If you've been shopping for a used car lately and wondering why your money doesn't seem to go very far, you're not imagining it.

On a recent episode of “The Drive,” my co-host Karl Brauer and I looked at just how much the used-car market has changed since before the pandemic. Karl is executive analyst at iSeeCars, which tracks vehicle prices, and one number jumped out immediately.

A 3-year-old Hyundai Elantra that might have cost $12,000 or $13,000 in 2019 is now around $24,000.

The average price of a three-year-old used car has risen 38% since 2019. That's roughly $9,000 more for a car of the same age.

That's a lot. But another number may tell you even more about what has happened to ordinary car buyers.

Going older

In 2019, a $20,000 budget put nearly half — 49.5% — of all one- to five-year-old used cars within reach. Today, that same $20,000 gets you access to just 11.4%.

And if you can't increase your budget, there's really only one place to go: older.

In 2019, you only had to look at cars about four years old before a majority of the used market fell below $20,000. Today, you have to go back about seven years.

Edmunds is seeing the same thing. Its second-quarter 2026 data found that a $10,000 to $15,000 budget now buys a used vehicle averaging 8.7 years old and nearly 98,000 miles. In 2019, that same money bought a car averaging just 4.7 years old with about 58,000 miles. In other words, the same budget now gets you a vehicle roughly four years older with about 40,000 more miles.

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Not the same

There's nothing inherently wrong with buying a seven- or eight-year-old car. I've owned plenty of older vehicles, and a well-maintained car can have years of life left in it. But you're not buying the same thing. Mileage is probably higher, maintenance history matters more, and repairs that aren't much of a concern on a three-year-old car start becoming part of the equation.

Karl gave me a couple of examples that put the change in perspective. A three-year-old Hyundai Elantra that might have cost $12,000 or $13,000 in 2019 is now around $24,000. A comparable Toyota Camry went from roughly $14,000 or $15,000 to about $24,000.

I still tell people to consider used or certified pre-owned before automatically buying new. Used cars can offer tremendous value, particularly because somebody else has already absorbed that initial depreciation. But “buy used” isn't enough advice in today's market.

Know your worth

Know what the vehicle should be worth. Look at its history. Find out what maintenance has already been performed and what expensive service may be coming. If a seller can't provide satisfactory answers about the condition or maintenance of an older vehicle, be prepared to walk away.

And don't let today's prices convince you that spending $20,000 means you're buying the kind of car $20,000 bought a few years ago. That's the real problem with the current market.

The price may look familiar. The car attached to it isn't.

Last summer, European news outlets reported that “volunteers” from Mexican and Colombian drug cartels had infiltrated Ukraine’s military — considered the world’s “drone superpower” — to learn cutting-edge drone warfare so they could use the knowledge to kill their enemies back home.

Claims that this problem is ongoing have not yet been publicly verified by the U.S. intelligence community or the media. As yet, however, they remain undisputed. They now demand further scrutiny and broader attention in the United States to prompt appropriate action. If it’s not too late, and if the reports are correct, the U.S. urgently needs to terminate this knowledge transfer from Ukrainian soldiers to Latin America’s crime lords.

'The drone industry has exploded, and criminals have adapted the technology for attacks, which is a major challenge to battlefield aerial supremacy.'

American military, law enforcement, and intelligence personnel are deployed for clandestine work inside and around Mexico and Colombia, working to eradicate the very same criminal organizations now siphoning drone expertise from Ukraine.

This means that top-of-the-line, battlefield-proven tech and tactics could empower vengeful cartel murderers to do to U.S. ground personnel what the Ukrainian army claims it did to 30,000 Russian soldiers in July alone.

One might hope that, after the problem was made public in 2025, Ukraine quickly moved to clear out all cartel infiltrators. One would be sadly disappointed. The Financial Times reported that Ukraine has discovered yet more Colombians with organized crime connections in-country, demonstrating “unusual obsessions” about battlefield drone fighting. The exfiltration problem persists.

“Former paramilitaries, former guerrillas, and former soldiers are fighting and learning together here how to operate drones,” a Colombian aid worker in Ukraine told the Financial Times for the August 6 story. U.S. outlets, meanwhile, are largely sitting this one out so far.

U.S. lawmakers should note the bitter irony that the drone warfare knowledge America’s enemies are stealing was funded by some of the $70 billion in U.S. taxpayer money appropriated to Ukraine. Then they should use that as leverage: There are tens of billions more dollars in the pipeline, which should be withheld until the gang operatives are purged.

What we think we know

On July 30, 2025, the French website Intelligence Online first reported that Ukraine’s Security Service launched an investigation after Mexico’s National Intelligence Center warned that Mexican cartel fighters had infiltrated Spanish-speaking units of the International Legion.

Their alleged intention was to learn how to fly first-person view drones, gather ideas for drone-attack tech, and study battlefield tactics that Ukraine’s armed forces have famously used to stall Russia’s invasion.

Foreign outlets keep turning up new information. Poland and Bulgaria have begun their own investigations into smuggling pipelines through their territories. Granular details seem to bolster the reports. For instance, some volunteers already accomplished in drone fighting have joined the legion’s specialized tactical intelligence combat unit, known as “Ethos,” in the combat-heavy Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, according to the reports.

Polish officials reportedly revealed that private Mexican and Colombian security companies with alleged ties to drug trafficking networks financed and smuggled the volunteers into Ukraine through neighboring countries. One Colombian security firm based in Cali and Medellín reportedly recruited former Colombian Army rangers.

One smuggled Mexican legion volunteer, operating under the alias “Aguila-7,” registered in March 2024 using fraudulent Salvadoran documentation. He proved so technically proficient during drone training in Lviv that instructors called for an investigation, which later found probable connections to Mexico’s elite GAFE air-mobile special forces. Former GAFE personnel have joined cartels, the reports said.

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Why it matters

The infiltrations coincide with President Trump’s day-one declaration of a U.S. war to eradicate the cartels, designating many as foreign terrorist organizations. If cartel leaders are out to avenge what they have suffered, their drones can find many more targetable American personnel.

No one should have been surprised, for instance, when two CIA officers died this past April in a Chihuahua State car accident while traveling with Mexican forces after a drug lab raid. They were present because Trump has surged military and CIA personnel into Mexico and Latin America, as well as naval and aircraft assets for lethal boat bombing operations that have killed hundreds of drug smugglers. The operations have included supposed CIA-facilitated assassinations in Mexico.

An “Americas Counter Cartel Coalition” of 19 Latin American countries is heavily reliant on local national security forces within which U.S. intelligence community operatives are embedded. Additionally, some 9,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed along 845 miles of the U.S. southern border in expanding “National Defense Areas” intended to deny cartel drug-load entries along with illegal immigration. By many accounts, gangs in Colombia and Mexico are angry about the resulting killings, drug lab raids, boat bombings, profit disruptions, and imprisonments on U.S. terrorism charges.

By now, we would know if the cartels were killing more American personnel. They are not, likely deterred by the knowledge that crossing such a bright line would incur even more painful American wrath. But are the cartels building that capacity to get Trump off their backs in due time?

Before any reporting about cartels in Ukraine, Mexico’s cartels were already using sloppily repurposed commercial drones to drop grenades and explosives on rivals and indigenous security forces. That’s still happening in Mexico and Colombia, including the first recent attacks by FPV drones. In October 2025, a coordinated three-drone FPV attack hit the state prosecutor’s office in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, destroying six vehicles a mile from the U.S. border.

Senior Colombian officials told the outlet they are already seeing Ukraine-style first-person-view drones in recent widespread use. However, a Colombian drone pilot in Ukraine told the Financial Times that pilots still hadn’t mastered how to replicate some technology or set explosive charges.

“The drone industry has exploded, and criminals have adapted the technology for attacks, which is a major challenge to battlefield aerial supremacy,” Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez told the newspaper.

What to do now

Ukraine-style drone attacks against Americans in Mexico or Colombia could upend U.S. counter-cartel initiatives tactically and politically. Body bags returning home are a tragedy. But they also have a way of undermining public support in any war. Tactics and strategic trajectories change as a result. Just ask Moscow.

To head off this shameful outcome, the White House must forcefully leverage direct U.S. military aid to have Kyiv immediately remove cartel operatives from its formations, subject to direct verification by American investigators.

Next, the U.S. must speed up and diversify current efforts to counter the emerging drone threat along the border and to help foreign allied governments protect embedded U.S. personnel. The U.S. should do what it can to intercept drone equipment and technology imports into Latin America. And leadership should make sure American soldiers and operatives posted abroad burrow deeper out of sight.

