Stembridge News Digest

  • Welcome to the new high-school activism: One side chants, the other gets punished Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000


    For weeks, students at hundreds of schools across the country have walked out of class to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. At Rincon High School in Arizona, leaders of the Latino Student Union organized a walkout to oppose the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

    The next week, some of those same students demanded the removal of a Turning Point USA club from the Tucson Unified campus. Members of the Latino Student Union petitioned the school board to bar the conservative club from meeting on school property, claiming its presence made them feel “unsafe” and accusing it of a “track history of presenting hate and presenting fear.”

    As American life grows more polarized, young people face mounting pressure to treat opposing speech not as something to answer, but as something to silence.

    Arizona was not a one-off.

    Last fall, students at Royal Oak High School in Michigan walked out over the formation of a Turning Point chapter. One protest organizer complained that the club “spreads conservative views ... and those aren’t things that we promote in our school.”

    That statement tells you plenty. Students increasingly invoke the language of safety and inclusion not to protect their own right to speak, but to suppress the speech of others.

    Royal Oak Schools says the district aims to provide “an inclusive, diverse, safe, and student-first environment” in which students will be “embraced, accepted, challenged, and prepared.” Yet schools cannot claim to challenge and prepare students while teaching them that disagreement itself amounts to harm.

    These incidents may still be relatively few, but they point to a broader problem: the spread of speech intolerance from college campuses into K-12 education.

    A report released in September by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found alarming attitudes on college campuses. Among roughly 70,000 students surveyed, 34% said violence to stop someone from speaking can be acceptable, while 72% supported shouting down speakers in rare cases.

    College pathologies do not stay on college campuses for long.

    Through social media, ethnic-studies curricula, school speech codes, and the influence older students exert on younger ones, the campus habit of treating dissent as danger has moved into elementary and secondary education.

    The results have already turned ugly.

    RELATED: How liberals let America’s colleges collapse into illiberalism

    Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    After a walkout at Hayes High School in Ohio in February, one senior said the protest “went as peaceful as it could have gone with the amount of anger that we have.” In reality, an altercation between several protesters and one dissenter ended with three students charged with disorderly conduct. The confrontation appears to have begun when walkout participants repeatedly blew whistles in the student’s face.

    In Kansas, student counterprotesters from Olathe Northwest High School were attacked while demonstrating across the street from an anti-ICE protest. Their offense? They merely supported the administration and current immigration enforcement.

    Thankfully, these incidents remain uncommon. But the trend should concern parents, teachers, and communities. As American life grows more polarized, young people face mounting pressure to treat opposing speech not as something to answer, but as something to silence.

    Whatever one thinks of school walkouts, defenders of these protests usually justify them as exercises in civic engagement and First Amendment expression. Fine. But civic engagement does not mean demanding a microphone for yourself and a muzzle for everyone else.

    Students need to learn that free speech cuts both ways. They have every right to voice their convictions. They also have a responsibility to defend the rights of people whose views they dislike, distrust, or even find offensive.

    If they do not learn that lesson now, student activism will become less about persuasion than coercion. And young Americans will be trained not to practice liberty, but to imitate the tyranny they claim to oppose.

  • Comedian Mark Normand crushes woke studio execs who wanted Muslim joke removed: 'On one condition ...' Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:30:00 +0000


    Stand-up comedian Mark Normand believes in making fun of everyone, equally.

    When asked about his latest Netflix special, Normand said he wanted to be "inclusive," meaning he wanted to make fun of people from all walks of life.

  • Democrats’ latest victory in deep-red Mar-a-Lago district offers bleak midterm forecast Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:30:00 +0000


    Republicans are facing yet another brutal electoral loss after Democrat Emily Gregory sailed through her special election in a deep-red district.

    Gregory was elected to represent the 87th district in the Florida House Tuesday night, securing 51.2% of the vote while her Republican opponent, Jon Maples, won just 48.8% of the vote. This district, which includes President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, was previously held by Republican Mike Caruso.

    Republicans have not flipped a single Democrat-held seat since Trump was elected.

    Caruso, who vacated his seat in August to become Palm Beach County clerk of the circuit court and comptroller, won the seat by 19 points in 2024. Similarly, Trump won the district by 11 points in the 2024 presidential election.

    Gregory's victory is hardly an outlier. Since Trump was elected in November 2024, Democrats have managed to flip dozens of seats in key elections and have come uncomfortably close to defeating other Republicans in deep-red districts.

    RELATED: Republican defends congressional airline perks as cost-savings for Americans

    Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

    In 2025 alone, Democrats flipped 25 state Senate and House seats previously held by Republicans out of the 119 seats that were up for grabs through special or regular elections. Democrats flipped 13 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates alone and another five seats in the New Jersey General Assembly, even breaking a supermajority in Mississippi.

    Democrats flipped another nine seats, including local elections in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, New Hampshire, and Arkansas.

    With Gregory's victory Tuesday night, Democrats have successfully flipped 29 seats previously held by Republicans.

