Democrats are currently on track to take the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms. If this happens, they will empower resistance bureaucrats to slow down all Trump administration initiatives. Of course, they’ll not only impeach Trump, but will also pursue impeachment proceedings against many Trump officials. This will substantially drain momentum from the administration and increase it for Democrats heading into the crucial 2028 presidential election.The Democrats are already putting together plans, formulating a narrative, and accumulating evidence, which they will use against Republicans should they retake power. We’ve seen this movie before.Since the billionaires do not know how to wield their potential power, they have become targets.The Marxist machine has had time to learn from its mistakes during 2020-2024. The Democrats will likely pursue criminal prosecution against key targets in the MAGA orbit, including big donors like Elon Musk, the DOGE bros, and even junior Trump staffers. We’ve already seen in Arctic Frost an effort to spy on sitting Republican United States senators — they’ll be on the target list, too.This is power. Force is power. Politics is the management of force. For his tech-oriented publication Pirate Wires, Mike Solana recently published “Theory of Power,” which outlines how the left will replicate California’s wealth tax to target billionaires nationwide. He believes that the left is targeting billionaires because wealth is power. He’s half right.Wealth itself is not power — it is the means to power. The left seeks to redistribute the wealth of the billionaire class to the people living in America in exchange for power. Leftists are not targeting the billionaires because their wealth poses a threat to the left’s power — they want to seize the power of that wealth for themselves. Since the billionaires do not know how to wield their potential power, they have become targets. If they did, the California wealth tax wouldn’t even be an issue.Wealth cannot protect its holder from force. If politics is the management of force, then political influence is power. There are plenty of people with political influence and no wealth who have more power than billionaires. There are 20-something political staffers who have more political power than billionaires. There is a legion of bureaucrats with more political power than billionaires. Who has more power, a billionaire or the IRS lawyer investigating him? Of course, it’s the IRS lawyer, because the IRS lawyer is backed by regime power.The billionaire class has largely abdicated regime power — the question of who is in charge — with a few notable exceptions, such as Elon Musk’s 2024 election engagement and purchase of Twitter. The wealthy are quite good at influencing politics for their discreet business interests, with one analysis finding that they receive a 220-times return on investment through their lobbying efforts (other analyses attribute the rise in corporate profits to lobbying).However, regime politics is not fundamentally about lobbying for an appropriation or a carve-out in the tax code, which puts generating wealth above gaining political power. Machiavelli warned against this in “The Prince”:And, on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms, they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art.Wielding political influence for higher corporate profits to buy another jet or a fifth vacation home is thinking of ease more than of arms.If politics is the management of force, then political influence is the “arms.” The billionaires are on track to lose their “state,” because they’ve neglected the art of influencing regime politics.RELATED: The case against ‘principled conservatism’ wenjin chen/Getty ImagesFor all its faults, the left understands regime politics. Billionaire wealth extraction is just one part of its plan to sustain and deepen its regime-level power. If its only opposition, the MAGA political class, is destroyed by regime politics, the left’s wealth extraction scheme is not only inevitable, but it will also be the least of the billionaires’ worries.All of this means that right-aligned billionaires should move immediately to gain regime-level political influence. To be clear, wealth can be a strong amplifier of political influence. Still, political influence has a simple recipe: It requires access, credibility, leverage, and the ability to change behavior. In other words, donating to campaigns is not enough. Elected officials must be lobbied to act in the interest of those who support them, or someone else will lobby them for their own interests.Before a politician is elected, the benefactor has the leverage. But once the politician has regime-level power, the benefactor is subject to the beneficiary’s power. If right-wing billionaires want to survive what’s coming, they must have a well-run machine to influence politicians after they are elected. Solana makes this point — with which I fully agree: They must “respond as if [their lives depend] on it, because my reading of what these people are saying, casually, cheerfully, and increasingly out loud, is…it does.”But power is fickle. Any billionaires who wield political influence strictly for their own benefit rather than on behalf of the people will find themselves burdened with all the paranoia and stress of a tyrant. To that end, Xenophon’s “On Tyranny” provides relevant advice: “Consider the fatherland to be your estate, the citizens your comrades, friends your own children, your sons the same as your life, and try to surpass all these in benefactions. For if you prove superior to your friends in beneficence, your enemies will be utterly unable to resist you.”Editor’s note: This article appeared originally at the American Mind.