In the meantime, if anyone wonders whether the U.S. might actually redouble its efforts if the cartels kill any Americans, the Trump administration should loudly message that they had better believe we will.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in the American Mind.

The greatest threat to America isn’t military invasion or economic collapse — but a slow, conscious effort to change how Americans perceive reality itself.

In a discussion on psychological warfare and ideological subversion, BlazeTV host Nick Freitas revisits a famous Cold War-era warning from former KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov, who argued that nations can be weakened from within through a decades-long process of demoralization.

“Psychological warfare,” Bezmenov began in his now famous warning. “What it basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.”

“It’s a great brainwashing process, which goes very slow, and it’s divided in four basic stages,” he continued.

The first stage, Bezmenov said, is “demoralization.”

“It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation,” he explained.

“Marxism Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students without being challenged ... by the basic values of Americanism, American patriotism,” he continued.

“You cannot change their mind. Even if you expose them to authentic information,” he added.

“Think about what Bezmenov says there,” Freitas comments. “And again, ladies and gentleman, he’s saying this in the 1980s. This is during the Reagan administration.”

“He’s like, ‘No, no, you’re too far gone with too many of your students with your younger generation because they’ve just been fed this relentlessly. This was by the '80s,” he continues.

“Well, we’re in 2026,” he adds.

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

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Anthropic has started marking text generated by its newest Claude models with an invisible watermark that can travel with the text after it leaves the chatbot. Copy a Claude response into a document, paste it into a website, drop it into a codebase, and the mark may still be there. Anthropic says models launched on or after August 2 support machine-readable marking at launch, and the company is applying those markings wherever Claude is offered worldwide, while it is adding support to older models as well.

There is a perfectly defensible reason for doing this. The internet is filling up with synthetic text, images, audio, and video, and some method of establishing where that material came from could be useful. Anthropic also deserves credit for attempting something more sophisticated than the current generation of AI detectors, which mostly look at finished prose and make an educated guess about whether a machine wrote it.

American users who never asked for it are getting it anyway.

Unfortunately, Anthropic's solution comes with a fairly spectacular collection of problems. The watermark does not necessarily prove Claude wrote the material carrying it. Anthropic acknowledges that aggressive rewriting can remove it. And rather than confining the system to the European market that created the requirement in the first place, Anthropic is rolling it out across Claude worldwide, including Claude Code.

That last part is especially strange. Europe demanded a way to identify AI-generated text, and an American developer using Claude to write software in Tennessee now gets his code fingerprinted too.

Brussels writes the rule

This is not a case of Anthropic inventing a bizarre new restriction all by itself. Article 50 of the European Union's AI Act requires providers of generative AI systems, including general-purpose systems, to mark AI-generated text, audio, images, and video in a machine-readable form so that it can be detected as artificial. Those requirements took effect August 2, 2026, while the EU's accompanying voluntary Code of Practice lays out practical steps companies can use to comply.

The underlying concern is reasonable enough. Deepfakes are becoming more convincing, AI-generated propaganda is becoming cheaper, and fraudsters have an increasingly powerful collection of tools for impersonating real people. If someone generates a fake recording of a politician declaring war or a fake video of a CEO announcing a bankruptcy, having some reliable way to determine that the material came from an AI system could be genuinely useful.

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But Anthropic is not limiting its response to Europe. According to the company's own documentation, marking applies to output from supported models "wherever Claude is offered, worldwide," including Claude itself, the API, Claude Code, and Claude delivered through AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry.

Political scientists call this the Brussels effect. The EU controls a market too large for multinational companies to ignore, so regulations written in Brussels can wind up shaping products and business practices far outside Europe. Companies often find it easier to build one product that satisfies the strictest major jurisdiction than to maintain entirely separate versions for everyone else. The concept was itself modeled on the older California effect, in which regulations imposed by America's largest state, particularly automobile emissions rules, influenced products and policies far beyond California.

Anthropic’s explanation gives us a remarkably clear example of the Brussels effect at work. The company says it is imposing the watermark globally because it doesn’t yet "have a durable way to scope it by region.” The EU imposed the requirement, Anthropic cannot reliably fence it off to Europe, so everyone gets it.

Anyone who uses the modern web has already experienced one version of the Brussels effect. European privacy rules helped produce the thicket of cookie banners, consent forms, and tracking pop-ups that now greet users on countless websites, including users nowhere near Europe. California has pulled the same trick domestically with privacy and automobile regulation. A government does not necessarily have to persuade the rest of the world to pass the same law if the market is large enough to persuade companies to impose its preferred standard voluntarily.

Maybe that will prove harmless, but the regulatory chain is pretty clear: Europe demanded the feature, Anthropic globalized it, and American users got it too. European regulators demanded a particular feature from an American AI company, and American users who never asked for it are getting it anyway.

What exactly is Claude putting in your text?

Anthropic says Claude’s watermark is based on Google DeepMind’s SynthID-Text, which does not hide metadata or invisible characters inside the output. Instead, the watermark is created during generation by slightly changing the odds that Claude will pick one acceptable token over another.

A language model usually has several plausible choices for the next word. Google gives the example of assigning different probability scores to possible next tokens and then adjusting those scores slightly to create a detectable pattern. Over a long enough passage, those tiny choices add up to a statistical signature that can be recognized later. Google says the process does not measurably affect the quality, accuracy, creativity, or speed of the output.

Anthropic says Claude uses the same basic approach, with an important limitation: The model needs some freedom to choose among acceptable tokens. If only one answer will preserve a fact, satisfy a constraint, or keep a piece of code working, there may be little or nothing for the watermark to manipulate. Anthropic says factual answers and code therefore tend to carry less watermark signal than open-ended prose.

Because the watermark only operates where Claude has room to choose, Anthropic says it should not sacrifice accuracy or produce broken code merely to preserve the mark. The trade-off is that highly constrained output can carry a weaker signal and may be harder to identify later.

Anthropic also says its watermark carries no identifying information and cannot be traced to a particular person, company, or conversation. If Anthropic is to be believed, Claude is not quietly slipping your account ID into every paragraph you generate. However, researchers have already demonstrated multi-bit watermarks that can carry provenance data such as a user ID, timestamp, and model ID. That means a text watermark can do more than answer, “Was this probably generated by AI?” It can potentially carry information about who generated it, when, and with which model.

Once a company starts deliberately shaping generated text so that it can carry a hidden machine-readable signal, users have a legitimate interest in knowing exactly what that signal contains, who can read it, and whether the system could change later.

Claude's fingerprint does not prove Claude wrote it

Anthropic's own explanation puts some hard limits on what the watermark can actually prove.

Anthropic warns that detecting a Claude watermark means only that the material may have been processed by Claude. Claude might have generated the text from scratch, but it also might merely have proofread something written entirely by a human, translated it, summarized it, reformatted it, or otherwise transformed it.

That sounds like a technical distinction until you imagine how the detector will actually be used. A professor finds a Claude watermark in a student's paper. An editor finds one in a freelancer's submission. An employer detects one in a report. A company finds one in source code supplied by a contractor. In each case, the obvious conclusion will be that Claude wrote the work, even though Anthropic itself says that conclusion may be false.

Anthropic then manages to make the opposite case equally murky. Failure to detect a watermark does not mean Claude did not write the material either. The company warns that heavy editing, paraphrasing, translation, mixing Claude-generated material with other text, or simply using too short a passage can make the signal disappear or become unreliable.

The translation example is especially funny. Ask Claude to translate your human-written text, and Anthropic says the result may acquire a Claude mark. Take Claude-generated text and translate or paraphrase it aggressively enough afterward, and the mark may disappear. The same basic transformation can therefore help create the evidence on one side of the process and destroy it on the other.

This doesn’t make the watermark completely worthless. A positive signal may still be useful evidence when interpreted alongside other facts. But Anthropic is building a system that institutions will be sorely tempted to treat as a yes-or-no answer even though the company itself says it is nothing of the sort.

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As I wrote recently for Blaze News about Substack's integration of the Pangram AI detector, even an unusually sophisticated detector can put genuine human writers in the position of having to prove that they wrote their own words. Pangram falsely flagged a passage by Freddie deBoer as completely AI-written, only to classify the same material as human when it was submitted with more surrounding text. Technology journalist Taylor Lorenz was also falsely flagged before Pangram's CEO investigated and acknowledged the mistake.

The problem is broader than Pangram. Vanderbilt University disabled Turnitin's AI detector after calculating that even Turnitin's claimed 1% false-positive rate could translate into hundreds of incorrectly flagged papers at the university's submission volume. Turnitin itself warns that its AI score should not be used as the sole basis for adverse action against a student, because the system can misidentify human and AI-generated writing.