    RELATED: Jesse Jackson Jr.'s political comeback fails miserably after he served prison time

    Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    In contrast, Republicans have not flipped a single Democrat-held seat since Trump was elected in November 2024, offering a bleak forecast for the GOP going into the 2026 midterms.

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  • Venezuela’s anthem pride put Team USA to shame Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:00:00 +0000


    Anyone who watched the recent World Baseball Classic final in Miami — a thrilling matchup between the underdog Venezuelans and Team USA — saw a vivid display of national pride.

    Before the game, both teams stood for the Venezuelan and American national anthems. Miami is home to the world’s largest Venezuelan diaspora community. The cheers were thunderous. Every Venezuelan player stood with his cap over his heart and sang every word with conviction. This from a nation scarred by decades of unrest, corruption, and more recently, liberation at the hands of U.S. troops sent by President Donald Trump. Through all that turmoil, they held fast to love of country. “It means everything. This is for our country,” starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez said afterward through tears.

    A nation cannot survive on procedure alone. It needs loyalty, memory, gratitude, and a shared sense of belonging.

    The contrast with the American team was hard to miss. Our players all looked stoic. No one sang. I wondered if they even knew the words.

    That scene unfolded as the U.S. Senate debated the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and voter ID at the polls. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) framed the matter correctly. “Our republic was founded on a daring claim that free people could govern itself. Not that a free people could drift forever,” he said.

    “Liberty is fragile and so it requires structure.”

    America’s founders would have understood the point.

    In his 1796 Farewell Address, George Washington urged Americans not only to respect the law but to love their country. “Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections,” he said. “The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.”

    Benjamin Franklin believed immigrants should assimilate, learn the language, and adopt American customs if they wished to become good citizens. Thomas Jefferson tied citizenship to literacy, civic formation, and military readiness. “Every citizen should be a soldier,” he wrote. “This was the case with the Greeks and Romans and must be that of every free state.”

    The SAVE Act may never reach President Trump’s desk. Common sense rarely enjoys smooth passage in Washington. But Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has at least shown some backbone. “We’re going to stay on this bill until it damn well passes,” he said, even if that means “many, many weeks” of debate.

    If the MAGA base roars loudly enough, maybe it will.

    But the deeper problem runs beyond election law. It concerns whether Americans still understand citizenship as something more than legal status. A nation cannot survive on procedure alone. It needs loyalty, memory, gratitude, and a shared sense of belonging.

    RELATED: America’s founders risked the gallows. What are we risking?

    Daniel Shirey/WBCI/MLB Photos via Getty Images

    That is why the contrast on display in Miami matters. The Venezuelans played as men who still believed their country — mess that it may be — deserved their love. Too many Americans now act embarrassed by their own inheritance.

    If we do not protect our elections from illegal votes, we weaken our sovereignty. If we do not insist that new citizens learn English, we weaken national cohesion. If we cannot teach our children to love their country, sing its anthem, and thank God for its blessings, we will hand the nation to elites whose only loyalty is to appetite, profit, and power.

    I saw the alternative recently at a Hillsdale College seminar. Before each meal, a student led us in prayer. Then we stood together and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I had not spoken those words aloud in years. The moment carried real force — 800 voices joined in gratitude, memory, and common purpose. It reminded me that patriotism is not an abstraction. It is a habit.

    We should bring the pledge back to schools. We should teach the Bible again. We should teach Western history and literature without apology. We should make English the official language of the United States.

    After Venezuela beat Italy in the semifinals, President Trump posted on Truth Social, “Wow ... statehood #51 anyone?” He understood something larger in the moment. America does not need another state. It needs more citizens with that kind of spirit.

    These are the questions I explore in my new novel, “Trump’s Superpower: A Historical Novel About the Founding Fathers and One Founding Mother,” out in May. In it, the founders return for America’s 250th anniversary and confront what we have done with the republic they risked their lives to build.

    Whether we still deserve it may depend on whether we are still willing to sing for it.

  • These four apps will save you money at the gas pump Wed, 25 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000


    Gas prices are all over the place these days, and unless you want to pay top dollar to put the same stuff in your tank that is sold for less down the street, you need an easy way to check local prices without driving all over town. Here are just a few of our favorite apps that can help you find the most affordable gas stations (and maybe even make some money on the side).

    GasBuddy

    You can’t talk about gas prices online without mentioning GasBuddy. As the most popular option on the list, GasBuddy has been around since Y2K, starting as a website before jumping to smartphones in 2010.

    Arm yourself with these apps for a complete look at your local gas prices.

    What makes GasBuddy so great is that it offers quick and easy access to all the best prices in your area. In the list view, you can sort options by price, distance, gasoline grade, and whether cash or credit is accepted. You can also tap over to the map view to see nearby gas stations, along with glanceable price tags. GasBuddy is built on crowdsourced data, so if one of the listed gas prices is incorrect, you can report the mistake and submit a price update for other drivers.

    Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/GasBuddy

    Google Maps

    You probably know Google Maps as one of the leading navigation apps on the App Store and Google Play, but while it’s good at getting directions and checking local traffic, it’s also surprisingly decent at gathering gas prices. Tap on the “gas” tab at the top of the screen (you may have to scroll over to find it) to get an instant view of all local gas stations, along with a quick map and list view of their lowest prices. You can select a gas station to open the overview menu, where you can see prices for regular, mid-grade, and premium gas at your chosen location.

    RELATED: New hack poses biggest iPhone threat in 19 years: What you can do

    New hack poses biggest iPhone threat in 19 years: What you can do Xaume Olleros/Bloomberg/Getty Images

    Scroll down, and you’ll find the “Popular times” graph, which shows the best and worst hours to stop by based on traffic estimates, along with the amount of time you should expect to wait for a fill-up.

    Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Google Maps

    Waze

    Waze started as a community-based navigation app that empowered users to share updates about traffic, road hazards, speed traps, and more, all intended to help fellow “Wazers” safely navigate the map. Although the app was purchased by Google in 2013, Waze has largely maintained its unique design and personality, leaning heavily on its crowdsourcing roots to deliver important information to drivers, including gas prices.

    To see the prices in your immediate area, tap on the “Where to?” search bar and select “Gas.” Instantly, you’ll find a map of nearby stations, complete with markers advertising their lowest prices. Choose your favorite station to see a full list of prices on regular, mid-grade, and premium gasoline. On this screen, you’ll also see if the station has nearby parking to park your car so that you can go inside for drinks or snacks.

    One of the best parts about Waze’s gas price feature is that you can set tracking preferences in the settings menu. You can choose your preferred gas type, station brand, and sorting options to ensure the most pertinent results show up first on the map.

    Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Waze

    Upside

    If you enjoy any of the shows on BlazeTV, you’ve probably heard of Upside. While it’s true that Upside has advertised on some of our podcasts, the company did not pay to be featured in this article. The reason this app made the list is because Upside is a genuinely useful service that can help you get cheap gas and even put some money back in your pocket.

    Unlike the other apps here that display gas prices on a map, Upside labels stations with the amount of cash back you can earn. To get direct price information, select your preferred station. Prices are listed by the amount you’ll save on premium, regular, mid-grade, and diesel. Make sure you tap “Claim” at the bottom of the page to redeem the offer, and read the fine print below for redemption details.

    While Upside can help you save money at the pump, there is one stark limitation — discounts are only available at Upside’s preferred partner gas stations. That means your favorite station might not offer cash back. For what it’s worth, though, Upside claims to support 50,000 stores nationwide, so the chances are high that there are still viable options in your area.

    Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Upside

    Your ticket to savings

    Gas is one of those things that you can’t live without, but just because it’s a necessity doesn’t mean you should pay top dollar. Arm yourself with these apps for a complete look at your local gas prices and save money every time you fill up. There’s no point in spending more for the same stuff that another station sells for less.

  • Robert Mueller deserves credit for one thing: He stopped short Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000


    The recently departed Robert Mueller, best known as the Russiagate special counsel, maintained his honor under circumstances far more fraught than the New York Times would like to admit.

    To the Times, Mueller was a near-extinct liberal Republican, a straight-arrow institutionalist who resisted Donald Trump’s tawdry politics while avoiding the thuggish legacy of J. Edgar Hoover. That portrait distorts both men. It also misses the real point: Mueller’s conduct during Russiagate, whatever its flaws, looks more honorable when set against the corruption surrounding him.

    With all the corruption swirling around him, Mueller himself held the line, even as age and decline had plainly weakened him.

    The Times’ swipe at Hoover was as gratuitous as it was ignorant. Hoover had long passed his prime by the 1970s, but beginning in 1924, he transformed a bureau riddled with corruption into a professional law-enforcement agency that promoted rigorous investigative standards around the world. Of Hoover’s successors, only Mueller approached that level of competence while avoiding Hoover’s late-life degeneration.

    What the Times missed about Mueller was his stubborn rectitude in finishing the Russiagate investigation without yielding to the partisan pressure for indictment.

    Trump, in his usual blunt fashion, responded to Mueller’s death with satisfaction rather than acknowledging him as an honest prosecutor who refused to sign on to a ruinous partisan prosecution.

    That refusal matters. The larger Russiagate story is not that Mueller pursued Trump too aggressively. It is that Russiagate itself was one of the most dishonest political dirty tricks in our country’s wild history.

    What Russiagate was — and wasn’t

    Only Mueller’s refusal to indict saved the country from the further disgrace of charging a president based on a fiction manufactured by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and abetted by corrupt actors in the FBI and CIA, including James Comey and John Brennan.

    Properly understood, the special counsel investigation was the capstone of that long corruption. Had Mueller’s deputies, working with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, indicted Trump, as many of them plainly wished to do, the damage would have been irreparable.

    For that reason, Mueller’s resistance to the demands of his own partisan aides deserves recognition, not contempt. As his legacy hardens into historical judgment, we should examine the Russiagate investigation for what it was and what it was not.