A female cop in Massachusetts and her husband are facing serious allegations that they raped a boy for years, beginning when he was 14.Around 6 a.m. on Thursday, Samantha Pelrine, a 31-year-old officer with the Plymouth Police Department, and husband Daniel Forand, 37, were arrested without incident in connection with the allegations.'We hold our officers to the highest standards and expect them to uphold their sworn duty both on and off.'Earlier this month, a 21-year-old male who previously lived with the couple claimed to Massachusetts State Police that they had repeatedly sexually assaulted him up until 2025. The man also submitted an affidavit with similar allegations, claiming that "both sexually assaulted me until 2025" and that Forand had physically assaulted him."They are looking for me and I am scared for my safety," the man wrote, seeking a restraining order. He said he moved out of the couple's home last month.According to CBS News, Plymouth Assistant District Attorney Jim Duffy told the court, "The allegations are that the sexual abuse started when he was 14 years old and continued up until last year. Another term for that is 'grooming.'"During the hearing, defense attorneys cast doubt on the credibility of the accuser. "He had accused someone falsely of sexually inappropriate behavior when he was in high school," claimed Joseph Krowski Jr.Tamari Kovach added that "his stories are inconsistent."RELATED: Retired police sergeant lived double life as a prolific rapist in Detroit, police say Reports say Pelrine has been charged with at least three counts of aggravated rape of a child, while Forand has been charged with assault and battery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon as well as multiple counts of indecent assault and battery and aggravated child rape. The charges related to alleged incidents that took place in 2019, CBS News reported, citing court records.Pelrine and Forand both pled not guilty on Thursday afternoon and were released on bail. They are scheduled to return to court for a probable cause hearing on June 8.Pelrine has since been placed on paid administrative leave, CBS News reported. On Thursday, the Plymouth Police Department issued a statement, claiming her "duty status is currently under review.""We are appalled and deeply disturbed by the allegations. We hold our officers to the highest standards and expect them to uphold their sworn duty both on and off," the statement said in part."The conduct alleged is in violation of our values and of our basic principles as police officers, to serve and protect."Three years earlier almost to the day, the department issued a statement about Pelrine of an entirely different sort, highlighting her service as part of National Women's Month 2023."We are so proud of our female Officers and the incredible job that they do under sometimes extraordinary circumstances," the department said.In the post, Pelrine said she always dreamed of becoming a police officer and joined the force in April 2022."I believe I picked the right career for my personality and what I wanted from a job because while the range of emotions from this job can vary drastically, I know that in some instances I’m truly able to make a difference in someone’s life," she said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

In this day and age, technology is no longer just about efficiency. It’s about pushing the limits, regardless of the consequences.Earlier this month, a scientific breakthrough occurred when neurotechnology company Eon Systems took a complete digital map of a fruit fly’s brain and ran it inside a virtual fly body in a simulated world. The digital fly started walking, grooming itself, and behaving just like a real one — all from its brain wiring alone.But Eon Systems isn’t stopping there. The company plans to do the same for a mouse brain next — and eventually for a human one. If successful, it could ultimately allow the human consciousness to live on in perpetuity in a digital format.The spiritual implications of this are massive, says BlazeTV host Rick Burgess. On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” he explores the growing theory that our quest for technological dominance is inextricably linked to the end times. This kind of “digital consciousness” that fuses the real and virtual worlds is very “dangerous,” Rick warns.“[Eon Systems is] trying to reflect a version of God creating things,” he says.When the original blueprints for God’s good creations are tampered with, biblical history paints a terrifying picture of what follows: divine wrath.Rick points to Genesis 6, which documents the mysterious Nephilim, which many believe were a race of human-demon half-breeds that resulted from fallen angels reproducing with human women.“One of the most plausible theories about the Nephilim is [that] when God became so angry when demons — fallen angels — were able to reproduce with human women … he killed everybody except for Noah and his family,” says Rick.Satan’s specific crime in this particular scenario, he argues, was attempting to “mimic God” creating the perfect “God-man” in Jesus by creating his own counterfeit god-man in the Nephilim.While Satan’s evil plot was foiled by the great flood, his desire to spawn his own dark creations will live on until his final defeat. Rick wonders if some of our modern technological advancements — especially those that seek to rewire what is natural — are linked to Satan’s ultimate plot to unleash unmitigated darkness across the earth in the final days before Christ’s second coming and the final climactic pouring out of God's wrath on the earth.“Can Satan find himself in this technology, working with these people — unbeknownst to them, I'm sure — to take modern technology and the whole AI world and begin to use it for the things he's still going to do in the future?” he asks.While Rick thinks it’s plausible that dystopian technology will play a role in the end times, he doesn’t subscribe to the theory that the Antichrist prophesied throughout Scripture will be some kind of half-human, half-robot cyborg.