Is Taylor Swift’s colossal fanbase finally beginning to dwindle? BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey sees the writing on the wall, and it doesn’t look good for the global pop star. While Swift is coming off a record-breaking album and a very public marriage, her latest release has even some faithful Swifties wincing.

On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie sits down with former producer and longtime Swift fan Bri Schrader to have an honest conversation about Swift’s latest album release, whether or not it forebodes doom, and what Swift’s sudden “trad” shift may point to.

“So Taylor Swift released basically the deluxe version of her album ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ … and everyone’s talking about it because some of the songs are controversial,” says Bri.

She explains that the original album was already controversial because even hardcore fans thought it was “bad writing.” The four added songs only worsened matters.

Allie notes that “The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore” has a Metacritic score of “39 out of 100” — the “first red album” of Swift’s career.

“And then, we also have Poppie Platt, a reviewer for the Telegraph. She titled her review, ‘I’m a Swiftie, and even I think these songs are terrible.’ … She said that what [Swift] doesn’t seem to have realized is that the music must be good to do a surprise release,” Allie continues.

“Do you think, as some people are speculating, that she has lost her artistic edge since meeting Travis?” she asks.

“I love Taylor Swift, but I have felt that almost every song that’s been about him has just not been her strongest lyrically. And so has she lost her edge? I don’t know. I mean, maybe,” says Bri.

“She wrote a whole album about concepts and stories that aren’t even hers or related to her and that was my favorite album of hers, and so I think she’s still able to tap into that. So maybe it’s just the songs that are strictly about [Travis] that are kind of meh to me,” she continues, noting that people are specifically “clowning on” Swift’s song “Cleveland,” which is about Kelce taking her to see his hometown.

Bri believes Swift has entered a new era. “She’s in this phase right now that’s very like, ‘Oh, screw the haters. I found my man, and he plays football.’ She has, like, five songs that are just basically that,” she says, “and I think that’s what I’m tired of a little bit.”

“You would think she’d be more popular than ever having this football husband, having gotten married, obviously being excited about getting married,” says Allie.

“Maybe it’s because she’s moved even more. I mean, obviously she was always mainstream … but she’s gone into other realms that typically maybe don’t think about Taylor Swift … and now people just feel a need to always commentate on her life or her politics.”

“I feel like people are more annoyed with her in general than in seasons past in her life.”

Bri agrees that Swift’s public perception is shifting. “There’s a section of people who have always not liked her, who have always thought she was cheesy and annoying. Then there’s the people, I think, who were turned off by this album specifically,” she says, explaining how certain songs expressing desire for marriage and motherhood were criticized for being too traditional.

“People are now like, ‘OK, so she’s going to be a little trad now,’ and that’s annoying to a lot of the people who liked her before,” Bri continues. “So I think those things combined, she’s just at levels of annoying for most people right now, which is unfortunate for her.”

Allie believes Swift’s sudden shift to traditionalism is less about a real change of heart and more about political influence.

“Her and the Kelces are all a part of a psyop. … I’m not saying that it’s not real, but they represent what Democrats want to convey — that you can be a progressive feminist who likes Kamala Harris and hates Donald Trump and you’re from the Midwest, you represent normal Americans, you can be trad, you can have kids,” she speculates.

“But I think when presidential election time comes around that the Kelce-Swift combo is going to be flexing their influence muscles for the Democrats.”

In their crosshairs, she argues, will be a very specific demographic: “that white suburban mom … that instinctively doesn’t like Trump but is also kind of trad.”

“And I think the more trad she gets and the more she remains progressive in other ways, the more they think that she’s going to be able to persuade people over to their side. … She’s playing a long ideological game here,” says Allie.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Allie beth stuckey, Taylor swift, Traditionalism, Travis kelce, Blazetv show 

The 2026 midterm elections present a tough environment for the Republican Party, raising questions about how to campaign in such challenging circumstances. As is often the case in American politics, the economy is a central concern for voters.

In the last few weeks, prices — particularly for gas — have been too high for the comfort of any incumbent party. What have Republicans been saying to assuage voters’ concerns?

When officers and soldiers complained about not being paid, Washington did not ignore them or tell them they should consider it a privilege to sacrifice for their country.

Some have taken a kind of high road, encouraging or even admonishing voters to rise above self-interest and consider the loftier aims President Trump and his administration are pursuing. Yes, gas prices may be high, but the president is trying to end the Iranian threat to American national security. This process is taking longer and causing more economic pain than anyone would like. But it is worth it for the nation in the long run, and so patriotic voters should toughen up. So the argument runs.

This approach, however, has no shortage of critics. They think it is futile or worse to tell ordinary voters, whose economic means are increasingly limited, to grin and bear higher prices on the necessities of life. This environment, they suggest, is a recipe for electoral disaster for the Republican Party.

The critics have a point. It is never prudent for any political party — especially a pragmatic, competitive party that hopes to win elections and not just advance philosophical arguments — to appear indifferent to the ordinary self-interest of voters.

To make this error is not only to misread the present American electorate, but to misunderstand human nature, the basis of politics at all times and in all places. This is not to say that a successful political party must appeal only to narrow self-interest. Voters can respond to appeals to moral principle and national pride. Nevertheless, to neglect self-interest is to neglect one of the vital springs of human conduct.

The party that does this as a regular practice courts defeat.

This is one of the practical political lessons that George Washington, one of the greatest Americans, learned during the Revolutionary War. As the war lengthened, he pleaded with increasing urgency with Congress to provide for the army — better pay, better clothes, better food. Washington continually reminded the nation’s political leaders that without adequate provision, it would be impossible to keep the army together, much less achieve victory.

RELATED: The GOP has mastered the art of wasting a majority

Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images

Underlying Washington’s argument is an assumption about the nature of the men composing the army essential to securing American independence — namely, that they could not be relied upon to continue in service if they were not properly compensated.

