Hollywood Mega Producer Admits to Joe Rogan That Once Societies Abandon God, They Turn To Tyranny

Hollywood producer Chuck Lorre told Joe Rogan on Tuesday that societies which forsake God swap Him for tyranny.

“When civilizations or cultures took God out of the picture, they replaced it with a communist party, with a fascist dictator,” Lorre said on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

“It’s the same idea: ‘Organize around me. It doesn’t matter if I’m right or not, organize around me.’ And people will. And if you take that away from them, they get angry.”

He compared shared belief to a tent pole that holds up the entire tent.

“It freaks them out,” he said. “Because it’s like the tent pole. That tent pole moves, the tent comes down and everything, you know, if you believe that this is the truth and someone says, ‘No, it’s not. It’s bulls***,’ everything else you believe is in fair play. Everything.”

Breitbart and Fox News both reported on the exchange.

Later in the conversation, Lorre said fame, adulation, and fancy cars are “not the real solution.”

“The real solution — I’m going to say it and then regret it — but the real solution is a spiritual solution. You have to find something beyond this world,” he said.

Rogan asked why he would regret it, and joked that it was because Lorre lives in Los Angeles.

Lorre said he did not want to be associated with “new age BS,” but that he knew no other way.

“And I do know that in my own life, seeking a spiritual solution — not finding it, but the act of seeking it — there’s some salvation in that,” he continued.

Rogan said there was nothing silly about it, and that the term “spirituality” had been co-opted by people considered “flaky.”

Lorre agreed that others had given the word a bad name.

Lorre is the creator and executive producer behind “The Big Bang Theory,” “Two and a Half Men,” “Young Sheldon,” “Mom,” and earlier hits including “Roseanne” and “Dharma & Greg,” according to his IMDb page.

He has received multiple Emmy nominations and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He released a memoir, “Sitcom,” the same day as the appearance with Rogan.

Lorre wrote in the memoir that he had spent a decade in Scientology and at one point thought the church “could heal” his dying father.

After he and his then-wife left the organization, friends stopped speaking to them.

He wrote that the church usually pursues people who quit, “imploring and/or threatening them to return,” but only if they have money. “We were so broke, no one noticed we were gone,” the passage said, according to Variety.

Last month, at a charity gala in Los Angeles, Lorre called First Lady Melania Trump a “Yugoslavian escort,” called President Donald Trump a “Russian asset,” and joked about the idea of the president having a heart attack.

The White House told him to “seek psychiatric help,” Breitbart reported.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Hollywood Mega Producer Admits to Joe Rogan That Once Societies Abandon God, They Turn To Tyranny appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

BOMBSHELL FLORIDA ELECTION REPORT: 1,827 Noncitizens Removed from Voter Rolls Allegedly Cast 7,035 Ballots — Thousands More Removed as Election Integrity Groups Demand Answers

Another alarming election-integrity report is raising serious questions about who has been voting in American elections and how thousands of allegedly ineligible ballots could have slipped through the cracks in the red state of Florida.

A new investigation by a coalition of Florida election-integrity organizations claims that 1,827 noncitizens who were removed from the state’s voter rolls cast a staggering 7,035 ballots between 2020 and the second quarter of 2026.

The findings, first reported by The Daily Signal on Wednesday, October 14, come as the Trump administration continues its efforts to tighten voter registration requirements and prevent noncitizens from participating in American elections.

According to the report, a Joint Task Force of Florida election integrity groups examined voter registration and voting histories across all 67 Florida counties.

The coalition reported the following figures:

  • 5,612 noncitizens removed from Florida’s voter rolls during the period examined.

  • 1,827 of those individuals allegedly cast a combined 7,035 ballots.

  • Approximately 600 individuals were referred to Florida’s Office of Election Crimes and Security.

The report warns that the number of ballots attributed to individuals subsequently removed from the rolls could be significant in tightly contested elections.

Consider Florida’s November 2021 Democratic special primary election for the state’s 20th Congressional District, where the winning margin was just five votes.

The report also cited a 2018 Baker County School Board race decided by only three votes.

The coalition argued that the ballots it identified were numerous enough to potentially influence closely contested races.