“I think it's pretty obvious in Scripture that Antichrist will be a human being,” he says.But that doesn’t mean the Antichrist won’t be dependent on modern technology. In fact, Rick suspects that he will be.He refers to Revelation 13, in which it is prophesied that the Antichrist — or “the beast” — will appear to be resurrected after a “mortal head wound,” leading many blind followers marveling at his supposed divine power.Rick envisions a scenario in which this prophecy comes to fruition through modern technology.“You think you couldn't take AI technology and fake a mortal head wound and a resurrection? You could do that easily,” he says.As for the scientists striving to fuse human life with technology, Rick still believes they very well could play a role in Satan’s sinister plot — even if nothing more than creating another race of “hybrids” that are abominations to God.“I do think this is going to be an attempt for mankind … under demonic direction to start trying to play God and create animals and create human beings, which is extremely dangerous territory,” he warns.While Eon Systems is still a ways off from experimenting on human brains, others are already doing it. In the next part of this episode, Rick dives into another dystopian tech story involving a biotech startup that built a computer using living human brain cells and is now teaching it to play the video game Doom. To get the full story, watch the episode above.Want more from Rick Burgess?To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Everyone has a solution until he is the one who must pay for it.After every crisis come cameras, microphones, and outrage. Commentators fill TV panels, politicians rush to social media, and fundraising emails arrive within hours. What rarely arrives is something harder: ownership.Christianity does not pretend evil vanishes through better language or finer intentions. It proclaims that the cost is real and has been paid.Criticism is easy. It assigns responsibility, demands action, and carries moral urgency. But it rarely answers the most important question: Who pays for this? Or, more plainly, where are the receipts?That question clarifies things. It separates serious people from performers by exposing the difference between assigning a cost and carrying one.We see it everywhere.Recently, actor Mark Ruffalo argued that the federal government should tax the rich more, assuring us “they can handle it.” Perhaps. But his argument would carry more weight if he showed receipts.Nothing stops him from demonstrating that principle himself. The federal government already accepts voluntary contributions to reduce the public debt. Those convinced we are undertaxed remain free to lead by example.Few do, because saying it costs nothing. Telling someone else to pay is always easier than writing the check yourself. It is theater, and it is a luxury reserved for people who do not have to live with the consequences.That same pattern appears far beyond Hollywood.For decades, Iran has made its position clear, not only in words but in deeds. “Death to America” has echoed for years. I remember watching the embassy takeover in high school. For my entire adult life, I have heard those words and seen the regime’s receipts. I am 62.Much of the West, meanwhile, treated the threat as rhetoric to manage rather than something to confront. Entire careers were built on discussing the problem with panels, policies, negotiations, and warnings. A great deal was invested in talking about the problem. Very little was invested in ending it.That is the difference between posturing and payment.Right now, we are no longer discussing the cost. We are paying it in blood and treasure. The risks are real. So are the instability and the possibility of escalation. But given what this regime has said, done, and promised for decades, the price we pay now may prove a bargain compared with the price of waiting.Ignoring a threat does not eliminate it. It allows it to metastasize and hands the bill to someone else later, with interest.RELATED: Stop chasing rockets Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty ImagesWe see the same pattern at home. For years, Americans were told the southern border was too complex to secure without sweeping reform. That phrase became a substitute for action. Yet when enforcement priorities changed, crossings dropped.Clearly, the problem was not “complexity.” It was resolve.Borders can be secured when a government decides to secure them. Which brings us back to the question too often left unanswered: Where are the receipts?If confronting Iran is reckless, what replaces it? If border enforcement is wrong, what protects the system? If taxes must rise, who is willing to lead by example?These are serious questions that deserve serious answers. But our culture rewards performance more than responsibility.There is always a cost. The only question is whether we face it or pretend it is not there until it grows. Some assign that cost to others. Some ignore it and hope it disappears. Others delay it until it becomes unavoidable.But every now and then, someone steps forward and pays it.That is what decisive action looks like. Not posturing. Not signaling. Not commentary. Payment. The receipts that follow are rarely tidy. They do not arrive as statements or sound bites. They come as scars.That truth is not political. It is inescapable. And at Easter, it is impossible to ignore.Christianity does not offer a cost-free answer to the human condition or the wages of sin. It does not pretend evil vanishes through better language or finer intentions. It proclaims that the cost is real and has been paid.Not assigned. Not deferred. Paid.And the receipts were not theoretical. They were visible and costly: nail-scarred hands.RELATED: The most honest phrase you’ll hear all week Brendan SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty ImagesThat is why Christianity leaves us without excuses. Once you see that, you can no longer pretend solutions come without sacrifice or that responsibility can always be shifted to someone else.Isaac Watts captured it plainly: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.”We recognize truth when we see it because deep down, we know it is true: Someone always pays.The only question is whether you trust the One who paid it or insist on bearing it yourself.