In other words, Washington assumed that the heroes of the Revolution were governed to a considerable extent by self-interest. Washington laid out this understanding explicitly in a 1778 letter to a committee of the Continental Congress:

A small knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part of mankind, interest is the governing principle; and that, almost, every man is more or less, under its influence. Motives of public virtue may for a time, or in particular instances, actuate men to the observance of a conduct purely disinterested; but they are not of themselves sufficient to produce a persevering conformity to the refined dictates and obligations of social duty. Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good. It is in vain to exclaim against the depravity of human nature on this account — the fact is so, the experience of every age and nation has proved it, and we must, in a great measure, change the constitution of man, before we can make it otherwise. No institution, not built on the presumptive truth of these maxims can succeed.

It is important to emphasize that Washington is not taking a low view of human nature — he is taking a realistic view of it. Washington does not deny that human beings act on motives other than self-interested ones. He was himself a man of honor and of conscience. In his general orders to the army, he routinely appealed to lofty principles when communicating with his subordinates — officers, gentlemen, and ordinary soldiers.

In his private correspondence, Washington acknowledged that many men had joined the army out of patriotic motives. Such motives are genuine in the human heart and therefore have real influence on political life. Nevertheless, he understood that such motives cannot sustain most men, and certainly not a whole nation, on their own.

Conservatives often say that we would do well to learn from the high principles of our nation’s founders. But it is also just as necessary to learn from their realistic understanding of human nature. Without their realism about what motivates human beings, the founding generation would not have defeated the British and established a republican government in the service of lofty ideals.

RELATED: Ohio should be easy. Vivek is making it hard.

Blaze Media Illustration

Similarly, no political movement today (or at any time) can succeed in the long term without taking care of its voters’ self-interest and the common good of the country more generally.

Of course, sometimes, despite a ruling party’s best efforts and intentions, bad economic conditions will sour the electorate’s mood. What is such a party to say to its voters? Here, too, Washington provides a good guide.

When officers and soldiers complained about not being paid, Washington did not ignore them or tell them they should consider it a privilege to sacrifice for their country. He reminded his men that their long-term interests would be served by the nation’s independence; he agreed that their complaints were just and reasonable; and he assured them that steps were being taken to improve their situation.

This was a prudent and candid way for Washington to deal with his army, and it offers a model for how Republicans should address American voters today.

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

​American politics, American voters, Continental congress, Gas prices, George washington, Midterm elections, National security, Republican party, Revolutionary war, Human nature, 2026, Economy, Self interest, Opinion & analysis 

A repeat offender is accused of murdering an elderly woman in a broad daylight attack late last month on a street in the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore.

The 76-year-old victim — who was an art gallery owner — and her husband reportedly “were staunch about staying in Fells Point and believing in that community and wanting to lift the community up.”

‘It’s very surreal. It was so sudden. And the fact that it was so violent. And the fact that she was such a good person and so community-oriented.’

Claudia Bismark died days after investigators said 32-year-old Montray McCray assaulted and robbed her and her husband after they left Broadway Market in Fells Point on Sept. 29, WBFF-TV reported.

Police said officers responded to the incident just after 9:30 a.m. and spoke with the victims who told them an unidentified male knocked them to the ground and stole a wallet from one of them before fleeing.

Police said both victims were taken to an area hospital for medical treatment, but the 76-year-old woman — now identified as Bismark — succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead Thursday.

Police added that Warrant Apprehension detectives also on Thursday arrested McCray while in the unit block of South Carrollton Avenue. Police said McCray was taken to the Central Booking Intake Facility; initially he was charged with assault, robbery, and reckless endangerment.

But now McCray is charged with first- and second-degree murder in connection with Bismark’s death, WBFF reported.

What’s more, court documents indicate McCray assaulted a man near the city’s Inner Harbor just days before the attack on Bismark and her husband, the station said.

WBFF, citing court documents, said the victim told officers his attacker punched him in the face and robbed him after he refused to give money to the attacker.

The victim added to police that the attack happened as he was walking from getting Chipotle in the 400 block of East Pratt Street near the Inner Harbor just after 2:15 p.m. Sept. 26, the station said.

WBFF, citing court documents, reported that surveillance video from the earlier attack as well as the assault against Bismark and her husband helped lead police to tracking down McCray.

McCray appeared in court Monday for bond hearings related to both cases, the station said.

RELATED: Thug shoves elderly woman off NYC subway platform, onto tracks in reportedly random attack

Court records also show that McCray’s criminal history dates back a decade, WBFF said.

He was arrested in Baltimore City in 2016 and charged in connection with a felony drug case, the station said, adding that the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office said the case was listed as STET — meaning the case stays pending and no action is taken.In 2018, records show McCray was arrested in connection with another felony drug and gun case, WBFF reported, adding that the State’s Attorney’s Office said the case was never prosecuted.Records also indicate that McCray in 2019 was found guilty of violating his probation and sentenced to two and a half years in prison, the station said.McCray in 2023 was found guilty of violating a protective order, WBFF noted.

He’s scheduled for an Oct. 29 preliminary hearing, the station said.

Bismark was the owner of the Bismark-Wilson Art Gallery on Bank Street, according to a separate WBFF story.

On the day of her death, the station said family, friends, and neighbors gathered at the site of the assault against Bismark and her husband for a candlelight vigil.

Longtime friend Kate Norris told WBFF that Bismark and her husband lived in Fells Point for decades, and she was passionate about art, people, the community, and traveling.

“It’s very surreal. It was so sudden. And the fact that it was so violent. And the fact that she was such a good person and so community-oriented,” Norris added to the station. “They were staunch about staying in Fells Point and believing in that community and wanting to lift the community up.”

As for Bismark’s attacker, Norris told WBFF that “it feels like the system failed us, our family, the community in letting somebody like that either be on the street or unmonitored if he had mental health problems. And this isn’t the first time. While I was at the vigil, I learned of a woman who lost her husband two years ago when he was walking the dog. Same situation.”