The latest findings follow a major election fraud crackdown announced by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier last month.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, Florida officials announced on September 24 that 20 individuals faced charges in an election fraud investigation.

Sixteen defendants were noncitizens accused of falsely declaring themselves U.S. citizens before casting ballots. The remaining four were convicted felons accused of voting while still on probation.

Uthmeier declared:

Florida will not allow anyone to steal the vote of Americans at the ballot box.

The cases brought Florida’s total election fraud prosecutions above 100 since DeSantis established the Office of Election Crimes and Security in 2022.

The Gateway Pundit has extensively documented the Trump administration’s election integrity investigations.

In March, The Gateway Pundit reported that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon disclosed troubling findings from a federal examination of voter registration records.

That review raised concerns about noncitizens, deceased voters, and duplicate registrations in state election databases.

In July, The Gateway Pundit reported that Dhillon’s Civil Rights Division warned election officials across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., about their obligations to maintain accurate voter rolls and prevent unlawful voting.

The administration’s aggressive approach has also encountered legal setbacks.

On October 9, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled against a Justice Department voter-data collection initiative, finding that the federal government’s approach exceeded its authority and violated legal protections.

According to The Daily Signal, officials in several Florida counties declined to validate the coalition’s conclusions without examining the underlying data.

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections official Alison Novoa said her office could not independently verify the numbers or conclusions presented by outside organizations.

Read the report below via Daily Signal:

Skip to PDF content

The post BOMBSHELL FLORIDA ELECTION REPORT: 1,827 Noncitizens Removed from Voter Rolls Allegedly Cast 7,035 Ballots — Thousands More Removed as Election Integrity Groups Demand Answers appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

What Is Going On? High-Profile Nevada Case Involves Unusual Actions by DOJ Attorney

What Is Going On?  Defense Attorney Represents Man Against the US Government While Also Representing the US Government in Separate Proceedings.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA — October 9, 2026 — A shocking Miscarriage of Justice has created a constitutional question for the federal criminal prosecution: How can an attorney defend a man against the United States while simultaneously serving the Department of Justice?

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees essential rights to individuals facing criminal prosecution, ensuring a fair and transparent judicial process.

On October 7, 2026, Dr. Surajit Khanna filed a 34-page Brief of Amicus Curiae, including eight supporting exhibits, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, exposing an apparent conflict of interest involving Lt. Col. Aniela K. Szymanski, Esq., defense attorney for federal criminal defendant Rick Kiran Saga, a U.S. citizen.

Federal court records document that Szymanski continued representing Saga while also appearing as a DOJ-USAO attorney representing the United States in separate federal proceedings.

Semper Fi is the short, everyday form of the Latin phrase Semper Fidelis, which means “Always Faithful” or “Always Loyal”. Lt. Col. Aniela Szymanski is a Judge Advocate (JAG) for the U.S. Marine Corps and attorney for Saga. Lt Col. Steven W. Myhre also served as a JAG for the U.S. Marine Corps. and is now the prosecuting DOJ-USAO attorney against Saga.

Is Myhre up to his old shenanigans? “When a federal judge dismissed the indictment against cattle rancher Cliven Bundy earlier this year due to what she described as “outrageous” misconduct by Nevada prosecutors, she repeatedly referred to similar wrongdoing in a case from a decade earlier. … A judge found that prosecutors, including then-acting U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre, withheld more than 3,000 pages of FBI reports and other documents and misled the court. This is the same sort of misconduct that led to the dismissal of the indictment in Chapman.”

(https://theintercept.com/2018/04/26/cliven-bundy-case-nevada-prosecutorial-misconduct/)

Why did Myhre characterize Saga as a Non-US Citizen to a Federal Magistrate Judge?

Was it so Myhre could detain Saga seven days longer than was necessary?

Who Was Defending Rick Saga When His Attorney Was Also Representing the United States? 
THE DOCUMENTED CONFLICT

The court filing presents a disturbing chronology:

  • January 11, 2026: Szymanski submitted redacted military orders referencing the

Department of Justice in Memphis, Tennessee, while representing Saga.