Claude's watermark is technically different and potentially more reliable because the model itself inserts the signal. But the institutional temptation will be exactly the same: Somebody in authority sees a red warning light and treats it as proof, while the caveats buried in Anthropic's documentation disappear from the conversation.

The people trying to cheat can just wash the mark off

There is also a more practical problem: People who actually want to hide their AI use may be able to remove the mark.

Anthropic acknowledges that heavy paraphrasing and other transformations can make the mark disappear, and academic research on text watermarking has repeatedly found the same problem. A 2025 paper describing the Self-Information Rewrite Attack tested an automated rewriting method against seven recent watermarking schemes and reported nearly 100% attack success, without requiring access to the watermark algorithm or the watermarked model.

That does not prove the attack works against Claude. Anthropic has not disclosed enough about its system for anyone outside the company to know how robust it is, and Claude's watermark could turn out to be substantially stronger than the experimental schemes researchers tested.

But Anthropic has already conceded the important point: Sufficiently aggressive rewriting can break detection.

The incentives are therefore almost backward. Someone who uses Claude openly, copies the result into a document, and makes ordinary edits may leave the watermark intact. Someone who actually intends to conceal his use of AI has an obvious extra step available: paste Claude's work into a different model and order it to rewrite everything aggressively while preserving the meaning.

The EU wanted to make AI-generated work easier to identify. What it may have helped create instead is an incentive to launder AI prose through multiple models.

That is not some exotic hypothetical attack involving a team of computer scientists. Anyone serious about concealing AI use is already motivated to rewrite generated text because untouched chatbot prose has recognizable habits of its own. Now Anthropic has given that same user another reason to do it.

Claude is not the only model leaving fingerprints

Anthropic is not the first major AI company to watermark text. Google has been doing it through SynthID in Gemini since 2024. Unlike Anthropic, Google has publicly explained at least the basic mechanism: SynthID changes the probability scores used during token selection, creating a statistical watermark without attaching conventional metadata to the finished text.

OpenAI has taken a different public approach so far. It has embraced provenance and watermarking for generated media and currently uses SynthID for supported images and audio, alongside C2PA metadata for generated images. Its public provenance materials do not describe a comparable watermark being embedded in ordinary ChatGPT text. That may not last. OpenAI says its goal is to expand provenance signals to all modalities, including text, as it works to comply with the EU's Code of Practice.

Claude users are not choosing simply between "watermarked AI" and writing everything themselves. They are choosing among competing models whose providers have made different decisions about whether generated prose and code should carry a persistent vendor signal.

The bigger question is what happens when the rest of the industry complies. If Brussels gets its way, invisible fingerprints in AI-generated prose may soon become the norm rather than an Anthropic oddity.

Claude Code is where this starts looking suicidal

The stakes look different once the watermark reaches software.

Claude Code exists because developers want an AI agent that can write useful code directly into real projects. If Claude generates 200 lines that work correctly, there is no reason a programmer should have to rewrite those 200 lines merely to put his personal stylistic stamp on them. Accepting useful machine-generated code with minimal changes is the product.

And Anthropic says its marking system applies to Claude Code, although code generally carries less watermarking than prose because programming often leaves the model with only one correct choice. The mark is more likely to show up where Claude has some freedom, such as comments or interchangeable names and terms. That makes the commercial risk harder to quantify, but it does not eliminate it.

That potentially leaves Claude's signature in private company repositories, open-source projects, contractor deliverables, student assignments, and commercial software. Some organizations will not care at all. Plenty of software companies openly encourage AI-assisted coding and may regard provenance as useful rather than threatening.

But some companies restrict which AI tools employees may use because of confidentiality concerns. Some clients expect contractors to disclose AI assistance. Some schools ban AI-generated code. Some open-source maintainers are nervous about provenance and licensing. A developer may also simply prefer not to have his source code carry an invisible identifier tied to a particular vendor.

That leaves Anthropic in a strange competitive position. The AI coding market is viciously competitive, and programmers have no shortage of alternatives. If two coding agents perform roughly the same job but only one deliberately leaves a detectable fingerprint inside the output, there will be users who choose the other one for that reason alone.

Anthropic appears to be betting that the benefits of provenance will outweigh that concern. Maybe they will. But fingerprinting Claude Code worldwide to comply with a regulatory regime centered in Europe is an extraordinary way to test the theory.

Could Anthropic use the watermark to claim your code?

One obvious fear is that Anthropic could eventually find its mark in a program and claim ownership of the code. Under the company's current commercial terms, that is not a strong concern.

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Anthropic says its commercial customers own their outputs, while U.S. copyright law creates another obstacle because purely machine-generated material may lack copyright protection altogether. The U.S. Copyright Office's current position is that copyright still requires sufficient human authorship; prompts alone generally do not provide enough human control over the expressive elements of generated material, although human selection, arrangement, modification, and other creative contributions can be protected.

So the current watermark should not be understood as Anthropic secretly stamping its property claim onto your work.

Traceability is the more plausible concern. There is no evidence that Anthropic is putting account IDs, timestamps, prompts, session identifiers, or other personally identifying information into Claude's watermark today. Anthropic has not claimed to do so, and there is no basis for accusing it of secretly doing it.

But the technology makes a few obvious questions unavoidable. What exactly does Claude's current watermark encode? Is the mark identical for every user? Can it identify a particular model or generation system? Could Anthropic later add a timestamp or account-specific identifier? Would users know if it did?

Those questions are not conspiracy theories. Once a company announces that it is invisibly embedding machine-readable information directly into the prose and code its customers produce, asking what information is being encoded is about as basic as asking what information a website stores in a cookie.

AI provenance may be useful. This is still a mess.

As AI-generated material becomes harder to distinguish from human work, provenance will matter more, not less. A reliable method for establishing that a piece of media came from a particular system could help expose fraud, propaganda, impersonation, and manipulated evidence.

But Claude's watermark illustrates how quickly that seemingly simple goal becomes complicated once it reaches ordinary text. Anthropic is now altering output so that it carries a hidden signal that users cannot see. It is doing so worldwide in response to European regulation. The signal may survive normal editing but can apparently be destroyed by sufficiently aggressive rewriting. Finding it does not prove Claude authored the work, while failing to find it does not prove Claude did not.

Anthropic has explained the basic mechanism and says the watermark contains no identifying information, but outsiders still cannot independently inspect the hidden signal or verify exactly how the system behaves in practice.

The result may punish the least-deceptive users most. Someone who treats Claude as an ordinary work tool, accepts useful output, and moves on may carry Claude's fingerprint into whatever he publishes or ships. Someone determined to pass AI work off as entirely human has a fairly straightforward workaround: He can ask another AI to wash the fingerprints off.

Ten years after Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protest ignited one of the biggest cultural battles in sports history, the former NFL quarterback says he still believes the league has blackballed him.

But according to BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock, that claim misses the bigger story.

“Ten years later, Colin Kaepernick just told the country he won,” Whitlock says.

“He sat with NBC News and said he no longer watches the NFL because the league is actively blackballing him and the men who knelt with him. He watches college football now. That is not a quarterback begging for a clipboard; that is a man who knows the institution already belongs to him,” he explains.

“A three-minute kneel during the national anthem has been stretched into game-long signs in every NFL stadium. ‘End racism,’ ‘stop hate,’” he continues, noting that it’s not going away any time soon.

“For the 2026 season, the seventh straight year of the stencil, the league will paint those slogans in the grass and on the helmets again. Marxist liturgy as field decoration. [Kaepernick] never needed another snap. He needed the building to preach after he left the huddle,” he says.

And the “diversity score cards" within the league — like the male cheerleaders who went viral not too long ago — still “sit in the front office as if they were defensive schemes.”

“The NFL did not stumble into this; it was discipled into it. [Kaepernick] watches college football and accuses the NFL of blackballing him,” Whitlock says.

“He can afford the sneer. He is one of America’s greatest Trojan horses. He never recaptured the quarterback job. He captured the institution,” he continues. “The NFL thought it was containing a protest. It was being converted by one.”

“What began as a sideline gesture now owns the grass, the hiring, and the moral vocabulary of Sunday. The loudest league in the country is still kneeling. The quietest quarterback already cashed the cultural check,” he adds.

And while Kaepernick is often treated as a “failed activist,” that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“Ten years later, we are still talking about Colin Kaepernick. … That is a cultural victory that never required a comeback, a tryout, or another down. He sacrificed a fading quarterback career and got a league to carry his flag,” Whitlock says.