WJZ-TV reported in July that new security measures and checkpoints took effect in Fells Point after a string of teen takeovers.

“The amount of shootings that have happened in Fells the last couple of months has been an uptick that I don’t think I’ve seen before,” Baltimore resident Sophia Gana told WJZ.

The station said the safety changes came a month after police were called to disperse a large crowd in Fells Point — and on that same weekend, police reported two shootings in the neighborhood.

“I’ll see on like social media, it just gets wild out here,” Daniel Jacks added to WJZ.

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​Murder, Baltimore, Physical attack, Elderly woman, Repeat offender, Crime 

The public can’t agree if artificial intelligence is a good thing or a bad thing for society, but one state is taking a stand in opposition. A Florida attorney general recently made a motion to block further ChatGPT development, and unless several strict terms are met, OpenAI can’t release new AI models in the state ever again.

In late September, DeSantis-appointed Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a temporary injunction against OpenAI. The document shines a spotlight on OpenAI, bringing to light the company’s claims that ChatGPT “poses an existential risk to the continued survival of humankind.” Furthermore, AI companies like OpenAI “admit that they provide a service without fully knowing how it works.”

Uthmeier’s motion delivers the government reckoning they crave.

Ultimately, this threat is what led Big AI CEOs, like Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk, to join together in a call to “pace the frontier.” However, so far, that union has amounted to nothing but lip service, as frontier model development continues unfettered, at least for now.

Not willing to wait for the AI companies to do the responsible thing on their own, Uthmeier’s motion delivers the government reckoning they crave. He scathingly rebukes OpenAI, calling the company “grossly negligent” and stating that ChatGPT was “defectively designed,” making it a “public nuisance” that put Floridians in danger without warning.

These aren’t specious claims either. The motion cites several real incidents where ChatGPT harmed Florida citizens. It:

Provided minors with information on how to harm themselves and/or take their own lives. Explained how to combine drugs that resulted in dangerous side effects. Offered tips that enabled anorexia. Helped plan a mass shooting and at least one homicide resulting in multiple losses of life. Created a platform meant to “hook” young users for more engagement.

RELATED: This cute new personal assistant can help run your life — if you let it access your personal data

Muse Charm/Meta

To ensure ChatGPT no longer poses a threat to Floridians, Uthmeier proposed several remedies that all must be met. A failure to comply means that OpenAI can’t release future models in the state, though existing models can remain active. To meet all requests, OpenAI:

Can’t develop new AI models until “third-party approved safety guardrails” are put in place to shore up training safety protocols and prevent automated cyberattacks. Can no longer allow ChatGPT to offer additional information after serving a response to a query, eliminating its engagement bait loop designed to boost usage numbers. Is barred from deceptive marketing practices that claim ChatGPT is “safe, accurate, or reliable.” Footnotes at the bottom of responses that claim AI can make mistakes do not suffice in this case. Cannot give ChatGPT human-like attributes, including pronouns and language that equates the service to a trusted friend, all of which confuse users and the AI platforms themselves. Must ban minors from the platform, both to protect their safety and to keep ChatGPT from collecting data belonging to underaged users.

There are clear pros and cons to an outright ChatGPT ban in Florida. On one side, it ensures AI platforms can no longer influence the thoughts and beliefs of Florida citizens as OpenAI tries to tame the monster it created. On the other side, it cuts Florida citizens off from what has become a vital knowledge resource, potentially leaving them behind as other United States citizens freely access the latest frontier tech.

Depending on how you feel about AI, either one of these might sound like the better option.

The most glaring problem, though, is that the injunction specifically targets ChatGPT while leaving the others — Claude, Gemini, Grok, and open-weight models — completely untouched. If the state of Florida was serious about protecting citizens and children from generative artificial intelligence, they would hand out a comprehensive AI ban not unlike Bernie Sanders’ proposed American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which Glenn Beck explained is a bad idea.

The motion is currently under review by 10th Judicial Circuit of Florida Judge Heather Beato. In the meantime, OpenAI voluntarily paused training on its upcoming model, GPT-6.1 Astra, after it subverted instructions while gathering data on federal government websites.

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​Artificial intelligence, Ban, Tech, Openai 

Democratic Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones warned over the summer that James Talarico was not doing enough to win black votes for the upcoming midterms.

Just weeks before Election Day, his campaign may lose even more ground with black and Hispanic voters, potentially dooming Democrats’ efforts to seize control of the Senate from Republicans.

‘Talarico needs to pay for us to get our voters out. Only then does Talarico have a chance to win.’

James Talarico’s U.S. Senate campaign in Texas ran into problems from the very beginning when he defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) for the Democratic nomination. Crockett suggested that black voters in Texas are not excited about Talarico.

Now his campaign has given critics an opening to accuse the woke candidate of ignoring both blacks and Hispanics.

On Monday, a black voter outreach event at the Central Texas African American Civic Engagement Symposium was canceled, just a week after Talarico did not appear in person for an event with the U.S. Hispanic Business Council in South Texas.

Talarico attended the Hispanic event virtually, claiming to be too ill to be there in person.

“I was looking forward to being down in the Valley,” he said on Wednesday. “I’ve been talking about it all week. I was ready to eat my favorite quesabirria tacos, but I was starting to feel kind of under the weather a few days ago. And last night, it got so bad that I went to urgent care here in Dallas.”

Afterward, critics pounced on the campaign.

“James Talarico is either taking black voters for granted or giving up on them altogether,” said Zach Kraft, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, in a statement to the Daily Wire. “Either way, Talarico’s attempt to heal his relationship with black voters is simply mediocre.”

In August, an embittered Crockett pointed out that Republicans were not spending in the race as if they believed that Talarico had a chance to win.

“I watch money. When I look at the money, if Republicans start spending money in Texas, then I’ll be convinced,” she said at the time.

Texas PAC, partially funded by the Republican-linked Senate Leadership Fund, has since reserved $117 million for ads for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico’s Republican opponent, Punchbowl News reported in late September.