    When Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, Mueller was quickly named special counsel. But Comey’s Russiagate inquiry had begun as a counterintelligence investigation, which required no identified crime. Comey privately told Trump that he was not a subject of the investigation as a foreign agent. Publicly, however, Comey let suspicion fester while refusing to clarify that point. Trump’s dealings with Russia were already constrained by the posturing of both Comey and President Obama.

    Then came Rosenstein. Urged on by the unctuous Comey, Rosenstein violated the governing regulation by appointing Mueller without first identifying a predicate crime. Only later did Rosenstein and Mueller’s team realize they needed one. So Mueller’s deputies settled on a theory that Trump may have obstructed justice by firing Comey.

    That theory never held up. Comey served at the pleasure of the president and could be fired for any reason or no reason at all. Even the crime eventually offered to justify the special counsel’s existence failed as a legal foundation.

    So the Mueller inquiry rested on a faulty premise from the start. It was not the first dirty trick played on Trump. It was the last.

    RELATED: The case against Clinton, Brennan, and Comey is stronger than ever

    The case against Clinton, Brennan, and Comey is stronger than ever Alex Wong/Getty Images

    Media malpractice

    Have readers learned any of this from the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the self-justifying book later written by Mueller’s deputies? Hardly. Those institutions covered up the illegality while sermonizing about their virtue and Trump’s supposed criminality.

    Step backward in time, and the prior outrage appears: the FISA surveillance of the Trump campaign, and later the presidency, approved in October 2016 on the phony strength of the Steele dossier. Andrew McCabe admitted under oath that the dossier formed the basis for the FISA application. That document rested on the cartoonish fable that Trump aide Carter Page had been offered billions tied to an oil interest by Russia’s Igor Sechin in exchange for influencing the Republican platform. The tale was fiction, filtered through suspected Russian operative Igor Danchenko.

    That surveillance was not a good-faith mistake. It was a vicious political trick carried out by McCabe and Comey, who had no plausible reason to believe the Carter Page story was true.

    Before that came the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, opened on July 31, 2016. Its predicate was equally rotten. Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious professor later treated as Russian-connected, told young Trump aide George Papadopoulos that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of emails. Then Alexander Downer, the former Australian ambassador, drew Papadopoulos into a conversation and extracted the statement needed to move the allegation into official channels.

    But Mifsud was no Russian cutout. He was tied to Western intelligence circles, including Claire Smith, a British official involved in spy vetting. So Crossfire Hurricane itself appears to have been launched not by genuine Russian infiltration but by the oily maneuvering of intelligence allies tied to Comey and Brennan through the Five Eyes network.

    And beneath all of it sat the mother of the dirty tricks: Hillary Clinton’s decision to blame Russia for the exposure of internal Democrat emails showing how the DNC had worked against Bernie Sanders. To sustain that narrative, Clinton’s campaign hired Christopher Steele to produce the false dossier alleging Trump-Russia collusion. That was the seed crystal of the entire hoax. It survived only because crooked Hillary had dirty birds running the FBI and CIA.

    RELATED: The media’s ‘war on misinformation’ loses all credibility

    Deagreez via iStock/Getty Images

    Concealing the truth

    Once you see that, the real scandal comes into focus. If the Steele dossier triggered Crossfire Hurricane, which led to the false FISA surveillance, which in turn helped justify Mueller’s appointment, then any honest special counsel investigation should have started with the dossier itself. An honest inquiry would have examined whether Clinton, Steele, Steele’s sources, Comey, and Brennan conspired to manufacture the false collusion narrative that became Russiagate.

    Instead, Mueller’s deputies chose to ignore the dossier. Their excuse was almost comic: The dossier was too false and unreliable to investigate! But false collusion was the heart of the scandal. Investigating that fraud should have been central, not optional.

    They concealed other truths as well. They continued to describe Mifsud as Russian-connected while omitting his far more troubling ties to Western intelligence circles. They kept from the public the extent to which the original predicates for the whole affair were contrived.

    Then came the final abuse. Professional ethics require prosecutors to put up or shut up. If they decline to prosecute, they do not defame the subject by insinuating guilt they cannot prove. Mueller’s deputies ignored that rule. In the Mueller report and their later book, they dwelled at length on how Trump may have almost obstructed justice and why they could not “exonerate” him, even though exoneration is not a prosecutor’s task.

    In short, Mueller’s deputies concealed the corrupted predicates of the earlier investigations while compounding the damage with their own slanted and misleading account.

    Yet with all that corruption swirling around him, Mueller himself held the line, even as age and decline had plainly weakened him. He did not stop his deputies from smearing Trump, and that failure matters. But he remained the thin blue line that prevented one of the ugliest abuses of prosecutorial power in modern American history.

    Robert Mueller should be remembered not as the anti-Trump hero or anti-conservative that the New York Times described, but as a conscientious man who kept his footing amid corrupt company.