  • January 22, 2026: Federal court records identified Szymanski as a DOJ-USAO attorney representing the United States.
  • February 19–26, 2026: Nevada court filings continued identifying Szymanski as Saga’s defense attorney.
  • July 28, 2026: A separate federal criminal case, United States Shanks, identified Szymanski as DOJ-USAO counsel representing the United States.
  • August 19, 2026: Szymanski continued appearing in Saga’s federal criminal case as his defense attorney.

The question is unavoidable: Was Saga’s defense attorney serving two opposing interests—and did the defendant, prosecutors, and Court know?

A POTENTIAL SIXTH AMENDMENT CRISIS

The Sixth Amendment guarantees every criminal defendant effective, conflict-free legal representation.

Dr. Khanna’s filing cites landmark Supreme Court decisions, Cuyler v. Sullivan and Mickens v. Taylor, and raises questions under 18 U.S.C. § 205, which restricts certain private representations by federal employees.

The filing demands answers to three critical questions:

  1. Was Saga’s constitutional right to independent defense counsel compromised?
  2. Did federal prosecutors know of Szymanski’s DOJ relationship, and was it concealed from Saga or the Court?
  3. Did Saga’s confidential defense information become accessible to the government prosecuting him?

These questions remain unresolved. The filing does not establish that misconduct or a constitutional violation occurred.

WARNING: DEFENDANT AND FAMILY MAY BE IN DANGER

Dr. Khanna opens his filing with an extraordinary statement:

“It is my belief that Rick and his family’s lives may be in danger.”

This is Dr. Khanna’s expressed concern, not a judicial finding of a verified threat.

CALL FOR AN INDEPENDENT FEDERAL INVESTIGATION

Dr. Khanna requests immediate preservation of relevant DOJ records, military orders, communications, and electronic evidence, followed by a neutral, conflict-free judicial inquiry.

The central demand is simple: Preserve the evidence. Expose the truth. Protect the Constitution.

The public filing raises a question that reaches far beyond one defendant:

If a criminal defendant’s own attorney also serves the federal department responsible for prosecuting him, who is protecting his constitutional rights?

The federal court has now been asked to answer that question.

FEDERAL COURT FILING

United States v. Rick Kiran Saga

U.S. District Court, District of Nevada Case No. 2:24-cr-00142-JAD-EJY

Document 83 — Filed October 7, 2026 34 pages, including Exhibits A–H Publicly available through PACER.

MEDIA CONTACT

Linda Szynkowicz

Awake America USA

2764 N Green Valley Pkwy, Ste. 149 Henderson, NV 89014

(860) 575-7125

AwakeAmericaUSA.com

Dr. Surajit Khanna, Amicus Curiae

2500 Coney Island Ave Brooklyn, New York, 11223

(202) 280-4842

The filing raises allegations and constitutional questions that have not been adjudicated. The documented overlap does not, by itself, establish intentional misconduct, disclosure failures, misuse of privileged information, or a Sixth Amendment violation.

### END ###

The post What Is Going On? High-Profile Nevada Case Involves Unusual Actions by DOJ Attorney appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Two Dumbest People in Political Media Thought James Talarico’s CNN Town Hall Was Just Great (VIDEO)

Screencap of Twitter/X video.

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNOW’s Morning Joe program were mighty impressed with the CNN town hall event featuring Texas Democrat James Talarico on Wednesday night.

The two hosts bent over backwards claiming that Talarico was so ‘real’ and that he addressed all of his past controversial statements.

Apparently, they missed the moment when Talarico got completely owned by a Catholic woman in the audience when he claimed that the Bible is silent on abortion.

Partial trancript:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: The guy’s so good…

He also talked about other issues, Elise, he talked about abortion and talked to a fellow Christian who is pro-life, he was pro-choice, they went through it and talked about it an I thought very well and… He talked about, said he made a mistake when he talked about God, uhhh… being, I don’t know what his words were, fluid or many genders back in 21 and had a great, great response to that…

Watch the video below:

This is the same Joe Scarborough, who in March of 2024, defended Joe Biden, saying: “This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever, not a close second, and I’ve known him for years.”

Watch:

Just months after that clip aired, Democrats and the media joined forces to force Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race because he was a vegetable.