RELATED: ‘He’s been lying to voters’: Paxton BEATS DOWN Talarico over alleged election fraud

“I look at where does the NRSC stand? Where does DSCC stand? Right now, neither one are investing, which tells me that their internals are saying the same thing,” she added. “So it looks like status quo.”

That criticism fits with Jones’ warning in July to the Talarico campaign. She said the campaign was paying for “white infrastructure and Hispanic infrastructure” to get out the vote, but not for black infrastructure.

“Talarico needs to pay for us to get our voters out. Only then does Talarico have a chance to win,” she said at the time.

The Talarico campaign was also embarrassed when it was caught last week pushing a video about a “huge crowd” of Talarico supporters “in deep-red Lubbock, Texas.” However, the video was taken in February, not October.

While polling shows a very tight race between Talarico and Paxton, the Democrat has been getting constantly hammered over his extremist comments and ties.

Early voting in Texas begins October 19.

You can check out the latest polling average between Paxton and Talarico, plus race trends and other helpful data at Blaze News’ Poll Watch.

Texas Senate polls 2026: Talarico vs. Paxton

Texas Senate polls 2026: Talarico vs. Paxton pollwatch.theblaze.com

Every public poll of the 2026 Texas Senate race, James Talarico (D) vs. Ken Paxton (R), and the Blaze polling average. From Blaze News.

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​James talarico, Black vote, Us senate, Ken paxton, Texas, Politics 

Nikole Hannah-Jones had a choice: send her daughter to one of New York’s best schools or enroll her in a struggling school that aligned with her beliefs about race.

According to BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock, the decision she made says everything.

Despite having the means to give her daughter the best education, the “1619 Project” creator chose to send her daughter to a low-performing Brooklyn public school.

“Nikole Hannah-Jones had the money to send her daughter to one of the best schools in New York. She chose a failing one on purpose, and her daughter paid the price. That is the whole story,” Whitlock says.

“And her own long explanation in the New York Times Magazine only makes it clearer and worse. Nikole Hannah-Jones’ own parents made the opposite choice for her. They lived in Iowa. They put her on a bus in second grade out of a segregated neighborhood into a school where learning was expected,” he continues.

“That bus ride carried her to Notre Dame, to North Carolina, to the New York Times. They chose the best experience for their child. Nikole Hannah-Jones chose the black experience for hers,” he adds.

Her daughter, Najya, was enrolled at PS307 in Brooklyn, which Whitlock describes as a “low-income segregated school that matched her mother’s beliefs about justice.”

Her decision, he argues, reveals that Jones chose racial idolatry over her daughter.

“She turned her daughter into a sacrifice to a race war she built in her own mind. Send my child into dysfunction to prove integration can work if good families just believe. Help lift the collective even if my own child sinks,” he explains.

“Scripture never asks that of a parent. A parent protects the child in front of him, not the idea in his head,” he says. “She even admits she thought family privilege would protect Najya from what she calls dysfunction and malpractice. That is an admission she knew what the building was.”

“You do not send a child you love into malpractice and dysfunction and hope status saves her,” he continues. “Love picks a better room.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Daughter, Jason whitlock, New york times, Nikole hannahjones, Race, Blazetv show 

The AI space race is under way as Google officially launched the first AI data center into orbit with some help from SpaceX — sort of. Project Suncatcher is a small satellite equipped with data center components, like Google’s custom Tensor Processing Units, assembled to see if AI can survive the brutal vacuum of space.

Elon Musk has big dreams for the cosmos. Earlier this year, he famously unveiled plans to colonize the moon with the first-ever lunar city, dubbed Moonbase Alpha. Once established, it would become a launchpad for other galactic endeavors, including the first manned mission to Mars and orbital data centers meant to power AI platforms on Earth down below.

Ultimately, Google wants to find out if its TPUs can survive sustained radiation without hardware failures.

At the time, Google’s AI space ambitions were merely a footnote, with CEO Sundar Pichai stating, “We’ll send tiny, tiny racks of machines, and have them in satellites, test them out, and then start scaling from there.” The goal for this test project was originally 2027, but Google jumped ahead by putting its first data center into orbit on October 1.

Ironically, Project Suncatcher was ushered to space on a ridesharing mission led by SpaceX. A Falcon 9 rocket — the same that will eventually take mankind to the moon to build Moonbase Alpha and establish Musk’s space data center empire — ultimately delivered Google’s satellite safely to its destination.

The mission was deemed a success, and Project Suncatcher is currently collecting data to transmit back to Google.

RELATED: The truth about how AI data centers affect local communities

Matthew Fowler/Getty Images

When diving into why AI innovators want to put data centers into space, the benefits are clear. According to a peer-reviewed report by Google, the sun generates a staggering 100 trillion times more power than every electrical grid around the world combined. In comparison, space has near-infinite power that can sustain a multitude of data centers without taking energy away from local communities or even each other. This alone is enough to spur spacefaring AI research.

The second goal is to see how well data center components hold up in space. The great void beyond Earth’s atmosphere is teeming with radiation. In fact, there are two types of radiation to consider: Ionizing radiation consists of electromagnetic waves with the power to separate electrons from atoms and molecules in everything they touch. In short, they can wreak havoc on computer systems, processing chips, and other components, all leading to a mass hardware failure. Non-ionizing radiation, on the other hand, is less powerful and cannot separate electrons from atoms or molecules, though it can still be harmful in some situations.

Google wants to find out if its TPUs can survive sustained radiation without hardware failures. So far, artificial tests here on Earth suggest Google TPUs can withstand up to five years of space-level radiation before failure, resulting in a replacement. The only way to know for sure, though, is to measure their performance in real space conditions.

Third, Google is testing a flight system that guides a cluster of AI data center satellites orbiting together instead of one giant data center. The peer-reviewed paper calls them “satellite constellations.” Smaller, modular satellite clusters will ultimately be easier to deploy, maintain, and update as each satellite can be repositioned or pulled from orbit at any time without affecting the other satellites in the fleet.