  • Retired police sergeant lived double life as a prolific rapist in Detroit, police say Wed, 25 Mar 2026 09:30:00 +0000


    A 68-year-old retired police sergeant is responsible for a series of kidnappings and rapes in Detroit, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

    Benjamin Martin Wagner served for nearly 30 years on the Detroit Police force but was arrested in Greenville, North Carolina, decades after the assaults.

    Wagner was caught after law enforcement officials finally tested 11,000 rape kits that had been collected from cases between 1984 and 2009.

    Prosecutors say Wagner kidnapped and raped five women and girls in northwest Detroit between 1999 and 2003, but they believe there may be other victims.

    "The deplorable fact in this case is that the person we are charging has led a double life as a law enforcement officer and serial rapist," Wayne County Prosecutor Kim Worthy said.

    The victims ranged in age from 15 to 23 years old.

    "The commonalities were they were walking to school or home from work or simply going to a friend's house. These happened in the early morning hours, mostly, all on Detroit's northwest side," said Worthy.

    "He utilized isolation and force. He was armed with a handgun in each and every case," she added. "He threatened their lives if they reported, and he did not use a condom in any of the assaults."

    Wagner was caught after law enforcement officials finally tested 11,000 rape kits that had been collected from cases between 1984 and 2009. They were discovered in 2009 at a Detroit Police Department warehouse.

    Prosecutors said Wagner received several awards and commendations while working as an officer from 1989 until 2017.

    Wagner was arrested on March 17 and will be extradited to Michigan.

    RELATED: Thug who brutally raped 94-year-old in broad daylight had just been released after other rape charge was dropped, police say

    Many police departments across the country have stored rape kits but neglected to test them owing to budget constraints or simple incompetence. One advocacy group believes about 50,000 rape kits have gone without testing, allowing the perpetrators of rape to escape justice and continue victimizing Americans.

    "We have betrayed at least a generation of survivors in the way that the criminal justice system and the larger public have responded to sexual assault," said criminology expert Rachel Lovell of Cleveland State University.

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  • Leftists are already politicizing Chuck Norris’ legacy after death Wed, 25 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000


    Following the death of action legend Chuck Norris, what might have been a moment of shared cultural reflection has quickly turned contentious. Leftists are already scrutinizing Norris’ film legacy through a political lens — something BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is tired of.

    “Democrats never waste an opportunity to make everything about politics, make death about politics. ... This guy was a Hollywood icon, a meme legend, and you would think that we could all just be like, ‘Oh, that’s sad that he died,’” Gonzales says.

    One article published by Variety magazine makes this clear, with the headline reading, “Chuck Norris Was a Great Action Star — but Politics May Overshadow His Legacy.”


    “Yes, he was a Republican, but he didn’t really wear that with a badge on his shoulder or anything, but weirdly, this isn’t even what the article is taking shots at him about,” Gonzales comments, before reading a paragraph from the article.

    “Was Norris a brilliant athlete and top-shelf star? Yes. But there’s no denying that his roles were part of a body of work used to show American strength, might, and the pernicious attraction of taking the law into one’s own hands — something that seems less fun in a year in which our country is funneling money into bombing Iran and ICE agents are acting like one-man militias,” the author, William Earl, wrote.

    “Given our nation’s divisions in morality, information literacy, and overall sense of reality, it’s easier to see Norris’ characters as justification for a fringe conspiracy movement rather than a moral standing,” he continued.

    Earl went on to ask the question that’s on no one’s mind: “When a star is the poster boy for American exceptionalism and might, at what point does his legacy transition from escapism to dangerous propaganda?”

    “What an absolute freaking loser,” Gonzales comments.

    “The Democrats make everything unfun. They are unfun, miserable, ghoulish people,” she continues. “But you know what? That leaves us with no shortage of things to talk about.”

    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.

  • Trump should not fill Alito’s seat with a ‘meh’ in robes Wed, 25 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000


    At the beginning of the year, one of my crystal-ball predictions for 2026 was that Samuel Alito and/or Clarence Thomas would retire so President Trump could replace them before the midterms.

    Recent reporting suggests that prediction may prove correct, especially with speculation that Alito is considering stepping down. So I checked with some sources to see which names are circulating as possible replacements.

    Why should our side ever put a judge on the Supreme Court who sides with the left on the sanctity of life for any reason?

    The reality is Alito is not easily replaced. He has been one of the best Supreme Court justices of this century. His successor cannot be some C-plus or B-minus judge with a fuzzy record and a habit of folding at the wrong moment. The stakes are too high.

    That is why one name worries me: Judge Andrew Oldham.

    Trump already passed on Oldham for the Supreme Court in 2020 and for good reason. What remains of our constitutional republic does not have time for a “meh” nominee.

    Oldham, a former general counsel to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), now serves on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A quick look at his record shows a pattern that should alarm anyone hoping for another Alito.

    Let’s start with life.