Who do Joe and Mika think they’re kidding now?

The post The Two Dumbest People in Political Media Thought James Talarico’s CNN Town Hall Was Just Great (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

LOL! Jerry Seinfeld Once Again Humiliates an Anti-Israel Nutjob Heckler at One of His Shows (VIDEO)

Screencap of Twitter/X video.

Jerry Seinfeld is repeatedly met by anti-Israel nutjobs at his live shows and he always gets the better of them. This case was no different.

Seinfeld is a master comedian. Why do these people even bother putting themselves through this? They always end up looking like idiots as Jerry humiliates them in front of the entire audience.

A lot of these people just have ‘Main Character Syndrome’ and think that the whole world revolves around them. It’s like they’re just saying to the world, ‘look at ME!’

FOX News has details:

Jerry Seinfeld turns tables on radical anti-Israel agitators after chaotic Chicago stunt backfires

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld turned the tables on anti-Israel hecklers who attempted to derail his Chicago performance last Friday, mocking the protesters as security removed them from the venue.

Viral video from the confrontation shows activists shouting at Seinfeld at the Chicago Theatre, accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and alleging that American taxpayer dollars are funding the deaths of thousands of civilians.

“Twenty-two thousand Palestinians who are children now are killed with our taxpayer money, and you’re making jokes!” a woman shouted in clips posted online.

Seinfeld then dances on stage and mocks the protesters with sarcastic remarks, calling himself “racist” and saying, “It’s a genocide. I’m into it.” He also joked that he would find out how much the protesters paid for their tickets and send the money directly to Israel.

As security personnel escorted the demonstrators out of the auditorium, one audience member shouted, “Rough her up!”

See the video below:

The protester is a stereotype of herself.

Angry? Check. Humorless? Check. Ignorant of the facts? Check.

The post LOL! Jerry Seinfeld Once Again Humiliates an Anti-Israel Nutjob Heckler at One of His Shows (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The End of the Story in Ukraine?

The End of the Story in Ukraine?

The proxy war against Russia is running aground on the physical limitations of the American war machine.

ARMENIA-EUROPE-EPC-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-SUMMIT
(Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images)

It looks as if we’re getting to the tough choices part of the program. CNN reported Thursday that Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptor missiles. This news came after several days of wrangling and slap-fighting between Washington and Kiev over intelligence-sharing, internet support for Ukrainian operations, and whether or not Ukraine would continue striking Russian energy infrastructure. 

This is bad for Ukraine, although not altogether surprising. For months, the press has been full of ominous stories and analyses about the dire state of American munitions stockpiles after the U.S. began its latest little jaunt in the Middle East. (Including those in The American Conservative—please subscribe!) Two weeks ago Axios reported that the U.S. had moved Patriots to Saudi Arabia and Qatar to protect energy interests in the Persian Gulf region from Iran and its allies. That decision was hardly a shock; the main weapon Iran has deployed against the U.S. and its fellow travelers has been wreaking havoc on oil and gas interests, and consequently on Western economies. Keeping Aramco up and running is a priority for the White House, especially as fuel prices have become the thematic issue for the American midterm elections.

But the fact is that material reality is beginning to bite. As Jennifer Kavanagh has written in these pages, interceptor stockpiles are probably still at a level where the U.S. can comfortably continue the war in Iran without undue risk to American assets, but such a continuation will come at the cost of readiness in other theaters. The competition between Ukraine and American clients in the Middle East for advanced munitions is not a new phenomenon, and has previously resulted in some resource-shuffling that would be amusing if it weren’t so desperate. The Iran War is new, though, and it is a war that, because of direct American involvement and its bearing on American economic interests, will always tend to demand more attention and resources than the proxy conflict in Europe. America’s extension (one might justifiably say overextension without a hint of partisanship) doubtless has informed Russia’s escalating attacks on Ukraine.

One reasonable interpretation of the White House’s alleged fresh hostility to Ukraine—widely decried in the pro-Ukrainian sections of the Western press—is that it arises from the bare recognition of this physical reality. There are only so many missiles to go around; the U.S. is not going to sacrifice the safety of its own military personnel and its own economic security for Ukraine. The well is dry, and the Ukrainians are going to have to pack things up here. 

