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John Cleese must feel very lonely.Not only is the Monty Python alum virtually alone in calling out the inconvenient ills of British society, but he rarely gets support from his fellow stars.It’s climate change alarmism run wild, a shocking project from an actor who aggressively avoids political hot takes.Cowards, the lot of 'em.Now, things could be getting serious. A British Muslim group has reported Cleese to the authorities for his “anti-Islamic” comments. It’s not funny. Just ask Graham Linehan. The British comic/writer got arrested last year for his thoughts on transgenderism.Will Cleese be next? Just know that if he’s sent to the hoosegow, free speech “warriors” like Jimmy Kimmel and Howard Stern will remain whisper-silent …Woody's buzzWoody Allen is heading back to work at the age of 90.The quasi-canceled auteur is prepping his next film, a story he describes as “a comedy with romance, intrigue, and infidelity.”The more things change, right?Except some things have changed for Allen. A-listers now flee his projects, fearful of the MeToo blowback. Did Allen inappropriately touch his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow many years ago? For a while, Hollywood shrugged off the accusations. Then, after the #MeToo revolution, “name” stars stopped working with him.There’s an easy fix for him. All he needs to do is shout, “Free Palestine,” and he could be back in the industry’s good graces again …Green partyHulk still mad!Mark Ruffalo has been obsessed with the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger for some time. "Merger bad!" he cried from every possible venue.Now, with the deal close to fruition, he’s still sounding off.“This merger will stifle creativity, weaken free speech, and cost people their jobs — it is a bad deal for this country and should never have been approved.”Huh. We don't remember Ruffalo tearing his trousers over Disney’s acquisition of Fox, or the rampant attacks on free speech during the woke era ...Hulk hypocrite!RELATED: 'View' host questions Patrick Clancy's divorce: 'You know, in sickness and in health' Lou Rocco/Boston Globe/Getty ImagesS is for 'socialism'Jon Stewart is getting a tad touchy.The far-Left “Daily Show” host has been kissing up to socialists for quite a while now. Watching him lob softballs at Zohran Mamdani gave us one undeniable thought. “Get a room.”Now, he’s recoiling at being labeled a socialist.And, you know, now the buzzword on, on the right is, oh, so you're, you know, you want socialism. Well, no, I want to stop privatizing things that don't work well in a market system like health care, like Medicare, like all those things that are getting ruined by privatization and insurance, and all those different markets and rebalance so that labor gets a fairer shake.”Fair shake? He blasts income inequality and is a millionaire many times over. And if George Soros graced his Comedy Central studio, he would ask even more gentle questions than the ones that greeted Mamdani.If you don’t want the “S” label on your jersey, Jon, maybe ask a tough question or two of the next DSA member who enters your studio …Goofy 'Globes'There’s plenty to laugh at regarding the annual Golden Globes gala. The awards remain in the shadow of the Academy Awards, for starters. Nominees are known to hit the bar, and hard, between announcements. Plus, unusual nominees and bizarre categories are still the norm.Now this.“Obsession,” the year’s most unlikely blockbuster, will compete for Globe honors in the Comedy/Musical category. The horror film isn’t remotely funny, beyond some gallows humor that runs through many a horror tale. And if there was a musical number between star Inde Navarrette’s murderous rages, we missed it.As long as the Globes cling to such insane categories, they will remain a punching bag for all things Hollywood …'Digger' in deepSteven Spielberg famously praised Tom Cruise for “saving” Hollywood with “Top Gun: Maverick.” The blockbuster coaxed moviegoers back to theaters after the COVID-19 pandemic.Now, Cruise may be an anchor around the neck of a major movie studio.Warner Bros., about to be gobbled up by Paramount, spent a reported $180 million on Cruise’s new film, “Digger.” The black comedy casts Cruise as a Southern oil tycoon whose drilling station sparks an ecological panic.It’s climate change alarmism run wild, a shocking project from an actor who aggressively avoids political hot takes.The film is getting some awful reviews, deservedly so, and could lose Warner Bros. millions.How many? The conservative estimate is at least $100 million. Crunch the numbers on a cocktail napkin, and you might want to double that figure. “Digger” is looking at a $12 million opening, at best.Once word of mouth kicks in, it’s good night, Gracie.Did Hollywood's onetime savior just dig an iconic studio's grave?