    Alito authored the phenomenal majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade, one of the most wicked decisions in American history. Oldham’s record points the other way. In 2000, Bill Clinton’s FDA treated pregnancy as an “illness” to justify accelerated approval of abortion drugs as the supposed “cure.” Years later, a Trump-appointed district judge rightly rejected that decision, and a Trump-appointed circuit judge backed him. Oldham, however, became the first circuit judge to side with the Clinton FDA’s position on procedural grounds.

    The American Family Association called that decision “shockingly weak” at the time. The Supreme Court effectively vindicated that criticism in 2024 when it overturned Oldham by a 6-3 vote.

    Why should our side ever put a judge on the Supreme Court who sides with the left on the sanctity of life for any reason?

    The concerns do not stop there.

    AFA, which tracks judicial nominations as well as any group on the right, has also described Oldham as “soft” on COVID shot mandates. He earned that reputation when he wrote an opinion saying schools need not require children to wear masks, not because masks do not work, but because schools could instead adopt other COVID policies involving vaccines, plexiglass, hand sanitizer, distancing, and more.

    The opinion was so weak that no other judge joined it.

    Then came gender ideology. Last year, my Blaze Media colleague Daniel Horowitz reported on Oldham siding against doctors and with the Biden administration’s edict that they must perform gender-transition procedures on children by refusing even to hear their challenge. Oldham had a chance to join a Trump-appointed judge who rejected Biden’s grotesque mandate. He passed.

    His immigration record raises more red flags.

    RELATED: Supreme Court sides with Catholic parents against California on student gender notification — for now

    Photo by Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    Oldham declined to back a Trump-appointed district judge who ruled against allowing illegal aliens to receive cheaper in-state college tuition than out-of-state Americans. That alone should have disqualified him from serious consideration.

    Thankfully, Trump’s Justice Department sued last year to end that practice in Texas, where Oldham’s former client is governor. Once the Justice Department sued, Texas finally conceded the point. Now left-wing groups want the courts to restore that anti-American policy. And which legal precedent are they citing? Oldham’s.

    You cannot make it up.

    Nor was that his only immigration failure. Oldham also ruled against Abbott when the governor declared an invasion at the southern border two years ago. Does that sound like a judge ready to overturn Plyler v. Doe, the disastrous precedent that for illegal immigration serves much the same function Roe once served for abortion?

    Now sensing that his moment may have arrived, Oldham appears to be trying to retcon himself as a reliably based jurist. Even Slate has noticed the pattern — the judicial equivalent of a comb-over meant to hide an obvious weakness. The result has been embarrassing. He now gets overturned with some regularity by one of the most right-leaning Supreme Courts in recent memory.

    That tends to happen when ambition outruns conviction.

    Oldham once lobbied Barack Obama to appoint Elizabeth Warren, of all people, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now he wants conservatives to view him as Alito’s natural heir. That kind of ideological shape-shifting should make everyone nervous. When a man’s career seems driven more by advancement than by principle, it becomes hard to know where he actually stands.

    That was never a question with Alito.

    Replacing a sure thing requires another sure thing. Oldham is not that. Maybe he has good explanations for parts of his record. But maybe Trump can do better.

    This may be Trump’s last chance to appoint a Supreme Court justice. It would amount to a self-own of historic proportions for the most based president of modern times to replace Alito with someone appreciably weaker than a George W. Bush appointee turned out to be.

  • 'They all became the same': Vince Vaughn says late-night shows 'stopped being funny' and drove away viewers with politics Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:15:00 +0000


    Hollywood actor Vince Vaughn ripped into late-night shows for becoming far too political and driving away their audience.

    Vaughn made the comments while being interviewed by comedian Theo Von on his podcast, "This Past Weekend."

    'It felt like they had an agenda. It stopped being funny, and it started feeling like I was in f**king a class I didn't want to take.'

    Von blamed the falling ratings for late-night shows on the left-wing bias in the entertainment industry.

    "Why a lot of the late shows have struggled, because all they did," Von said, "the only person they could make fun of at a certain point was just white, redneck kind of people, and then everything tanked after that."

    "Think about that. They never get it right," Vaughn replied. "The podcasts have gotten so much more popular with less production, less writers, less staff."

    "Oh yeah, we have two people working here, and both of them are hungover, and that one guy has shingles!" Von joked.

    "Yeah, because people want authenticity," Vaughn added. "I think that the talk shows, to a large part, became really agenda-based. They were going to [evangelize] people to what they thought. And so people just rejected it because it didn't feel authentic. It felt like they had an agenda. It stopped being funny, and it started feeling like I was in f**king a class I didn't want to take."

    He went on to tie the low ratings directly to entertainers' politics.

    "But if you look at what happened to the talk shows and why their ratings are low, it's got only to do with the fact of what you just said, which is they all became the same show. And they all became so about their politics and who's good and who's bad," Vaughn said.

    "And it's like, imagine sitting next to someone who's like that on a f**king plane! Bro, you'd be like, 'How do I get out of this f**king seat!'" Vaughn added.