Of course, the question is whether the pushme-pullyou dynamic inherent to the Ukraine War will now take over. When things are going badly for the Russians, the Ukrainians become more intractable; when things are going badly for the Ukrainians, the Russians have less incentive to quit. Hence the argument for the necessity of President Donald Trump’s deal to waive sanctions on Russian diesel to “soften” Russia’s position: offer some goodies in exchange for Russia calling off the dogs. The proof will be in the pudding, but prospectively it is not clear that the volume of diesel moved under the deal will amount to a very large goodie at all.

After five paragraphs of even-keeled exposition of the news, is it too early to say we told you so? We really, really told you so. The limitations of the American defense-industrial base and the finite nature of American munitions stockpiles are not fresh topics! No amount of will or principle, no amount of admirable Ukrainian valor and ferocity, can overcome physical reality, and this physical reality was as large and obvious as an iceberg hulking on the horizon, or a volcano twitching and smoking over a city, or a tornado ripping merrily through the green fields of Kansas toward an idyllic trailer park. The United States is a polity of unparalleled wealth and might, but it is not, in the end, exempt from the laws of the universe; Uncle Sam is not quite up to the challenges of godhead. We told you so, and now the Ukrainians, our allies in the Middle East, and the American people are going to bear the consequences of going ahead and trying to sustain vast wars in two separate theaters anyway. It’s just a matter of deciding who is going to get to hold the muddiest part of the stick.

Trying to continue in this fashion is, I would submit, madness, but we may not even have the luxury of indulging madness at this point. The missiles are running out. That is the end of the story.

And you know what? Don’t even mention Taiwan.

The post The End of the Story in Ukraine? appeared first on The American Conservative.

The Right-Wing Tide Reaches Brazil

The Right-Wing Tide Reaches Brazil

A President Flavio Bolsonaro would be friendly to Trump, but not a game-changer for American interests.

BRAZIL-ELECTION-RUNOFF-CAMPAIGN
(Sergio Lima / AFP via Getty Images)

Brazil is heading to a runoff election to determine the fate of the country for the next four years, and the right-wing tide sweeping Latin America appears to be about to overtake Brazil as well. 

On October 4, Brazilians went to the polls for a bitterly disputed presidential election that pitted the left-wing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, against Flavio Bolsonaro, the son and political heir of the former president Jair Bolsonaro. The results of the first round look promising for the Brazilian right, which outperformed the polls. Flavio Bolsonaro secured first place in the presidential contest with a hair over 47 percent, with Lula taking 45 percent. The right was even more successful in the legislative elections.

As neither candidate secured an absolute majority, the election will proceed to a runoff on October 25, which Flavio is heavily favored to win. He will probably pick up most of the 2 percent of the vote that went to the right-wing candidate Ronaldo Caiado, and a plurality of the 3 percent for the right-wing candidate Renan Santos. Lula, on the other hand, has no similar reserve of votes to draw upon; he will need a major groundswell of new voters turning out for the second round to secure a victory. The polling is bleak for Lula: AtlasIntel’s latest poll, released on Friday, puts Bolsonaro ahead 51 percent to 46 percent.

For the Bolsonaros, the election is existential. Jair Bolsonaro has been incarcerated or under house arrest since 2025, when he was convicted by the Brazilian Supreme Court for attempting to engineer a coup d’etat after losing to Lula in the 2022 presidential election. His sentence carried a penalty of 27 years and 3 months imprisonment and prohibits him from running for office.

The Bolsonaros claim that the election was fraudulent and that Jair was attempting to preserve the constitutional order. Right-wing Brazilian activists, convinced that Lula had robbed Bolsonaro of the 2022 election, organized a major riot on January 8, 2023, when Bolsonaristas attacked the seat of government in the capital of Brasilia in an attempt to precipitate intervention by the military and prevent Lula from taking office. Over 2,000 were arrested, and hundreds have been convicted of crimes ranging from destruction of property to insurrection.

