said, ‘We both want to make people wealthy.’ He didn’t say, ‘So I should pay 10 times more.’”. “It means, to me, that there’s something in it for him. This is not a well-intentioned person,” she continued, explaining that he’s only doing it “to make money.” Behar then interjected to compare the Scandinavian health care system to America’s. “I don’t understand how people watch this unironically. Like, how do people show up in the middle of the day or whenever the hell this is filmed and unironically spend their time going and listening to these dumb b****es talk over each other?" Gonzales comments. “‘Donald Trump is the devil,’” she mocks, adding, “like, oh my gosh.” Want more from Sara Gonzales? To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.