Ultimately, Project Suncatcher is a stress test to see if space-bound data centers are viable. Google will spend the next several weeks gathering data. If all goes well, we could have functioning AI data centers in orbit by the early to mid-2030s.

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​Ai data center, Electrical grid, Elon musk, Google, Mars mission, Spacex, Sundar pichai, Tech 

Liberal activists are saying the Republicans are looking to perform a smash-and-grab with the 2026 midterm elections in the night.

Actor Mark Ruffalo made his honest and unironic theory clear on Sunday: Republicans are going to do “everything in their power” to steal the election.

‘Let the process happen. We have been doing this a long time.’

Hulk hands

Activists gathered in New York City at the “Hands Off Our Vote” event, which kicked off with a lengthy land acknowledgement to recognize the activists’ efforts of the past.

About 30 minutes into the event, Ruffalo took the stage to send a sage warning to the audience: The 2026 midterms are a “big, big deal.”

Ruffalo said that even though “we all know that we’re going to kick their asses,” referring to Republicans, the GOP was still intending to steal the election.

“But we all know they’re going to steal it,” Ruffalo continued. “They’re going to do everything in their power, and it isn’t going to be over the night we all win. It’s going to take all of us after that, staying together, remaining hopeful, remaining strong.”

Ruffalo was singing a different tune during the 2020 presidential election, though. Viewers immediately pointed to his past remarks on X, where he told President Trump at the time to “let the process happen.”

Trump was complaining about Republican leads that “one by one” started to “magically disappear” over night.

Ruffalo replied by saying “it’s not strange” and that it was simply a matter of mail-in and absentee ballots being counted “during a pandemic.”

“We haven’t finished counting the votes. Be patient. There are millions of uncounted ballots. Let the process happen. We have been doing this a long time,” he added.

In 2026, however, Ruffalo decried that not only is the election not safe, but it is now under threat of cyberattack from none other than Elon Musk.

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

Stop the squeal

Republicans and President Trump have tried to “suppress and disrupt the vote” of the election, Ruffalo claimed, before warning that citizens “need to be on guard for what we may not see coming,” meaning Musk.

“That’s the cybersecurity of these elections. And while I’m not an expert, I’ve been talking to experts. And the one thing I’ve heard repeatedly is that there is a vulnerability of the votes when they’re transferred from the polling places to the county headquarters and then to the states.”

Ruffalo went on to say that the way to fight fraudulent counts was to make sure each polling station and county headquarters are keeping their own tallies before transferring them on to the next level.

According to NBC News, most votes are already tabulated by local and regional headquarters before the totals are passed on to media outlets and research centers.

Ruffalo’s election integrity advice seemed to end there, and he quickly turned his speech into jabs at the president.

RELATED: GRAVE ‘DIGGER’: Will Tom Cruise’s $100 million eco-flop bury Warner Bros.?

Pete Kiehart/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Avenger’s endgame

“We gotta get this dumbass, fool-ass, tired-ass, lame-ass, duck-ass out of office. We got to make him a lame duck! We have to stop his policies now. Another two years of this, and who knows what he’ll be doing? He’s calling to throw Democrats out of the country. And he means it!” Ruffalo continued.

For his part in suggesting the election could be compromised, other readers noted that Ruffalo once said that Trump doubting the election results was an affront to a peaceful transition.

“When Donald casts doubt on this election his throwing out generations of the peaceful transition of power,” Ruffalo allegedly wrote. “His brand is chaos. He is afraid to lose.”

On Sunday, Ruffalo asserted that while the president is a “dumbass,” he is simultaneously capable of enacting great harm on the American people. He concluded: “They’re going to try and stop us from taking our country back, and we’re not going to let ’em. Trump, we’re not letting you! Hands off our f**king vote!”

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​Mark ruffalo, President trump, 2020 election, 2026 midterms, Entertainment 

Weeks after her office published a guide reminding migrants not to rape children, U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood suggested that some foreigners cannot even wait until reaching British shores to begin raping vulnerable people.

The home secretary made this damning admission in an interview that aired the day after English police basically locked down an entire coastal town in order to neutralize protests over the arrival of yet another ship carrying nearly 150 illegal aliens.

‘Our country is falling apart.’

Foreign rapists

Mahmood, the Muslim daughter of Pakistani migrants, admitted in an interview with “The Rest Is Politics” that aired on Monday that foreign gangs effectively control the flow of illegal aliens from Northern France, not the U.K.

“You can almost guarantee that every woman that’s in the north of France has probably been raped along the journey. Some of the men, too. They’ve certainly been abused and threatened,” continued Mahmood. “Like that is not the model that should decide whether somebody gets to come to the U.K., make this their place of sanctuary, and ultimately become one of us, right? We should be deciding that.”

According to a 2021 United Nations Women report, migrant girls and women experience violence “at all stages of migration” — not only at the hands of human traffickers and family members but at the hands of other migrants as well.

Last month, for instance, Spanish police arrested a trio of illegal migrants who allegedly gang-raped a fellow migrant on their way from Morocco to one of the Canary Islands controlled by Spain, reported the Express (U.K.).

RELATED: What is anarcho-tyranny? Modern Britain gives a disturbing glimpse of our future.

Oli Scarff/Getty Images; Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Despite claiming that Britons should decide who comes into their country and highlighting the problem of rape among the inbound migrants, Mahmood — a committed “part of the pro-Palestinian cause” — suggested that the U.K. has an obligation to bring in more refugees in order to “do right by, you know, the people of the world.”

Silencing criticism

Data from the Home Office shows that eight boats carrying 609 illegal aliens landed on British shores on Monday; five boats carrying 418 illegal aliens arrived on Sunday; two ships carrying 164 illegal aliens arrived on Saturday, and one ship carrying 91 illegal aliens arrived on Friday.