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Dozens of “gap” statistics have become so deeply embedded in our political discourse that we hardly question whether unequal outcomes are actually evidence of discrimination. “Women make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men.” “Hispanic students make up a disproportionately small percentage of university graduates.” “Black women must work into the following July to catch up to what white men made the previous year.”

In our equity-obsessed age, each one of these “gap stats” has a grimy underbelly, made up of individuals who are unfairly denied the fruits of their talents because institutions have tried to force equal outcomes: men who work longer hours on average; Asians who have higher SAT scores on average; Millennial and Gen Z white applicants who get passed over at work because they don’t add to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Though no example exists anywhere of a world without disparities, it seems that most American institutions — government agencies, universities, and corporate workplaces — cannot tolerate the reality of their existence.

We are living through a decade of wokeism in which racial favoritism has graduated from an ostensibly temporary thumb on the scale for the almost-qualified to the kind of unqualified frenzy that attracts grifters and con artists. And, correspondingly, the discrimination against the disfavored has gone from ambient to so intense as to bar advancement in culturally prestigious industries.

Contra to dismissive talking points from purveyors like AOC, Woke 1 has done real damage to many lives.

Think, for example, of the nameless crowd of people denied the sinecures, positions, and honors bestowed on Cambridge’s former “youngest black professor,” Jason Arday. He was a serial fabulist and plagiarist and tragically died by suicide earlier this month.

In addition to the coveted position from which he resigned, Arday had a lucrative book deal in an industry in which just three of the 70 National Book Awards nominees in the past decade were white men, a shift that happened far too suddenly to have occurred naturally.

The Arday debacle shows that the quest to eliminate disparities has turned hiring into a de facto racial spoils system. Despite every remedy applied against them, disparities persist everywhere — in every profession, school, boardroom, prison, scientific award category, sports field, and socioeconomic tier for reasons that are cultural, political, family-based, genetic, religious, and natural.

RELATED: DEI refuses to die

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Sometimes the reasons are even historically arcane. The majority of nail technicians in the United States are Vietnamese, even though they make up just 0.75% of the population. It turns out that this particular disparity can be traced to a single American actress, Tippi Hedren of "The Birds" fame. She visited a refugee camp near Sacramento after the Vietnam War and paid her manicurist to provide training, which then spread like wildfire throughout that community.

Disparities of a thousand hues are the norm. As Thomas Sowell wrote in "Discriminations and Disparities" back in 2018, “Neither in nature nor among human beings are either equal or randomly distributed outcomes automatic. On the contrary, grossly unequal distributions of outcomes are common, both in nature and among people.”

Though no example exists anywhere of a world without disparities, it seems that most American institutions — government agencies, universities, and corporate workplaces — cannot tolerate the reality of their existence, even where there is no evidence that they arise from discriminatory practices.

University of San Diego School of Law professor Gail Heriot, an experienced civil rights lawyer and author of the aptly titled article “Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal,” regularly challenges audiences to come up with a single hiring criterion that does not produce disparate outcomes on the basis of some protected characteristic — that is, race, sex, religion, or national origin.

She has never received a satisfactory answer, even after offering a cash reward.

The ubiquity of disparities allows government agencies to choose their victims at will. No government body tasked with enforcing laws against workplace discrimination has ever investigated whether requiring a bachelor’s degree for entry-level office work causes disparities among different demographic groups. Instead, the government seeks to root out all disparities against protected classes.

During the Biden administration, the EEOC sued the grocery store chain Sheetz for screening out potential employees with certain kinds of criminal records. The government admitted that Sheetz had no intention of discriminating against black and Native American job applicants. But because a higher percentage of job-seekers from those backgrounds had criminal records, it had the effect of constituting illegal discrimination.

Welcome to disparate impact liability, a branch of the law now declared dead for the time being — and potentially unconstitutional — by the Trump administration’s Office of Legal Counsel.

RELATED: We need lawfare for white men

Blaze Media Illustration

When the law presumes that these gaps exist because of discrimination, it places defendants in an impossible position: When the inevitable disparities appear in your organization, you can either accept them — and open yourself to litigation — or discriminate against unprotected classes to make the numbers even out — and open yourself to litigation.

As I testified before the House Oversight Committee in July, our universities, corporations, and public institutions have been “at war with the reality of disparities” for decades. In their effort to vanquish them, often under shapeshifting terms, they’ve turned to actual discrimination against “overrepresented” groups in a way that is both deeply unjust and illegal under U.S. law.

For too long, even those on the right were defensive about the existence of these disparities.

They went beyond the laudable goal of reforming the K-12 education system to make it function better for all students to promising that their reforms would “close the gaps” and selling them as a way to render affirmative action at the university level unnecessary.

But the problem with DEI, and before that affirmative action, is simple: It tries to impose a Harrison Bergeron dystopia of equitable outcomes at mass scale. But doing that in a real world full of disparities requires discrimination against individuals.

As a multiethnic republic, we can no longer tolerate a system that institutes a legalized hierarchy of favored and disfavored classes. We can either enforce civil rights laws equally for everyone, which the Trump administration has done an admirable job of pursuing, or we can continue to degenerate into balkanized bloc politics marked by increasing resentment.

For the good of everyone, we must kill the god of the gaps: equality under the law for all, special favor for none, and let the disparities fall where they may.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

A former Florida mental health therapy intern is accused of having an inappropriate, sexual relationship with her client at an addiction facility. The therapist reportedly "facilitated alibis" to enable her patient to leave the facility to have sex, including at her mother's home and a hospital.

According to official documents obtained by WPLG-TV, 32-year-old Michelle Luchau-Rebora had been an intern "in the capacity of a mental health therapist" at New Hope C.O.R.P.S., an addiction and behavioral health treatment facility in Homestead.

The alleged victim reported the 'forbidden affair' to staff at the facility after Luchau-Rebora broke up with him last fall, according to the arrest report.

New Hope C.O.R.P.S. is self-described as a "residential substance abuse treatment facility for single men in South Miami-Dade County."

According to WTVJ-TV, the alleged victim told investigators that he and Luchau-Rebora engaged in a sexual relationship from June 2025 to September 2025 while the patient was under her care.

The 42-year-old patient and therapist allegedly had sex during therapy sessions.

WPLG, citing authorities, said Luchau-Rebora engaged in sexual activity during therapy sessions while at the facility and also "facilitated alibis on his behalf," which allowed the patient authorization to leave the restricted facility and engage in sexual intercourse on multiple occasions at several locations, including her home, her mother’s home in Key Biscayne, and at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

RELATED: Former HS counselor arrested for allegedly 'abusing her position' to gain 'inappropriate relationships' with students

Deputies said Luchau-Rebora "demanded that he not tell anyone about their relationship because it will affect her ability to work as a therapist."

The alleged victim reported the "forbidden affair" to staff at the facility after Luchau-Rebora broke up with him last fall, according to the arrest report.

Luchau-Rebora surrendered to authorities and was arrested on Wednesday. She was hit with a charge of sexual misconduct by a psychotherapist, a third-degree felony. Luchau-Rebora faces up to five years in prison if convicted, according to the New York Post.

A judge ordered Luchau-Rebora, of Pinecrest, to have no contact with the alleged victim.

Luchau-Rebora was released from the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Wednesday night after posting a $5,000 bond.

New Hope C.O.R.P.S. said Luchau-Rebora was fired after the accusations surfaced.

Stephen Alvarez, executive director of New Hope C.O.R.P.S., issued the following statement to WPLG:

This is an unfortunate situation involving allegations concerning an individual who was serving as an intern with New Hope C.O.R.P.S. Upon becoming aware of the allegations, New Hope promptly reported the matter to the appropriate authorities and agencies, terminated the individual’s internship, and fully cooperated with the subsequent investigation.

WPLG reported that Luchau-Rebora "refused to speak about the incident."

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Everything that lives will eventually die. The problem is that in the spring of our youth, the end of our lives feels far away. Because of that, we become cocky and self-assured, casting aside belief in the consequences of the kind of regret that puts things in perspective and, at the end of our lives, reminds us of what was really important.

Two women are in the news right now. Gloria Steinem, a writer and journalist who just died at 92, and Lindsay Clancy, on trial in Massachusetts for the murder of her three children.

It will be interesting to see whether what began in a courtroom that at times resembled a women’s rally will elevate a mother with postpartum depression into a feminist icon.