On May 13, 2026, CIA senior operations officer James Erdman III appeared under subpoena before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He was testifying despite his agency's objections.Erdman had recently led an investigation for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s “Director’s Initiatives Group” into COVID-19 origins, anomalous health incidents, and UFOs. What he told the senators was explosive.‘We just want to clear the air. We did not take back documents.’"Dr. Fauci's role in the cover-up was intentional," Erdman testified. He said Fauci had steered the intelligence community's COVID-origins analysis by supplying “a conflicted list of curated subject matter experts,” several of whom co-wrote the paper dismissing the lab-leak theory.Inside the CIA, Erdman said, six of the seven technical experts involved in a COVID relook favored a lab-leak conclusion. Management changed the assessment anyway in what he called a "middle-of-the-night anonymous rewrite."Then came the allegation that set House members on fire."The CIA illegally monitored the computer and phone usage of DIG personnel, their investigations, and contact with whistleblowers," Erdman said. "When the DIG ceased operations, the CIA took back 40 boxes of JFK and MK-Ultra files being processed for declassification by DNI Gabbard."Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) read aloud a statement the CIA had just released calling the hearing "dishonest political theater." Then he turned to Erdman. "I have years and years and years of built-up frustration of agencies like the CIA, Department of Justice, the FBI, HHS, snubbing our oversight, giving us the big middle finger," Johnson said.Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House declassification task force, called the episode “an internal coup.” She and Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) took to social media demanding that the files be returned. Within a day, the CIA invited them to headquarters.On May 14, Burlison and Luna stood before the Memorial Wall at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, its 141 stars carved into white marble for officers who died in the line of duty.They had surrendered their phones. No aides were allowed, no notepads, no recording devices. If anyone later disputed what was said, there would be no way to prove it.They were led up an elevator to the top floor and through narrow, winding hallways. Burlison was struck by how ordinary it felt: a sterile cubicle farm straight out of a “Dilbert” cartoon.The meeting was supposed to be with CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Instead, they were met by the agency's archivist, a woman in her late 50s who oversaw two football fields' worth of paper files.RELATED: Fauci's agency backed an experiment aerosolizing lethal Ebola — then he panicked about what it exposed about vaccination Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesRatcliffe, they were told, was “out of pocket.” They later learned he was in Cuba.“We just want to clear the air,” the archivist began. “We did not take back documents.”In the CIA's telling, when President Trump ordered the JFK records released, Gabbard's team showed up unannounced and demanded them. The CIA objected to the files leaving in the team's personal cars and insisted on moving them in its own secure vans.About 300 boxes were handed over, the CIA said, while 42 were at another location being processed. When those were ready, according to the agency, it notified the DNI's office.Burlison saw the irony. The CIA was telling the office that oversees it that it could not be trusted with the files.“You do recognize that there's a point of friction between the CIA and the ODNI,” he told them, “and there's a reason ODNI came in without informing you that they were coming? There’s clearly a level of mistrust between the two organizations.”RELATED: Deep-staters at FBI framed Trump firing Comey as a Russian op — then apparently worked to cover their tracks Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesThey acknowledged it. They also agreed that the CIA spokesperson’s public attacks were unacceptable.“The way they conducted themselves in the meeting was almost like they were a kid caught doing something wrong,” Burlison told me afterward, "and were profusely apologetic, and desperately trying to figure out, 'How do we de-escalate the situation?'"Burlison left without a clear answer about what was in those 42 boxes or whether the CIA had pulled them before Gabbard's team could review them. The CIA also said there were 11 more boxes the DNI would never be allowed to see because they contained tradecraft secrets.He wasn't interested in de-escalating.Two and a half months later, Luna told me the CIA had located the files and placed them in line for declassification.But it took a whistleblower defying his own agency, a Senate subpoena, and two members of Congress walking into Langley to get there.If the task force doesn't survive November, who will make that walk next time?Editor’s note: This article is excerpted from “Book of Secrets: Congress Tries to Find the Truth About the Deep State,” by Kent Heckenlively (Permuted Press).

As voting day approaches quickly, BlazeTV host Steve Deace believes Republicans are making a critical mistake: focusing too much on what they're for and not enough on who they're running against.Laying out what he calls a political survival strategy, Deace urges GOP candidates at every level to embrace far more aggressive campaign messaging.“The biggest strength we have is who we’re running against,” Deace explains, noting that this “is what the strategic plan should be.”“I’m looking at what’s been used against me in the past and done so successfully and can I emulate it in a way that doesn’t violate my own worldview?” he says, “And in this case, the answer is yes. We’re not going to bear false witness.”“We don’t have to, like they do calling us Nazis, but we’re just going to say they’re anti-American communists. We’re going to try to drive turnout down,” he adds.While he admits that may sound “cynical,” he doesn’t care.“I like my way of winning better than your way of losing,” he says.“Drive down turnout. This is what they did in 2022. Drive down normie turnout because ... basically every normie voter is going to just assume they’re voting against us. Our margins with normies are like minus 30 or something,” he continues.Deace says that the Republican Party needs to assume that these “normies” will be “voting against us.”“Drive down as much of that normie vote as you can,” he explains. “Make the environment as negative and toxic as you can.”This strategy is one of survival, and Deace concludes it with three parts: “Drive down normie turnout, heighten the negative messaging on who our opponents really are, and try to heal the fractures within our coalition as best we can by what people are actually united against, rather than trying to message to them things they’re never going to be united for.”Want more from Steve Deace?To enjoy more of Steve's take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