    Video of Vaughn's comments was posted to social media, where it garnered more than 1.6 million views in less than a day.

    RELATED: Vince Vaughn too 'Old School' for Hollywood wokesters

    Vaughn, who has previously identified as a libertarian, said he escaped being ostracized in Hollywood by simply being honest without attacking people who disagree.

    "If you're constantly worried what someone else thinks of you and you're only around them a couple hours a day, you're miserable most of the time. You've got to ... find the way to be yourself but be respectful."

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  • Gavin Newsom tries to dunk on Trump and gets obliterated with online ridicule Tue, 24 Mar 2026 23:30:00 +0000


    California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) posted a bizarre message trying to mock President Donald Trump but instead was crushed by online mockery.

    The post referenced an online joke that compared Newsom to the Patrick Bateman character, a sadistic serial killer in the popular film "American Psycho."

    'Can't decide if he's the most or least self aware person alive.'

    "For so many years people have been saying that Patrick Bateman and I look alike. Now this pic has been going all over the place. What do you think?" he wrote, with an image comparing the two men.

    Newsom was referring to a post from the president using the same wording but comparing himself to rock 'n' roll icon Elvis Presley. Trump was visiting Graceland, the theme park former residence of Elvis.

    Then the backlash hit the governor.

    "I think yes, you are a psychopath," commentator Bridget Phetasy said.

    "Newsom seeing the Patrick Bateman comparisons and treating it like a looks question. That tracks," GOP strategist Erin Maguire responded.

    "This dude is so narcissistic it boggles the mind," podcaster Mikhaila Peterson replied.

    "Well he was a sociopathic narcissist and a douchbag in that movie so I think that's probably the similarity people are seeing," another popular response reads.

    "Can't decide if he's the most or least self aware person alive," another popular response reads.

    "He played a narcissistic psychopath serial killer! Who in the hell is running this account?!" activist April Silverman replied.

    RELATED: Gavin Newsom lashes out at Joe Rogan for accusing him of ruining California: ‘He did horrible s**t!’

    "Everyone is commenting on how insane it is that he is embracing the psychopath image, but I haven't seen anyone point out that he altered his photo so that he doesn't have a pencil neck," attorney Laura Powell said.

    Newsom's post garnered more than 4.5 million views after getting ridiculed.

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  • Creep accused of recording video of woman showering — then cops allegedly find much worse clip on his phone Tue, 24 Mar 2026 23:15:00 +0000


    Police in Covington, Tennessee, on Monday said they responded to the 1400 block of South College Street in regard to a harassment complaint.

    Arriving officers spoke to the 26-year-old victim who stated that she was showering and noticed she was being recorded on video, officials said.

    'We are working with DCS to identify all victims in this investigation and provide protective and medical services for these children.'

    The victim identified the suspect as 22-year-old Deondre Dyson, who also resides at the residence and allegedly was outside the victim's window when the incident occurred, officials said.

    Officers found Dyson at the residence and escorted him to the police department's Criminal Investigations Division for interviewing, officials said.

    RELATED: Transgender sex offender accused of trying to kidnap boy at elementary school gets good news from DA

    Image source: Covington (Tenn.) Police Department

    Soon after Dyson provided detectives with consent to search his phone, detectives uncovered a "disturbing video of Dyson allegedly engaging in a sexual act with a 3-year-old toddler," officials said.

    Detectives determined the recording occurred at a residence in Lauderdale County, officials said.

    Soon detectives contacted authorities with the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office, who launched a child sexual abuse investigation related to the video, officials said.

    Dyson admitted to his role in the videos of both victims, officials said.

    Detectives arrested Dyson and took him to the Tipton County Jail, officials said, adding that Dyson has been formally charged with unlawful photography and sexual exploitation of a child.

    Tipton County General Sessions Judge M.O. Eckel III held Dyson in jail awaiting his arraignment, officials said.

    Detectives anticipate additional charges after analysts finalize the forensic review of the electronic evidence, officials said.

    “This is a troubling investigation on multiple levels. We are working with DCS to identify all victims in this investigation and provide protective and medical services for these children,” Covington Police Chief Donna Turner said, according to officials. “This case started with an adult but due to the thorough investigation by our detectives, an alleged monster was uncovered.”

    Those with information related to this investigation are encouraged to contact the Covington Police Department Criminal Investigations Division at 901-475-1261. Tips may also be submitted via Facebook Messenger at Covington TN Police Department or through the City of Covington website.

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  • Jason Whitlock: Why white college kids are taking the NCAA Tournament by storm Tue, 24 Mar 2026 23:00:00 +0000


    The landscape of college basketball is changing, and after noticing a larger amount of standout white players flooding the courts during this year’s NCAA Tournament, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock has a theory as to why that is.

    “The same thing that’s going on in the NBA is going on in college basketball. You got Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic and Cooper Flagg running around everywhere all over college basketball,” Whitlock begins.