Steinem was a feminist in the 1960s and ’70s, when it wasn’t popular to be one. She went on to spend her life redefining peace, justice, and racial fairness and fighting for women’s liberation, which came to primarily mean a woman’s right to choose to dispose of her offspring.

In the eyes of many, Steinem was adored as an activist, even though her idea of equality was rooted in her belief that men, marriage, and children were oppressive because their presence in a woman’s life could deter her from achieving loftier goals.

At an abortion awareness rally in 1969, Steinem listened to other women’s abortion stories. At the time, unless a woman’s mental or physical health was in danger, abortion was illegal in the U.K. This is somewhat how, at the moment, the seriousness of child murder is in danger of being downplayed if mental illness is identified as a motive.

Steinem venerated the doctor who, like Henry VIII, approved of Anne Boleyn climbing the scaffold to be beheaded by the man assigned to wield the sword. The doctor referred Steinem for the execution of her unborn child in the womb by a practitioner willing to perform the procedure.

In language that is now regarded as heroic and liberating, before doing the deed or referring her to a female doctor who did the deed — either way — the willing accomplice made Steinem promise two things: “First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.”

Nearly 60 years after her child had been killed, Steinem dedicated her memoir, “My Life on the Road,” to her hero, Dr. John Sharpe.

Around that time, Steinem was widely viewed as a crusader for abortion rights, calling it “reproductive freedom,” a watered-down slogan she thought would make the subject more palatable in political discussion and a phrase that continues to be used in abortion debates to this day.

But now, Steinem is dead, and her legacy will be credited with having spent the lion’s share of her earthly existence downplaying the value of life while exalting a woman’s right to dispose of her children.

RELATED: Did Lindsay Clancy lose her mind — or her free will?

David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

Gloria Steinem, in life and now in death, will be idolized as an icon for women who embraced the idea that liberation is the right for a woman to snuff out life in the womb.

Her glowing death announcement states that she “passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her.” It is stunning that someone gets to pass away peacefully after spending a lifetime advocating the slaughter of the unborn.

The sad truth is that the “many who loved her” circling her bed did not include the son or daughter who would have been entering the seventh decade at the time of their mother’s death. What that touching announcement didn’t mention was whether she finally felt the regret she admitted she couldn’t muster for 69 years over the decision to sacrifice her child on the altar of ambition.

Despite all the books, speaking engagements, and accolades laid at Steinem’s feet, as the totality of her life flashed before her eyes, the son or daughter over whom success took precedence, whether she was capable or willing to admit it, may have been the last thing to cross her mind before passing into eternity.

Surely her progressive contribution to advancing a woman’s right to decide whether life inside her womb survives is Gloria’s legacy.

Now, nearly seven decades after Steinem’s backroom abortion, another woman with the potential to be a progressive pioneer in the fight for a mother’s rights over the lives of her children has been sitting in a wheelchair in a courtroom in Plymouth, Massachusetts. At the time Steinem terminated her child’s life, it was illegal unless a woman was physically or mentally ill. Today, mental illness is exploited as a defense in a trial where three children were executed by their mother.

Although it might not look like it, the female support surrounding Lindsay Clancy is similar to the support Steinem received in 1969, when women rallied because they felt no one understood their plight. At this juncture in the Clancy trial, although Clancy’s children, unlike Gloria’s, were outside the womb, the willingness to call her innocent hinges solely on her mental state: guilty if she had her wherewithal, exonerated if mental illness drove her to murder her babies.

In Clancy’s case, the thoughts and feelings of her children concern not whether they had regrets, but rather what kind of terror a confused preschooler, toddler, and infant experienced as their mother, for whatever reason, decided they no longer had the right to life.

How different is what Lindsay Clancy did — for whatever the reason — from Gloria’s youthful decision to benefit herself?

RELATED: ‘That far’ always becomes here

erhui1979/iStock/Getty Images

As these thoughts come full-circle, it’s important to consider the impact Gloria Steinem had on the deaths of more than 65 million unborn children and how she’s being celebrated and mourned, in light of the potential Lindsay Clancy’s defense might have as an excuse to deny the right to life to those of us outside the womb.

Steinem’s actions helped reshape the nation’s views on abortion. In the same way, Clancy could change the nation’s views on maternal filicide. And after postpartum psychosis is accepted as an excuse to kill three children, what’s the next step in the progression for those who move through life like a horse with blinders?

If the progressive impulse to excuse the killing of children in the womb extends to children outside it, Lindsay Clancy’s case could have consequences far beyond her trial — potentially eroding the right to life even more profoundly than Gloria Steinem’s abortion activism did.

Gloria Steinem is gone. Lindsay Clancy is still here. It will be interesting to see whether what began in a courtroom that at times resembled a women’s rally will elevate a mother with postpartum depression into a feminist icon who moves the needle from excusing child murder to finding any other excuse to dispose of human life because societal mores demand it.

Steinem’s opportunity to influence the culture is over. Cases like Lindsay Clancy’s may only be beginning.

A rabbi was caught along with seven other men allegedly trying to arrange for underage sex, and he was caught with a damning item.

The sting operation was conducted by the New York State Police in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation between Aug. 27 and 28 in Onondaga County.

The men allegedly arranged to have sex through text messages and believed they were doing so with a teenager.

The eight men were charged with attempted rape in the second degree, according to a state police release.

Court documents indicated that an undercover officer pretended to be a 14 or 15 year old during the operation. The men allegedly arranged to have sex through messaging apps and believed they were doing so with a teenager.

All of the men separately arranged to have sex at hotels or at hotel parking lots in Syracuse, Liverpool, or Salina.

"Each one of these individuals came in contact with law enforcement during their search for an actual child," said Assistant District Attorney Jarrett Woodfork for Onondaga County.

Police said Rabbi Peter Schaktman was arrested for trying to arrange sex with a person he believed to be a 14-year-old boy. He allegedly had sex lubricant in his possession at the time.

Schaktman and the following four men were arrested on Aug. 27:

• Jarod M. Groah, age 42, from Frankfort, NY
• William D. Sheehan, age 53, from Syracuse, NY
• John L. Dejesus, age 34, from Syracuse, NY
• Xiaoqing Qi, age 37, from Syracuse, NY

These three men were arrested on Aug. 28:

• Marvin D. Knapp, age 44, from Syracuse, NY
• William D. Whitfield, age 41, from Seneca Falls, NY
• Kevin M. Lapoint, age 65, from Cicero, NY

RELATED: Illegal alien transvestite prostitute jumped from hotel's second floor while fleeing police

Temple Emanu-El, a Jewish temple in Utica, released a statement saying the rabbi was suspended over the heinous allegations and they were cooperating completely with law enforcement.

"Temple Emanu-El is shocked and deeply troubled by the serious criminal charges involving Rabbi Peter Schaktman," the temple said. "We recognize the sadness, confusion, anger, and many unanswered questions this news may create for members of our congregation and the broader community. Our thoughts are with all those who may have experienced harm and with their loved ones."

The eight men were arrested in separate cases unrelated to each other.

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Last month, a viral X debate erupted among conservatives after Turning Point USA’s Andrew Kolvet shared a college student’s complaint that “a burrito shouldn’t cost $20,” prompting other conservatives to argue that the exorbitant price had more to do with poor spending habits than inflation alone.

While somewhat silly at face value, “burritogate,” says BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre, reveals a contentious divide in conservative America over the nation’s affordability crisis. But while people are getting riled up debating charts and graphs, they’re missing a kind of loss that is much harder to quantify, he says.

On this episode of “The Auron MacIntyre Show,” Auron sits down with British author Johann Kurtz to discuss the social currency they believe is at the heart of America’s cost-of-living crisis.

Kurtz says it’s true that official numbers make young people look richer because goods like technologies, toys, cheap food, travel, and apps have gotten less expensive. But at the same time, the essentials that actually build a stable adult life — rent, homes, child care, school, and health insurance — have gotten much more expensive.

“Graduating from a good education, getting a stable career, finding a good spouse, buying a nice home, and having children — anchoring the debate on the price of a burrito, you know, it's an interesting flash point, but I do think that these deeper issues risk getting lost in the discussion,” he says.

One of those issues is social capital.

In his recent article “Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise,” Kurtz argued that young people feel financially squeezed not only because prices are higher but because earlier generations got free social capital — trusted neighbors, functional schools, courtship norms, predictable careers, and a usable public square.

But in today’s world, that stock has been diminished, forcing young people to purchase expensive stand-ins.

“In London, where I'm from, the classic recommendation for middle-class parents is: You don't need an expensive home; you should just get a starter home in somewhere like Kentishtown,” says Kurtz.