AI is coming for our jobs. It may even come for our lives. At least, that’s the assumption increasingly baked into modern life. We’re told machines will soon diagnose our illnesses, program our software, drive our cars, and leave millions of humans wondering what, exactly, they’re still good for.What if that assumption is badly wrong?Alejandro Rodriguez, a 20-year-old with a 4.5 GPA who spent his formative years in gifted and talented programs, certainly believes it is. By the conventional American definition of success, he was exactly the sort of kid who should have been pushed toward a four-year college. Instead, he chose technical school and trained to become a Porsche technician. His decision points to something the AI panic often overlooks. There is still an enormous number of things humans need to know how to do in the real world, and they can’t be done with a prompt. They require skill, judgment, patience, and the ability to do something useful with your hands.The deeper problem is not AI itself. Instead, it is the growing belief that everything humans learn will eventually become worthless. That mindset is pure poison. If young people assume AI will eventually do every meaningful task, why bother learning carpentry, mechanics, welding, electrical work, cooking, nursing, or other practical skills? Why even bother getting out of bed in the morning? The irony is impossible to ignore. The more people believe humans are obsolete, the less capable humans become.A cultural correctionAmerica spent decades telling smart kids that success meant sitting at a desk in a fancy office, filling out spreadsheets until their mid-60s. Now tech executives are shipping code designed to render those exact spreadsheet-fillers redundant. A cultural correction is under way. Being able to rebuild a blown engine, wire a high-voltage circuit, repair a factory line, or build a house has real value because some things still have to be done by human beings.AI will eliminate or transform some jobs. That is true. Yet a huge canyon separates a software model generating text from a physical entity that replaces millions of workers navigating unpredictable, real-world environments. A chatbot can generate a textbook explanation of a Porsche’s dual-clutch transmission. The chatbot cannot crawl onto a cold concrete floor on a Tuesday morning to replace the clutch pack.Certain tech prophets display a peculiar brand of fatalism. They demand that humans accept the swift death of their own relevance as an act of faith. This doctrine breeds its own fulfillment. Tell an entire generation that their talents are dead on arrival, and they stop pursuing difficult trades. When the nation runs out of people who can fix a broken water main, the technocrats blame automated progress rather than the cultural disdain that killed off the workforce.RELATED: Our military turns off this invasive smartphone feature. So should you. Thx4Stock/Getty images America suffers from a competence famine. The economy needs citizens who can execute physical tasks correctly. Someone has to run the copper pipe, construct the frame, mend the bone, operate the lathe, and keep the power grid online. Software models function exceptionally well in environments made purely of data. The physical world remains stubbornly physical.Rodriguez isn't alone in obliterating America's long-standing myth. A growing wave of high schoolers like him are drawing headlines of their own. "Elijah Rios won’t graduate from high school until next year, but he already has a job offer," the Wall Street Journal recently reported, "one that pays $68,000 a year." His Catholic high school in Philadelphia partners with companies looking for recruits before they even graduate. The Journal has been tracking such companies' struggles to find hires from the typical job pools for years. Last year, Missouri senior Jenna Smith, with a 3.98 GPA and National Honor Society participation at Francis Howell High, chose to become a welder like her grandfather.Guidance counselors and, often, parents can be slow to go along with the shifting tides. They have long treated technical trades as a consolation prize for academic failures. High marks meant a liberal arts degree, followed by 40 years of answering emails. But high intelligence has zero natural connection to desktop work. A student can master advanced calculus and still prefer the immediate reality of a machine shop.Competence or bustThe classic path — straight A’s leading to a university degree leading to an entry-level cubicle — is breaking at the midpoint. Automated systems are devouring the very administrative roles that university graduates relied on to pay off their student debt. Higher education still serves a clear purpose for specialized fields. But the blanket belief that a four-year degree represents the sole respectable entrance into adulthood no longer holds.In a world made of bits, AI rules supreme. Silicon Valley coders write scripts that spit out screenplays and analyze legal contracts in seconds. Outside the server farm, rain leaks through roof shingles. Electrical transformers blow out during winter storms. Hydraulic lines rupture on garbage trucks. Millions of daily crises require spatial reasoning and fingers and thumbs.Predicting the labor market in 2045 remains a fool's game. AI could reshape whole industries before Christmas, or it could hit insurmountable barriers regarding energy consumption, hardware limits, and regulatory lawsuits. Betting a career on doom-mongering from software salesmen is a terrible strategy. Personal responsibility demands building actual competence that holds value on any given afternoon.America spent half a century celebrating corporate credentials and bureaucratic titles, while ignoring the dignity of skilled craftsmanship. Rodriguez picked a difficult trade. He mastered the mechanics and built a career. His smartest observation was entirely practical: These skills guarantee employment for the foreseeable future and perhaps the entirety of his working life.Fear can be healthy, but building your working life around it isn’t. Competence remains the only reliable shelter. Silicon Valley can create a machine that writes a short story about a broken car, but when the head gasket blows on the highway, AI won't get you off the shoulder. The future belongs to the person holding both the wrench and the ability to use it properly.