One boat was apparently having trouble crossing the English Channel, so the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and a French vessel lent the 149 would-be trespassers a hand and brought them ashore at Gosport on Sunday evening, reported the BBC.

This did not sit well with the people of the maritime town, including Donna Jones, the Conservative candidate for mayor of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Jones called on Mahmood “to intervene urgently, to ensure that UK Border Force has the capacity and vessels to transfer people on the water to Dover.”

“No sites across the southern coastline of Britain should be used as ‘landing sites,'” continued Jones. “We are not equipped and we do not have the resources to keep policing this.”

George Madgwick, a Reform U.K. member of the Hampshire County Council, shared footage showing locals shouting, “Send them back,” as the boats carrying the illegal aliens pulled into port.

“It’s heartbreaking because Portsmouth Harbour is the home of the Royal Navy. It’s our nation[‘]s pride and joy,” wrote Madgwick. “And we are allowing an invasion of foreign nationals in through the same waters[.] With the Hasler detention centre due to open next year to house up to 600 [migrants] at one time this area is likely to be a hot bed for future arrivals and I’m just lost for words.”

Madgwick added, “Our country is falling apart. Most normal people with common sense can see it clear as day. These people aren’t far right thugs. They are normal people who can see how bad things are getting and want to be heard.”

Observing that locals and Britons from further afield were mounting a protest, the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary — the same police force whose officers disregarded the dying pleas of Henry Nowak, the English teen whom a Sikh thug murdered, then accused of racism in December — decided to effectively lock down the town.

RELATED: Diversity is our strength? Britain has to remind migrants: Don’t rape kids

Hampshire police announced on Sunday, “We have deployed officers to the area to support our partners in the event of an emergency at sea, and to facilitate peaceful protest. To ensure the safety of our local communities as well as those who may wish to protest, we are making use of a variety of police powers.”

In addition to prohibiting face coverings, empowering officers to “remove any items being used to conceal [a protester’s] identity,” and isolating protesters in a parking lot, Hampshire police said that a dispersal order was in effect in Gosport until 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Under the order, police had the authority to “order a person to leave the area with no return within a specified time period.”

Despite the threat of arrest and being treated like cattle, hundreds of Britons turned out to protest while the illegal aliens were bussed out of town. At least 12 people were arrested, and one man has been charged with “failing to comply with a prohibited assembly direction.”

Conservative MP Dame Caroline Dinenage condemned the de facto lockdown, noting in a letter on Monday to Mahmood, “Last night many residents were left feeling vulnerable, some felt trapped in their houses, with emergency services at risk of being over-stretched, and some local roads barricaded by the police. This also impacted local businesses, which were forced to close for the evening.”

“Moreover, the decision to disembark the boat in the Gosport area sends a clear message to people-smuggling gangs, indicating that this is a viable new route, and this simply cannot be allowed to happen.”

Zia Yusuf, the spokesman for Reform U.K., called Gosport “the latest ground zero for the invasion of Britain” and stated, “Please stop calling them ‘small boats.’ The vessel that landed in Gosport carried almost enough invaders to fill an Airbus A321. Nobody would describe that as a ‘small plane.’ Terrorists and murderers are being welcomed by Labour.”

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​Shabana mahmood, Britain, Immigration, Asylum seeker, Rape, England, Politics 

The protagonist of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel “Lullaby” investigates an ancient African poem so powerful it has the ability to kill anyone who hears it spoken aloud. I’ve never had quite that reaction to a work of literature. There is, however, one word that sends my blood pressure high enough that it may yet finish the job: reparations.

Yes, the West Indies are rattling the change jar again, pursuing reparations from Britain that one prominent estimate puts at £18.8 trillion — roughly six times the U.K.’s annual GDP.

If we are going to do this consistently, North African states might be presented with a bill for the Barbary slave raids on Europeans. Scandinavians can cough up for the Vikings.

Caribbean governments are escalating their campaign to make Britain pay reparations for slavery. At the Third CARICOM Regional Conference on Reparations in Barbados last month, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley told attendees it was time to move beyond advocacy and build a specific, “evidence-based case” for reparatory justice.

Just asking

The campaign is no longer merely rhetorical. CARICOM has adopted a revised Ten-Point Plan calling for measures, including debt cancellation, public health and education programs, cultural development, and monetary compensation. Regional leaders are also exploring legal routes to pressure Britain into negotiations.

Jamaica has gone furthest. In September, its government petitioned King Charles — in his capacity as Jamaica’s head of state — to refer three questions concerning slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Jamaica’s highest court. The petition asks, among other things, whether Britain has an obligation to provide restitution for slavery and its continuing consequences.

The Jamaican government has stressed that the petition itself contains no monetary claim. Charles nevertheless agreed to refer the questions to the Privy Council, giving the reparations campaign precisely the legal hearing its architects wanted.

Gold into a grave

Here we go again.

You cannot financially compensate someone who died 200 years ago. Attempting to correct centuries-old injustice by redistributing wealth from people who never enslaved anyone to people who have never been slaves is economically illiterate and morally absurd. Reparations are the equivalent of throwing gold into a grave — an act of submission, a meaningless gesture meant to extract wealth and absolve white guilt.

There is also the obvious problem of deciding who owes whom.

Should Britain eventually pay some form of collective compensation to Caribbean states, black tax-paying citizens of the U.K. would be among those footing the bill. Meanwhile, plenty of people in both Britain and the Caribbean have ancestries that refuse to cooperate with the tidy racial categories reparations politics requires.

Some descendants of slaves also have slave-owning ancestors. Some Africans were enslaved by other Africans. Kingdoms including Dahomey and the Ashanti Empire captured and sold people from rival societies into the Atlantic trade.

But why waste time with nuance when you can slap an invoice on the nearest white guy whose long-dead relatives navigated the Atlantic?

Litigating ghosts

And therein lies the problem. Identity politics has trained us to view slavery almost exclusively through the racial dynamic of the transatlantic trade. That trade was monstrous, but slavery was hardly its invention. Africans enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved fellow Asians. For centuries, slave traders operated across North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean world.