But modern Kentishtown, he explains, is “full of unsavory characters” that make the area unsafe for families. “Material conditions have changed."

Today, “it is no longer often wise to opt for the public school. There is actually a good reason to choose the private school,” he tells Auron, noting that 50 years ago, 85% of the families of public school children were intact and likely upheld “implicitly Christian context.”

“Now that intact family rate has totally collapsed, and the only place where it can be predicted and relied upon as a kind of norm typically are in harder-to-access spaces — charter schools, public schools, classical Christian education, homeschooling,” Kurtz explains.

This trend isn’t showing up just in education, however, but in virtually all “easy, cheap public option[s].”

“[Easy, cheap public options were] good because they were embedded in a good culture populated by good people who sort of shared a vision and understanding and moral sense of life that you shared. And thus you could slum it a little bit,” he says.

But in the modern day, slumming it comes at exorbitant social cost. Such a lifestyle, says Kurtz, is more often than not shared by people who are “quite sketchy and are quite dangerous and are quite anti-family.”

Auron agrees. “In America, the famous example is Detroit. You know, people say, ‘Well, you can get a house for $50,000.’ Sure, and all you need is, you know, the machine gun perched on top of your roof in order to make sure that your home is safe all the time,” he says.

“What's really happened is the breakdown in all of those things that used to operate in the background that were built into the social fabric,” he continues. “The idea that you had intact households that cared for each other, that cared for the neighborhood, that made places safe, that made places affordable, that allowed for child care and all these things that weren't a paid job … that took a large amount of the burden off of young working families.”

But today, those built-in support systems are largely gone and therefore must be supplemented with paid child care, expensive housing in safe neighborhoods, private or classical Christian schooling, and other costly stand-ins for neighborly and family support.

What people are missing in the debates surrounding the affordability crisis, says Kurtz, is that “social capital is every bit as important as financial capital.”

“[When] you quantify everything and you host these very abstract arguments, which are exclusively framed in terms of a narrow set of poorly understood reductive metrics, it misses all of that context, which is why the lived reality on the ground can differ so radically from the kind of theoretical arguments that people make online.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Auron MacIntyre?

To enjoy more of this YouTuber and recovering journalist's commentary on culture and politics, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Andrew Garfield is really committed to the bit.

The versatile star played Spider-Man in two feature films, but back in 2013 he shared a curious wish for the web-slinger.

'I would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I'm dead.'

Why couldn’t he be gay?

The comments caught fire at the time, and more than a decade later, he hasn’t budged on the issue.

“I like the idea of a place where everyone is being honored and everyone is being included, and it was just a kind of act of saying, ‘Well, why not?’ And you’ll be telling on yourself if you have a strong opinion either way.”

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” the fourth solo adventure in the Tom Holland-led series, shattered records mere weeks ago and is now in the top five grossing films of all time.

If it ain’t broke, why in the world would Hollywood want to fix it? Or is the MCU “telling” on itself for wanting the good box office times to keep rolling?

Goodbye, Dolly

We just can’t quit Dolly Parton.

The country music superstar passed last month at the age of 80, but interest in all things Dolly is just warming up. Parton’s songs zoomed up the iTunes music charts in the days after her death. Her estate announced that she previously recorded a special new song, “My Place in History,” to be released on her 100th birthday in 2046.

This week, an ABC broadcast of her beloved 1980 film “9 to 5” scored the network its biggest ratings for a film in over three years.

Meanwhile, country superstar Jelly Roll is still juggling the fallout from his disastrous week guest-hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” …

RELATED: GHOUL NATION: Pop culture's decade-long descent into cruelty and bloodlust

Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images

Down with 'Uprising'?

“First reaction” stories should be relegated to fifth-rate movie blogs and Bluesky. These stories capture early film reviews from influencers who like almost everything.

If you need a reference point, the recent “Supergirl” earned solid "first reactions." Raves even. So there’s that.

Which makes the terrible “first reactions” to “The Uprising” genuinely newsworthy. Our friend Andrew Garfield anchors the film, based on actual events of a peasant uprising against King Richard II.

Director Paul Greengrass has made some great films, including “United 93” and “Captain Phillips.”

So what went wrong? The pacing, the dialogue, and the execution, apparently …

Clooney ... for her

George Clooney has seen the future, and he’s a mite worried about it.

You can’t blame him. He’s a big Hollywood star, and the rise of AI will dramatically impact his industry. Jobs will be lost. Old stars will be reborn (just ask the Val Kilmer estate that OK’d a digital Kilmer “comeback” for an upcoming film).

Clooney is keeping his sense of humor about the future and his own possible “comeback.”

"I would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after I'm dead. I would like that. I would like to avoid that."

We feel his pain. But if AI can fix old “Facts of Life” episodes and digitally remove Clooney’s mullet, it won’t be all bad …

Marvel make-'em-ups

When you think improv, names like Larry David, Robin Williams, and Colin Mochrie come to mind.

What about Thor, Captain America, and Ant-Man?

The upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” began production without a finished script. Seems problematic for a movie with a budget north of $400 million, no? Not according to directors Anthony and Joe Russo.

The duo, who previously gave us “Infinity War” and “Endgame,” explained away the lack of a finished script.

We’re improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors. We like to see what the actors bring to the characters, and sometimes you don’t get the actors until a few days or a few weeks before you shoot them. And a lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens.

“Doomsday” isn’t a comedy, but that defense is hysterical …

Blind casting

Wait … was “Saturday Night Live’s” Pat not available?

Actress Sandra Hüller of “Project Hail Mary” fame is set to star in the upcoming “Arbeit und Struktur” (“Work and Structure”), a biopic of the late German writer and artist Wolfgang Herrndorf.

Yes, Hüller is female and Herrndorf, best known for his 2010 coming-of-age best-seller “Tschick,” was a man.

The actress called the role a “profound challenge.” Hard to argue with that.

An attorney representing Maria Bartiromo released a combative statement denying that she was fired from Fox News.

The longtime host at Fox Business had reportedly "parted ways" with the network effective immediately, according to a network statement Thursday.

'Maria is a total professional, and a true warrior. Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy.'

"The irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox are absolutely and unequivocally false," read a statement from her attorney on Friday.

"Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise," the attorney continued. "Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth."

When asked about this new statement, Fox News said its previous statement "speaks for itself."

The statement could have been in response to reports that Bartiromo had been fired after allegedly making an improper disclosure to the White House about Fox News refusing to air the president's election fraud claims.

Bartiromo had worked at CNN and CNBC before moving to Fox News in 2014. She had come to host two shows, one that bore her name: "Mornings with Maria" and "Sunday Morning Futures." Both will be renamed after her departure.

Blaze News also previously reported that her profiles at the Fox News and the Fox Business websites were both scrubbed from the internet.

"I can’t believe Maria Bartiromo is no longer going to have her great show(s) on FoxNews/Business," said the president in a social media post. "Maria is a total professional, and a true warrior. Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy. God bless you, Maria!"

RELATED: Trump demands Bret Baier 'straighten out' Fox News 'flunkies' over report — and he responds

Bartiromo was celebrated in 1995 as the first reporter to broadcast daily from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

She also was the first female journalist to be inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame in 2011.

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A Latino running club in California was forced to move a planned event in a historically black neighborhood after several community members threatened "resistance."

The feud began after "Barrio Athletics" published a promotional video about a run in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

'Not gonna happen. So respect ... or get your brain knocked out! Black power.'

Some of the black residents took exception to the phrasing used in the video saying Latino runners would be "taking over the streets."

"Every black person in California from San Diego to the bay needs to be in LA this Saturday and check this s**t," read one post on the X platform.

Another influencer objected to the Latinos' plan to bring in vendors for their running event through the neighborhood.

"Let me tell you something. That's about the fifth time we got the Hispanic community trying to do a hostile takeover in Leimert under the guise of a run, a bike ride, whatever the f**k, coffee-making contest, NO!" she said in a video on social media.

"We don't want you to come into Africa Town. Please make note of it, you got time still to relocate your event, you will be met with resistance from the black community," she added.

"Have some respect for black space."

Another black resident chimed in against the run.

"We can't go to no Mexican community and come through there without getting stabbed and gettin' physically assaulted," he said in a video on social media.

"Not gonna happen. So respect ... or get your brain knocked out! Black power."

RELATED: La Raza Radio among businesses burned down in BLM riots: 'It was my life's work. Destroyed.'

"Black LA reveres Leimert Park," said Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano. "For years it has been a center of cultural resistance, at a time when the population of Black LA and its political power have been shrinking."