    “This is the exciting whites storming the NCAA Tournament, and no one wants to talk about it. No one wants to know how we got here. Let me go a cut deeper about what’s going on here as well because it’s not just the players,” he says, pointing out that there are no black American coaches in the Sweet 16.


    “Kelvin Sampson, we’ll claim him as a coach of color. You guys know Kelvin Sampson’s one of my favorite people. He’s Native American, but things have gotten so bad for black coaches that we have to pretend like Kelvin Sampson is a black American coach. He’s not,” he continues.

    Whitlock believes none of this will be discussed because “it’s all connected to a bigger issue in the black community” that he points out is off limits.

    “And that’s the fact that there’s a leadership problem in black America. And that’s because black America has a matriarchal culture. We’re led by women. Women are not great leaders. Period. End of story,” he explains.

    “They keep shoving it and slamming it down your throats that these queens, black and white, and particularly lesbians, they’re great leaders. They’re just like men. And I keep telling you all, look at what’s happening to black America,” he continues.

    "That’s the take today that no one else is going to make or give you or ask you to marinate on. But it is so crystal clear and so obvious,” 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.

  • Los Angeles mayor's re-election campaign gets crushing news from 'downright devastating' poll Tue, 24 Mar 2026 21:45:00 +0000


    Los Angeles residents appear to be souring on the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles after various scandals and controversies, according to a new poll.

    The Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/Los Angeles Times poll found that a majority of L.A. residents disapprove of Mayor Karen Bass just two months before she hopes to capture the Democratic nomination for her re-election.

    'That she's having this much trouble against such a little-known field bodes very, very poorly for her.'

    The poll found that Bass is still the front-runner for the nomination, with 25% support of Angelenos, but another 25% were undecided.

    Far-left City Councilwoman Nithya Raman came in second place with 17%, and reality TV star Spencer Pratt has taken the third place spot with 14%.

    Fifty-six percent of likely voters said they view Bass negatively, and 13% said they had no opinion. Only 31% said they had a favorable opinion of Bass.

    "These are very discouraging, if not downright devastating, poll numbers for Karen Bass. She's running ahead of her opponents only because her opponents are not very well known,” said USC and UC Berkeley political communications lecturer Dan Schnur to KABC-TV.

    "That she's having this much trouble against such a little-known field bodes very, very poorly for her," he added.

    Among the more damaging controversies hurting Bass is her apparent lack of leadership during the 2025 Palisades fires and her attempts to pass the blame onto others afterward. Pratt, whose house burned down in the fires, has been hammering away at Bass and other Democratic leaders over their incompetence.

    RELATED: Video: LA Mayor Karen Bass has deranged meltdown over ICE operation near Newsom's anti-Trump presser

    Schnur added that Bass would be doing far worse if other candidates had run for mayor.

    "The only thing saving her at this point is that top-tier candidates who were considering running decided to stay out of the race," he said.

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  • Republican defends congressional airline perks as cost-savings for Americans Tue, 24 Mar 2026 21:10:00 +0000


    While the Democrat-induced shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security enters its sixth week, Americans and even some airlines are looking for new ways to apply pressure on Congress to end it.

    Most recently, Delta Air Lines announced that it would be revoking key perks afforded to members of Congress until DHS is reopened and Transportation Security Administration employees can get paid. These services include express lanes and dedicated congressional phone numbers to afford members and their staff extra flexibility.

    'I wait in line like everyone else.'

    But with no clear end in sight to the DHS shutdown, Republican Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri offered his own defense of the congressional perks.

    "The reason these are put into place is because of our irregular schedule in Congress," Alford told Blaze News during a Republican Study Committee press conference Tuesday. "We don't know what time of the day we're going to leave after votes to get back to our district, to work in our district, to see our families."

    RELATED: Delta revokes major travel perk for Congress amid ongoing DHS shutdown

    "It's not like a special favor necessarily that we're getting. It's to accommodate a chaotic schedule in Congress so that we can represent the three quarters of a million people that we represent," Alford added.

    Alford went on to offer a financial justification for these congressional benefits, arguing they ultimately save taxpayers money.

    "There's also a discount for congressional travel," Alford said, "because this is taxpayer money that we're talking about. It comes out of our members' representational account, and going through this special office, there is a government fare for these tickets, and I would submit to you that that is in the best interest of the American taxpayer."

    "These offices exist to help facilitate so that we can do our job, not for our pleasure, not to get through security any faster, but to do our job for the American people, and some use these services more than not," Alford added.

    RELATED: Trump adds new condition to ICE airport plan in DHS shutdown fight

    Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images

    Although Alford defended some of these members-only services, he said it was "disconcerting" to see members of Congress cutting TSA lines and going around security, particularly during the DHS shutdown.

    "I personally do not do that," Alford said. "I wait in line like everyone else, and I think the more the American people see that we are — look, we're a voice and a vote for three quarters of a million people."

    "We are not better because we have this pin," Alford added. "We're not better than anyone else, but we do have a job to do, and to get here and to get back home is part of that job."

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