The incident is a notable parallel to the events of January 6, 2021 in the U.S., and the Bolsonaros hope to extend the parallel still further. Flavio has pledged that, if elected, he will pardon his father—whose declining health occasioned his release from prison to house arrest—along with anyone convicted of crimes connected with the January 8 riots.

The right retaking control of the Brazilian government would have major repercussions throughout the region and beyond. Under Lula, Brazil has been one of the firmest opponents of the Trump administration’s foreign policy, and the country is powerful and independent enough to have made both Trump and Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, blink. 

Musk was the first to tussle with the Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and the Brazilian left: In 2024, Moraes ordered X, Musk’s social media company, to censor Brazilian accounts posting inflammatory political content. Musk defied the court, arguing that the demand violated the principle of free speech, and shuttered the company’s office in Brazil, but Moraes doubled down and blocked the social network from the country entirely. After a little over a month, Musk knuckled under, suspending the accounts as requested and paying a hefty fine for his intransigence.

Trump has significantly more leverage to work with, but Brazil proved a tougher nut to crack than the president anticipated. In July 2025, the Trump administration increased tariffs on Brazilian goods to 50 percent and sanctioned Moraes to protest the treatment of Jair Bolsonaro. Lula didn’t flinch, and before the end of the year the U.S. had lifted many of the tariffs and ended sanctions on Moraes. The reversal was a hard one for the Trump administration, and unexpected; few countries have managed to make the president back down in comparable fashion.

Lula was also a major supporter of efforts to counterbalance U.S. hegemony—including serving as a major ally for Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Venezuela. Lula’s government has cultivated ties with Russia and China, expanding economic integration with China in particular and providing the Chinese with an important base for increasing their influence in the Western Hemisphere.

While a President Flavio Bolsonaro won’t cut China out of the Brazilian markets—it is Brazil’s largest trade partner, to the tune of over $170 billion of commerce in 2023—Brazil will certainly be much more amenable to the priorities and policies of the Trump administration, with which the family has cultivated close ties. With Lula out of office and Brazil pivoting to a pro-U.S. orientation, the Chinese will find it significantly more difficult to expand non-economic partnerships in the region, a major priority for the Trump administration.

Flavio Bolsonaro has also pledged to sign Brazil onto the Shield of the Americas, Trump’s regional anti-narcotics alliance, allowing for further regional coordination on fighting drugs and organized crime. The northwestern portion of the country, an isolated region of the Amazon rainforest bordering on Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru, is a major conduit for drug trafficking, and organized crime groups exploit the border to avoid crackdowns by crossing from one country to the other. Effective coordination via Shield of the Americas could produce real progress in the area.

The administration shouldn’t get too enthused, though. The Brazilians will still need to placate the Chinese, and much of a Bolsonaro administration’s term is likely to be consumed by bitter disputes with the Brazilian Supreme Court, an immensely powerful entity with sweeping legal authority. The incoming government may be friendlier to the Trump administration, but that is no guarantee it will significantly improve American interests, at least in the short term.

The post The Right-Wing Tide Reaches Brazil appeared first on The American Conservative.

Could Lindsey Graham’s War Cost His Sister a Senate Seat?

Could Lindsey Graham’s War Cost His Sister a Senate Seat?

The late senator’s legacy threatens Darline Graham’s political future.

South Carolina Senate Candidate Darline Graham Holds Watch Party On Night Of Runoff Election
(Megan Varner/Getty Images)

“Lindsey liked war,” said President Donald Trump on the day of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) funeral in July. “He’s never seen a war he did not like.”

Now Graham’s sister might find out that voters even in ruby-red South Carolina like the Iran War a great deal less than her brother did.

Appointed three days after her brother’s death to finish out his term, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) faces an actual election in South Carolina, where Republican senators have been safe for at least 20 years.

Not this year. A late September poll by the right-leaning Trafalgar group showed a neck-and-neck race between Graham and her Democratic challenger, the pediatrician Annie Andrews, with the Republican leading by only 1 point. Another survey from Insider Advantage, taken in the same period, also revealed a 1 percent difference favoring Graham. A Rasmussen poll released Friday showed Graham at 49 percent and Andrews at 45. Six percent of respondents were not sure.

By contrast, Lindsey Graham defeated his 2020 Democratic opponent by 10 points.