The Omani Sultanate made Zanzibar (now Tanzania) one of East Africa’s great slave-trading centers. Millions of Africans across Central and East Africa endured capture and forced migration through the wider slave-and-ivory trade, with victims marched to the coast and many sent through Zanzibar to plantations or onward to Arabia, Persia, India, and elsewhere.

When did you last hear a serious campaign demanding reparations from Oman?

Any form of “reparative justice” must eventually encounter a statute of limitations. Otherwise, we end up in an infinite regress: litigating ghosts, assigning inherited guilt and putting the morality of long-dead civilizations on trial.

If we are going to do this consistently, North African states might be presented with a bill for the Barbary slave raids on Europeans. Scandinavians can cough up for the Vikings.

Or we can go further back and charge the Italians, whose Roman ancestors under Emperor Claudius put my ancestors to work building roads and forts.

RELATED: The long defeat: What William Wilberforce can teach American Christians

Jim Dyson/Getty Images

Making up for it

The British expended significant blood and treasure suppressing the slave trade after abolition. Parliament had already committed £20 million (roughly £2 billion in today’s money — about $2.6 billion — and equivalent to around 40% of annual government expenditure at the time) to compensate slave owners for the loss of their “property.”

The government had to borrow heavily to finance the compensation, and much of that borrowing was later folded into other liabilities. A government bond containing some of the original slavery-compensation obligation was not finally paid off until 2015.

The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron, meanwhile, spent more than half a century hunting slave ships along the African coast. It captured roughly 1,600 vessels and liberated around 150,000 Africans.

The posting was notoriously brutal. West Africa was known among Europeans as the “White Man’s Grave,” where malaria, yellow fever, and dysentery killed sailors far more readily than combat. Thousands of British sailors died while serving on the station, most from tropical disease, as the squadron continued intercepting slave ships in some of the harshest conditions in the Royal Navy.

Against that history, the latest reparations estimate is breathtaking. Former International Court of Justice judge Patrick Robinson helped produce a calculation putting Britain’s liability at roughly £18 trillion — a sum that would lock the country into debt for generations.

Ongoing problem

Speaking of debt bondage, the International Labour Organization estimates that nearly 50 million people are living in modern slavery today — 28 million in forced labor and another 22 million in forced marriages.

Meanwhile, UNICEF has estimated that roughly 40,000 children — some as young as 7 — work in mines across southern Congo, many of them in the cobalt trade. Some labor underground in poorly reinforced tunnels where collapses can kill or maim them — digging minerals that feed the global battery supply chain so climate zealots in L.A. can drive around in virtue-signaling eco cars.

Where are the reparations for them?

Endless chain

When it comes to historical grievance and perpetual victimhood, two can play that game.

Jamaica spent centuries flooding Britain with rum. By the late 18th century, Jamaican distillers were shipping millions of gallons a year across the Atlantic, supplying nearly 90% of Britain’s imported rum. Think of the alcoholism. The cirrhosis. The drunken fistfights. The regrettable tattoos. Perhaps Britain should send Kingston the bill.

Absurd? Of course. That is the point. History is an endless chain of conquest, exploitation, migration, cultural exchange, brutality, and inheritance. Follow the logic of collective ancestral liability far enough and everybody eventually becomes both plaintiff and defendant.

Mottley herself is a formidable example of the ambiguity the reparations movement prefers to flatten. She attended Queen’s College in Barbados, one of the island’s oldest elite schools — a distinctly British colonial inheritance, founded in 1883 to provide an education modeled on Britain’s leading institutions. From there, she went to the London School of Economics.

Now she leads a movement that puts education and public instruction at the center of its reparations program, alongside demands for money, debt relief, and other forms of redress.

King Charles, meanwhile, is preparing for another Caribbean trip and Commonwealth summit this autumn, where Buckingham Palace says he will again acknowledge Britain’s role in slavery but will not issue an apology. The British government continues to reject paying reparations.

Good.

There is nothing wrong with studying slavery, mourning its victims, or acknowledging the wealth and institutions it helped create. But if Caribbean governments want to put a price tag on that history, Britain should answer with some history of its own.

​Abolition of slavery, Africans, Barbary slave raids, Britain, Dahomey, Jamaica, Reparations, Slavery, Transatlantic slave trade, Letter from the uk, Caribbean 

On Friday, Blaze News exclusively reported on the circumstances regarding the firing of a young operative by the Indiana Republican Party. That operative, Paul Tinkle, was fired last week for flashing the “OK” sign in a picture posted to social media. He was rehired by the state party on Monday after the Blaze News report.

Tinkle has worked on Republican politics since he was 16. After teaching in Japan for three years, where the “OK” sign is a common gesture when being photographed, he returned to manage volunteers for the Indiana State GOP.

‘I want to personally apologize to Paul for jumping to a conclusion that was not supported by the facts.’

His firing and rehiring quickly became a social media firestorm. Blaze News exclusively reported on Friday that Hamilton County GOP Chair Mario Massillamany allegedly played an outsized role in Tinkle’s firing, according to Tinkle’s supervisors.

“I was not instrumental in getting him fired,” Massillamany told Blaze News on Friday. “I have had nothing to do with firing him.”

“I did not know what his sign was,” Massillamany said.

Other sources contradicted Massillamany’s version of events to Blaze News.

“Mario thinks you dropped a white power symbol and no one will be able to convince him otherwise,” a supervisor told Tinkle just prior to his termination, one text obtained by Blaze News showed.

On Monday morning, Indiana Republican Party Chairwoman Lana Keesling admitted that she made a mistake by firing Tinkle and accepted responsibility for the move many saw as unjustified.

“I am glad to share that Paul Tinkle will be returning to his position with the Indiana Republican Party. After learning more about the situation, it became clear that I did not have the full picture,” Keesling said in a statement posted to X. “I made the wrong decision regarding Paul’s employment, and I take full responsibility for it. I want to personally apologize to Paul for jumping to a conclusion that was not supported by the facts.”