Barrio Athletics decided to cancel the event and move it to Elysian Park.

"I understand where the anger is coming from, even though hearing it expressed like that, it's not pretty," Arellano added.

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The Republican Party of Missouri is calling on a state candidate to step down after he was arrested for allegedly trying to plant drugs on an opponent.

37-year-old Thomas Christopher Ross was arrested on Wednesday on a federal charge of conspiring to distribute a controlled substance.

Ross allegedly told the manager that he could anonymously tip off the police about the drugs planted in Secker's car.

Ross had allegedly told his campaign manager to plant cocaine and Adderall in the car or purse of his primary opponent, Louise Secker, who is also a Republican.

Ross defeated Secker in the Republican primary for Missouri House District 161, representing Joplin, but his campaign manager contacted police about the alleged drug plot.

Police say they tested a bag of cocaine and an Adderall pill that the unidentified campaign manager brought to them, and they confirmed both to be real.

The informant also provided police with text messages allegedly from Ross detailing the planting plot as far back as May, according to the complaint.

"I was hoping we could make it happen before THIS Thursday...which would be extreme egg on the face," read part of a May 31 text attributed to Ross by prosecutors.

Police contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which provided a covert recorder so that the manager could obtain audio evidence from a July 31 meeting with Ross.

Ross allegedly told the manager that he could anonymously tip off the police about the drugs planted in Secker's car.

"If you can pull it off...pull it off," Ross allegedly told him.

Ross won the primary by fewer than 35 votes and would face Democrat candidate Aaron Metzger in the general election, if he resists calls to step down from the campaign.

He was booked into the Joplin Municipal Jail but has not made a plea yet in the case.

RELATED: Calif. Democrat calls for ICE to be abolished after 'record' illegal alien arrests

Missouri Republican Party Chairman Peter Kinder called on Ross to drop out.

He added that the "people of Southwest Missouri deserve nothing less than leadership they can trust."

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The first ballots of the midterm elections have left the building.

The Trump administration filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court on Thursday asking the court to remove a lower court’s stay on the administration's new postal ballot rules. North Carolina, one of the states suing the administration, sent out ballots on Friday.

‘The cheating on mail-in ballots is legendary.’

More than 46,000 North Carolina ballots have been sent out, though only to those who specifically requested them. Those shipments will continue until all requests for mail-in ballots made by October 20 are fulfilled.

Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told Blaze News that this was business as usual for the state.

“Regardless of a temporary restraining order or any kind of action there, every election year we do share our envelopes — absentee ballot envelopes — with the U.S. Postal Service,” Tyson said. “We did share our envelopes with the United States Postal Service about two or three weeks ago. They were approved. That’s very normal. Nothing that we’ve done just for this year.”

The NCSBE is currently controlled by Republicans.

Nineteen other states will begin mailing ballots by September 19. For the Trump administration's new rules to have a chance at taking effect before the midterms, the Supreme Court would need to issue an emergency judgment in the White House's favor quickly.

The administration is already making its case.

RELATED: Democrats are running from Kamala Harris' endorsements

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer.Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images

According to White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis, the problem boils down to "a single activist judge."

“The uncertainty is coming from a single activist judge who continues to try and obstruct President Trump from implementing common-sense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections,” Bis told Blaze News. “These safeguards for mail ballots were proposed months ago, giving election officials ample time to prepare for the 2026 election.”

Bis did not mention any names, but Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has certainly caused fits for the administration regarding mail-in ballots.

President Donald Trump kicked off the battle in March, when he issued an executive order overhauling the mailing system itself, requiring that every envelope be outfitted with a unique tracking barcode. According to the order, those ballots would then be issued to voters confirmed by a “Mail-in Ballot and Absentee Participation List” organized by each state.

“The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s gone on. It’s very clearly covered. … I think this will help a lot with elections,” Trump said when signing the order in March.

Talwani initially voided the envelope rules on June 25, barring them from applying to the midterms. The DOJ asked the Supreme Court for emergency intervention on July 27 to lift Talwani's injunction, which SCOTUS eventually granted without addressing the legality of the EO.

On August 11, Talwani issued a nationwide injunction preventing the USPS from implementing the executive order nationwide.

RELATED: Is the DSA about to scalp another establishment Democrat?

Alex Wong/Getty Images

On August 26, the USPS issued its final rule saying states must give the agency a list of mail-in ballot recipients and use-approved envelopes, but the following day, Talwani issued a 14-day injunction preventing the final rule from taking effect.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift that most recent injunction. Sauer called mail-in ballot fraud “a particularly pernicious species of fraud that dilutes the votes of lawful voters” in his emergency filing.

Sauer previously chastised Talwani, claiming she was “sowing confusion and chaos” as Election Day approaches.

As of now, it is unclear whether states will have to submit the list of mail-in ballot recipients to the federal government before the midterms or how they might go about doing so with so little time.

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The growing divide between men and women isn't happening by accident, according to BlazeTV hosts Allie Beth Stuckey and Nick Freitas, and the recent Lindsay Clancy case is only deepening the division.

“I can understand that Tyler Robinsons exist, that Lindsay Clancys exist. I want to believe that they’re a one-off,” Stuckey begins.

“But when you see ... millions of people online, lionizing them, not just excusing them, but turning them into heroes, you’re like, ‘OK, I cannot stomach the idea that there are millions of Lindsay Clancys that would advocate for killing their children because their hormones are off,’” she tells Freitas.

And men across the country are at a loss regarding so many of these women's responses to the case.

Freitas points out that when he speaks to men about it, they echo the point that there’s “zero accountability” for “modern women.”

“This is a caricature of the argument, but I’m watching it become more and more common, and the more, you know ... hundreds or thousands of women are out there protesting for Lindsay, and you know, tens of thousands of women online, liking, sharing,” he says.

“I think a lot of it is misplaced motherhood,” Stuckey says.

“A lot of it is feminism,” she adds. “But it all just goes back to sin and ... men and women having a dereliction of duty when it comes to fulfilling who God has actually made us to be.”

But beyond the sin, Freitas believes that the reason this is happening is because both men and women have been lied to for decades.

“Men have been told for the past two decades that they’re horrible, that they’re toxic, masculinity is bad, that the future is female, and that if everything was run by women, it would be better,” he says.

“At the same time, women have been lied to in this idea ... that your only flaw is you don’t have enough self esteem, and you’re powerful and capable, and you need to go out there and be a girlboss,” he continues.

“If you had lied to both sides, and you'd said, ‘They’re both great and wonderful,’ that would have produced one result. If you had lied about both sides and said ‘You’re both horrible,' that would have produced different results,” he adds.

But that's not the case, and Freitas has a theory as to why they're both being told such damaging lies, telling Stuckey, "I think so much of the purpose is about destroying the family."

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK40 for $40 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

What happens when overtly feminized programming accidentally creates an uncontrollable star out of an accused chauvinist and sexist?

Television magic and unfettered populism.

'If you don't want to love me, [it's] up to you.'

One look at TLC's schedule, and it becomes abundantly clear the programming isn't courting a male audience.

"Double Lives of Suburban Wives" focuses on St. Louis housewives who make pornographic content (which has included fart porn), "1000-lb Roomies" focuses on two morbidly obese roommates, and "Sister Wives" focuses on polygamist families.

The shining star of the network though is "90 Day Fiancé."

With more than 20 spinoffs that include behind-the-scenes, reaction, and reunion shows, the universe revolves around couples who are from two different countries with a focus on trying to acquire a spousal visa in the United States; not exactly a conservative male viewpoint.

Accidental star

The show does huge numbers and inspires countless memes while overwhelmingly pushing pro-immigration and feminist positions.

Enter Sarper Güven. This Turkish national has allegedly slept with 2,500 women, recording his sexual encounters with a color-coded black book full of "X" marks that denote how attractive the women were.

With his wife shown as being constantly upset after getting new, horrid glimpses of his promiscuous past, Güven was immediately positioned on the show as the misogynist pig who needed desperate reformation.

There was only one problem: He refused to apologize.

"I never apologize because [it's] who I am, but I know I make mistakes," Güven told Blaze News in an interview.

Despite consistently admitting wrongs in an attempt to improve his marriage, Güven has endured constant browbeatings in both the recorded programming and group shows with other castmates. Yet despite how he is portrayed and focused on as what not to do, he has only become more popular.

Prized pig

Güven set out on a North American comedy tour earlier this year and has been selling out across the continent. At the time of this writing, the new stand-up comic has seven sold-out shows in Toronto, Canada.