A number of red states this election year are seeing unusual surges by Democratic candidates due to voters’ concerns about rising gasoline prices and general inflation, and South Carolina is no exception. Andrews has not only centered her messaging around high costs but tied them to the Iran war. And the Democrat repeatedly emphasizes that Darline Graham voted three times for that war to continue.

In their only debate, televised on Sunday night, Andrews highlighted the war again while the Republican senator hewed to the standard neocon posturing worthy of a Graham.

“My opponent… had the opportunity to vote to end the war,” Andrews charged. “But three times in a row, she voted to continue it.”

“Why in the world would we stop now when they’re still dangerous?” Graham said. “And we are close to ending the war. Again, I think the president wants to end the war. I know he does. We all want the war to end.”

This is the closest Graham came to sympathizing with South Carolina voters who have tired of the war and the resulting price spikes. It felt like some recognition that the situation was dire on this front, for the state and for her campaign.

Still, the hawkish hits kept coming.

“But I support a strong military,” Graham added. “I believe in peace through strength.”


“I fully believe that we need to stand with Israel,” Graham added, predictably. “The same people that want to hurt and attack Israel want to come after us.”

“The terrorists that were close to getting a nuclear weapon will come here,” she said, repeating the common neocon refrain. “So, we need to stand with our strongest ally.”

She even tried to blame the war on Democrats.

“Let’s not forget again how the war started,” Graham continued. “The Democrats let Iran get a nuclear weapon almost.”

The 2003 Iraq War, including the fight-them-over-there-so-you-won’t-have-to-fight-them-here rhetoric, was popular at one time in “Bush Country,” as South Carolina has been called.

Today’s Iran War? Not so much. Andrews has capitalized on antiwar sentiments as she tries to yank a Senate seat from the Republicans.

“This reckless war in Iran has helped drive fuel prices to record highs,” Andrews said at a campaign stop. “Darline Graham has voted multiple times to continue this war that is directly responsible for the six-dollar diesel.”

“We need to lower the damn diesel,” she said.

When Lindsey Graham was still Andrews’s target—and when she had far less chance of becoming Senator than she does today—her rhetoric was even sharper on the war. “Lindsey Graham wants to send your sons and daughters to war,” Andrews said in March. “Your sons and daughters are the reason I am in this fight.”

Her focus now is on the impact of the war on voters’ pocketbooks. Judging by the polls, that new rhetorical strategy is working.

As a South Carolinian, I would still put my money on Graham winning. But the closeness of this race would have been unthinkable absent the political context created by Trump’s war. Moreover, many South Carolinians are uncomfortable with how the sister of the late Senator was awarded a high office by bloodright. Adding to the difficulty for Darline, a sizable number of South Carolina conservatives had supported Lindsey’s closest primary challenger, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), who ran as an “America First” war skeptic. Many who had pinched their noses and voted for Lindsey may not do the same for Darline. Some Norman supporters have even pushed for a write-in campaign.

The Iran War itself probably won’t sway the election, but the higher prices very well could, and voters do know the former led to the latter. Voters watch the news. They budget. They pump gas.

They also see Republican leaders treating them as if they were stupid.

“Everybody’s frustrated about fuel prices, obviously, but that’s not related to policies, that’s not related to Republicans in office,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) recently said in an interview, adding “this is related to the Strait of Hormuz.”

Well, what else could be related to the Strait of Hormuz? Perhaps the Iran War—a signature policy of “Republicans in office,” especially the one in the White House.

Antiwar Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) recently shared that clip of Johnson and asked, “Who wants to tell him?”

Exactly. No one needs to tell South Carolina’s voters that the war is helping cause their financial pain.

Trump is right: Lindsey Graham loved war. His greatest legacy is arguably the U.S. war with Iran.

It meant a lot to him. It could also cost his sister his Senate seat.

The post Could Lindsey Graham’s War Cost His Sister a Senate Seat? appeared first on The American Conservative.

RJ Mitte’s Relationship with Fiancée was Rocky Before He Took His Own Life: TMZ

RJ Mitte / screen image

“Breaking Bad” star RJ Mitte has died at the age of 34.