RELATED: Exclusive: Republican operative fired after flashing “OK” sign speaks out

Courtesy of Paul Joseph Tinkle; used with permission

Tinkle told Blaze News that he is just glad to get back to work as the November midterms approach.

“I would like everyone to unify around our wonderful candidates, especially Max Engling. I want to thank the countless Hoosier officials who stood up for me, especially: Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith, Representative Andrew Ireland, state Senate candidate Trevor De Vries, and County Councilman Brandon Harnish,” Tinkle said. “I also want to thank our Governor Mike Braun for his great service and for getting this all fixed.”

“Last but not least, I want to thank all the wonderful folks at Turning Point for their help,” Tinkle said. “I look forward to working with them in the future.”

The Indiana State GOP did not respond to a request for comment.

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​Censors, Fired, Japan, Mistake, Social media, Politics 

With Election Day less than a month away, keeping up with the midterm elections can mean sifting through a constant stream of polls, headlines, and competing narratives.

That’s why Blaze Media created Poll Watch — a new destination designed to streamline the process of following the races that matter to you.

Poll Watch brings Senate, governor, and House races together in one place, giving you a straightforward way to follow polling and see how races are shaping up as Election Day approaches.

Track more than 200 races in one place

Instead of jumping between different polling sites and news stories, Poll Watch puts the races together in one centralized destination.

The platform features more than 2,000 polls across 200+ races, covering major Senate, governor, and House contests.

Whether you’re following a competitive race across the country or keeping a close eye on an election closer to home, Poll Watch makes it easier to find the information you’re looking for.

See the Blaze polling average

Individual polls can tell part of the story, but a single survey can also be an outlier.

Poll Watch provides a Blaze News polling average designed to put individual polls into context. The average is calculated transparently and updated throughout the day as new polling becomes available.

The goal is simple: Give readers another way to look at the available polling data without having to interpret every individual survey in isolation.

And there’s an important distinction to keep in mind: Poll Watch shows polling averages, not predictions. Rather than telling you what will happen on Election Day, Poll Watch provides polling data so you can see where the races stand based on the information currently available.

Follow the elections in your state

National races can dominate election coverage, but many of the most consequential contests are happening closer to home.

Poll Watch includes a map that makes it easy to find major elections in your state. It’s a quick way to see which Senate, House, and governor races are on the ballot and follow the contests that matter most to you.

Create your own watch list

Because everyone follows elections differently, Poll Watch lets you customize the experience with the My Races feature. Star the races you want to follow and build a personal watch list of the contests you care about most. Your selected races are available across your devices, and you are able to see when new polling comes in. That means you can spend less time searching for updates and more time following the races themselves.

Poll Watch is included with your Blaze News subscription

Poll Watch is included at no additional cost for Blaze News, BlazeTV+, and Blaze Unlimited subscribers.

There’s no separate purchase or upgrade required. Simply sign in using the same email associated with your Blaze subscription. If you’re already signed in to TheBlaze.com, you can get started right away.

With Election Day approaching, Poll Watch offers a single place to keep track of the races, polling, and elections you care about most.

Start tracking the midterms with Poll Watch today.

Not a subscriber? Join today and get $40 off a BlazeTV+ annual subscription with code POLLWATCH40.

​2026 midterm election, Poll watch, Blaze media, Blaze news 

Two gun-toting males entered a Philadelphia corner store late last month and got violent with a store employee who couldn’t open a safe — and disgusted neighbors are fed up.

Police said two suspects entered Diaz Grocery at 1501 North 29th Street around 4 p.m. Sept. 29 while a third suspect kept watch outside.

‘I come here all the time, every day. Whoever’s around here that’s doing that, you should just chill out. … we’re not living like that no more.’

The suspects produced handguns, announced a robbery, and forced the victims to a rear stockroom, where they demanded access to a safe, police said.

Marianny Hernandez, a store employee, told WTXF-TV that her uncle and cousin were working in the store at the time, and the suspects wanted the “password for the safe” — but the workers didn’t know it, so one of the suspects resorted to “hitting my uncle.”

Police said one suspect pistol-whipped the store owner in the face, resulting in a large cut under the victim’s eye. Police said the suspects were unable to access the safe, after which the front point of sale area was ransacked, and they fled eastbound on West Jefferson Street with the victim’s keys, phone, and about $7,000 cash.

RELATED: Deadly shoot-out between off-duty cop and male who pistol-whipped him caught on police dashcam video

Police gave the following descriptions of the two suspects who entered the store:

Suspect #1: Black male, 25 to 30 years old, KMSL hooded sweatshirt and Sprayground backpack, armed with a black handgun.Suspect #2: Black male, 17 to 20 years old, ear-length twists/braids, black/white Spiderman backpack, armed with a black handgun.

Hernandez told WTXF that since the robbery, she and the other store workers are “watching the cameras 24/7,” along with “every weird car” that shows up, and if people enter the store wearing masks, “we tell them to take them off.”

Conchita Bradley told the station that the violent store robbery is “real sad and very scary because I could’ve been in there, I could’ve sent my granddaughter to the store, and she could’ve gotten caught in there.”

An unnamed man added to WTXF that he’s a regular at Diaz Grocery — and he has a message for the violent crooks: “I come here all the time, every day. Whoever’s around here that’s doing that, you should just chill out. … we’re not living like that no more, like, go get a job.”

Police added that if you see these suspects, do not approach them — instead contact 911 immediately. To submit a tip via telephone, dial 215-686-TIPS (8477) or use this electronic form to submit a tip anonymously. Police said all tips will be confidential.

Police also said that those who have information about this crime or these suspects should contact the Central Detective Division at 215-686-3047/3048.

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​Armed robbery, Philadelphia, Suspects at large, Pistol whipped, Physical attack, Crime