RELATED: Shane and Joe show us what real activism looks like

Thomas Trutschel/Photothek/Getty Images

It's not Güven's past that audiences have identified with; it's his willingness to stand up for himself on a show that rarely rewards such behavior. When Güven''s American wife told a Brazilian cast member, "Go back to your country," he defended his partner and refused to back down, despite being an immigrant himself, on a show surrounded by immigrants.

The obvious pro-immigration sentiment of the show was finally challenged by a pair of people who weren't necessarily bothered by the immediate social consequences.

"I'm not perfect, not even close to being perfect," Güven said from a hotel room in Western Canada. "But that's me, and if you want to love me, that's me. If you don't want to love me, [it's] up to you. I come so honest and transparent. Maybe people love that, especially men love that."

Marital blisters

Güven's stand-up comedy routine sounds as much like a parody and a character as his on-screen appearances do, but he is vehement that it's all real.

Part of that has been his ongoing confession that marriage has changed him, with his commentary on the topic being what men relate to most.

Transparently, Güven talks about how he has changed from a flirtatious lady's man into a docile husband who just wants "peace."

"I don't see women using that word, term, a lot, you know, 'peace,'" the 45-year-old said. "It was not like this when [the relationship] started because I was an alpha male ... now whatever she asks we just do it as men because we don't want a fight."

RELATED: Ryan Reynolds says the 1980s were a traumatic and 'brutal time' — and people aren't happy about it

Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images for AB

The majority of Güven's set is a reflection of his marital woes — which he admits his wife hates — and it is garnering him more outside traction with those who don't know him from the show than was expected.

"Whoever comes to my show will relate something with their lives," he explained, providing more than a couple of hilarious anecdotes.

"Everything changed with marriage. I always [say] that before the marriage, even my sweat was sexy. She was smelling me all every day, and she was saying, 'I love your sweat so much, Sarper. You smell like a real man.' And we got married, brother, in two weeks: 'Did you eat garlic today? Did you take shower?' What happened, girl? I'm the same guy.”

Whether it's his Turkish way of talking in proverbs or his brutal honesty, Güven's inability to change himself from his factory settings has produced massive results and garnered him huge respect with men in an overwhelmingly female mediascape.

“If a man would be an electronic device, we probably would be a freaking toaster. Push the bread in, let the bread come out. Simple, one action at a time. Bread in, bread out for you. But a woman would be probably a mobile phone, a very smart, I mean the iPhone 16 Pro Max," he stressed.

"I sleep with one every morning, [and] I find everything changed, new settings, new rules, new update, you know. But always new terms and conditions for me."

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The U.S. Department of Justice is taking aim at a school district in a red state for allegedly violating parental rights on transgender issues involving their children, and the DOJ is targeting other districts as well.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced Tuesday the lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools in what she called a "first-of-its-kind" legal action.

The policy allowed children to keep information secret from parents, including pronoun preference, names, school records, restroom use, and locker use.

The complaint cited the district's own "Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Students Internal Guidance Document," which allegedly called for teachers to develop and implement "transitioning" plans for children without their parents' knowledge or consent.

The DOJ claimed the policies violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act as well as the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.

"Parental rights are paramount in the operation of America’s public schools, and Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools does not know children better than their own parents," said Dhillon.

The lawsuit seeks to end the transgender policies immediately at the district.

Dhillon said the DOJ is not waiting until the conclusion of this lawsuit to seek legal action against other districts on the transgender issue.

"What we do is we ask for documents, we investigate, and then we try to resolve cases with school districts," she told Fox News Digital. "And if we cannot, then we file lawsuits. And so there are many other lawsuits contemplated here and other investigations that are ongoing."

The complaint says KCKPS has used different versions of the same guidance since 2017 and that the policy allowed children to keep information secret from parents, including pronoun preference, names, school records, restroom use, and locker use.

"Contrary to the allegations in the complaint, the district maintains that it is in full compliance with FERPA and PPRA and is disappointed by the DOJ’s decision to file the lawsuit," said the district in response.

RELATED: Female wrestler alleging sexual assault by trans-identifying male at HS match sues school

Dhillon replied that the policies were clearly in violation of parental rights.

"The Department will not tolerate school districts playing fast and loose with federal law in the service of radical gender ideology," Dhillon concluded.

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Jeremy Boreing has a new series out on Amazon called "The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin," which is a live-action historical fantasy series adapted from the novels by Stephen R. Lawhead.

“Almost everything on television now is about witchcraft and, you know, all of this crap. Not much is about Christianity. So I started watching this, and it starts with pagan gods and everything else, and I’m not going to give anything away, but it doesn’t last with the pagan gods very long,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck explains.

“And nowhere on television are you getting that kind of message in a good-quality series,” he says.

Glenn also notes that he’s “not getting anything" for promoting the series.

“It is so controversial in our circle of friends. You know, it’s ridiculous,” he says.

"Can we stop all this, please? Can we please stop? I don’t consider anyone a competitor. And I don’t know why everybody is considering everyone else a competitor. We’re not competitors.”

“You know who we’re competing against? Satan. We’re competing against evil. We’re competing against Marxism. We’re competing against apathy. We’re not competing against each other,” he continues.

“Why we don't all promote one another, why we don't all help each other, why we all don’t celebrate everybody’s victories when they have it is beyond me. Here is a TV series, and the downside is I don’t think another season’s going to be made unless this is wildly popular, and I think it could be if people will search it out,” he adds.

Glenn calls the show “as good as anything [he has] seen in that genre.”

“And everybody should say something about it. It’s a victory. That was beautiful and well done. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen our side produce,” he adds.

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Android and iOS are the most prominent mobile platforms on the planet, but they’re not the only options. Android alternatives are picking up steam, with GrapheneOS leading the pack, and this popular privacy-first option will soon be more accessible, thanks to a partnership that puts it directly on Motorola phones right out of the box.

GrapheneOS isn’t the easiest operating system to get your hands on. Currently, it’s not available on any device found on a store shelf or online. In fact, the only way to use it is to purchase a compatible Google Pixel phone and overwrite the core Android OS with GrapheneOS — a process that takes a little bit of technical know-how. The team behind Graphene tries to make it as easy as possible, but not everybody is willing to tinker with the operating system on a brand-new phone.

The Motorola phone with GrapheneOS might be the best private phone to date.

A new upcoming partnership hopes to change that.

Motorola recently announced a deal that will put GrapheneOS directly onto its new phones. Information is scant right now, but we know that the first device will be available in 2027. When it launches, it’s expected to be a flagship device with a premium price tag. There is speculation that affordable, lower-end devices could be ready in the future, but that depends on a number of factors outside GrapheneOS’ control. Right now, top-end models are the target.

So why should you care?

The thing that makes GrapheneOS so compelling, especially to freedom-minded individuals, is that it takes the core essence of the Android operating system and strips out all of Google’s apps, services, and tracking mechanisms. What’s left is a clean slate to build a fresh, privacy-focused version of Android from the ground up.

The entire GrapheneOS experience is designed around privacy and security. The developers prioritize defense, looking out for zero-day vulnerabilities and patching them quickly, sometimes before Google can fix Android. They lock down app permissions — especially for the camera, microphone, gyroscope, and more — so that you can decide exactly which apps have precise access to the features in your device. They also have alternative apps to use out of the box, like Vanadium, their Chromium-based browser with none of Google’s grubby hands watching your web traffic.

Now, if you’re a Google fan, that doesn’t mean you can’t use Google Apps. GrapheneOS will let you download Google Play Store, Drive, Gmail, and everything else in the Google service ecosystem. The main difference, however, is that Google’s apps are no longer woven into the core operating system. Instead, you can install them into sandboxed locations on the device so they can’t gather data from outside of the place you put them, keeping Google out of your business unless you invite it in.

RELATED: Google's new daily helper knows all about you. Just how creepy is it?

Marina113/Getty Images

That said, GrapheneOS isn’t perfect. There are some pieces of Android that are arguably better with Google. For instance, Gboard is easily one of the best keyboards on Android, if you don’t mind sending diagnostics and other data back to Mountain View. Gemini is also getting quite good these days, though its features may not be enough to convince you to let Google into your phone.

For every eyebrow raised over Google’s tracking practices, Android alternatives like GrapheneOS are here to make smartphones private again. As for the partnership with Motorola, this is a huge milestone that will take GrapheneOS from a niche privacy-focused solution for the few to a mainstream mobile alternative that puts privacy and security back into the hands of the people at large.

Depending on how well it goes, the Motorola phone with GrapheneOS might be the best private phone to date, though we’ll have to test one for ourselves to know for sure.

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