According to TMZ, RJ Mitte died by suicide on Monday in Texas.

RJ Mitte played Walter White Jr. on “Breaking Bad,” the highly popular television series created by Vince Gilligan.

Mitte was diagnosed with a mild case of cerebral palsy when he was a child.

Breaking Bad ran from 2008 to 2013 and won nearly 100 awards, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards.

RJ Mitte was engaged to his longtime partner Kennedy Suarez. He proposed to her last year.

According to TMZ, RJ Mitte’s relationship with his fiancée was strained because she gave him an ultimatum: choose between her or his mom.

TMZ reported:

RJ Mitte faced an impossible choice in the days leading up to his death … multiple sources close to his family tell us his frustrated fiancée gave him an ultimatum — choose between her and his mom.

Our sources tell TMZ … there was mounting tension between RJ and his fiancée Kennedy Suarez, who felt RJ’s mom was meddling in their relationship.

According to our sources … Kennedy and RJ’s mom, Dyna, did not get along … and Kennedy wanted RJ to favor her, or else.

RJ had an extremely close relationship with Dyna and his sister, Lacianne… and wasn’t willing to cut his mom off … and that caused serious friction in his relationship with Kennedy.

RJ and Kennedy were friends for 10 years before they began dating in 2020. They got engaged October 10, 2025, almost a year to the day before he took his life.

We’re told RJ and Kennedy were still together a week before he died. It’s unclear if they broke up in the days before RJ’s death.

The post RJ Mitte’s Relationship with Fiancée was Rocky Before He Took His Own Life: TMZ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

(VIDEO) White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Addresses Claims She Lied About Being a Lawyer

White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia

White House Katie Zacharia opened up on Thursday about a recent controversy surrounding her resumé as the media tries to spin it into a scandal, claiming she lied about being an “attorney.”

We have not found evidence that Zacharia has ever presented herself as a practicing attorney.

Still, immediately after her first press briefing on Tuesday, the knives were out, with the left-wing media smearing her for her performance and questioning whether she is indeed a lawyer.

CNN quickly published a story with the headline, “Katie Zacharia presented herself as a lawyer. She’s not.”

CNN and other left-wing outlets have been losing it ever since, claiming she lied about being a lawyer.

However, the term lawyer is often used as a broad term for someone who earned their Juris Doctor (JD) degree, while an attorney is a lawyer who has passed the bar exam and is licensed to practice. In simple terms, a lawyer is someone who has studied law and earned a degree, and an attorney is licensed to practice law. It’s a square-versus-rectangle debate that the media is sensationalizing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Zacharia sat for the bar exam in 2011, all while planning a wedding and planning a move to China with her soon-to-be husband, but did not pass.

CNN reports that “Zacharia said in a statement she had ‘practiced international transactional law, with all the appropriate credentials.’ She told the New York Times that she consulted with Pepperdine’s president about how to identify herself, and that she was told not to use ‘attorney’ or ‘esquire,’ but that ‘lawyer’ was OK.”

Likewise, she told Real America’s Voice’s Jack Posobiec during an interview on Thursday, “I consulted, for a very long time, many people in the field: Is it okay and acceptable if I label myself lawyer, not attorney at law, not Katie Zachariah Esquire, but lawyer, and provide legal analysis, not legal advice?”

“And they said absolutely across the board. You can call yourself a lawyer. You have a JD, and to buffer that, you have international legal experience in transactional law, which gives you the ability to analyze it, not necessarily give advice, and so that’s where a lot of this discussion has come from,” she continued.

“It’s unfortunate that people dub this as some kind of conspiracy or want to put me in a camp. The truth is, I was very careful how I executed this, and I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law.”

Asked whether she would weigh in on legal matters in the White House or provide legal consultation to President Trump, Zacharia responded, “No, no. For the press secretary, my job is to amplify and communicate his message and to interact with the press and build relationships and strengthen relationships and communicate clearly the message of the administration, and I only intend to do that.”

“I’m not being hired as White House counsel, and that’s the long and the short of that.”

WATCH:

The post (VIDEO) White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Addresses Claims She Lied About Being a Lawyer appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.