Artificial intelligence is dominating the 2026 midterms—and not just as a political issue. Major congressional campaigns are increasingly using “deepfake” AI technology in videos that slam their opponents and amplify endorsements from allies. ‘Love Shack’ Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is seeking to fend off a primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and is employing some unusual strategies. The Cornyn campaign released an AI-generated music video with a parody of the B-52s’ 1989 hit “Love Shack” as the soundtrack. It depicts an animated likeness of Paxton engaged in corruption and marital infidelity. If you’re wondering why Ken Paxton was sending millions in taxpayer dollars to left-wing groups, he may have been a little too distracted at his “Love Shack.” https://t.co/oDGcP0MplW— Team Cornyn (@TeamCornyn) March 17, 2026 The B-52s told TMZ in a statement upon the ad’s release, “Today we learned that our song ‘Love Shack’ is being used without our approval for a political attack between two politicians in the beautiful state of Texas. We do not endorse either candidate. We have already formally demanded the song immediately cease to be used in this tasteless and illegal way.” The Cornyn campaign declined to comment on the ad’s use of AI and whether it had responded to the band’s request. Paxton’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. James Talarico The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) recently employed deepfake technology to go after Texas Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico for past social media posts. The state representative is attempting to win in a state that has not elected a Democrat U.S. senator since 1988. “Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country,” a realistic likeness of Talarico says, quoting an actual 2021 social media post from the candidate. The NRSC ad includes a small watermark in the corner stating that the content is “AI generated.” James Talarico, in his own words: pic.twitter.com/lDlUoqBbP7— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) March 11, 2026 “In my faith, God is non-binary,” Talarico’s likeness says later, quoting another 2021 post. Talarico’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the video’s representation of him. Bobby Rush’s AI-Generated Voice Jesse Jackson Jr., who lost in the Democrat primary for Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District on Tuesday, used AI to amplify an endorsement from former Rep. Bobby Rush, who represented the state’s 1st Congressional District for three decades. Rush’s voice has been weakened due to throat cancer. At the beginning of the advertisement, he speaks with his natural voice before his digitally altered voice kicks in. “Cancer damaged my vocal cords, but it didn’t take away my voice,” Rush says. “I’ve asked the producers to use AI, artificial intelligence, to help me.” He says in his altered voice, “Like me, Jesse is a lifelong social justice warrior and passionate advocate for the marginalized.” Jackson, the son of the late Rev. Jessie Jackson, served in Congress from 1995 to 2012 alongside Rush, but left amid a fraud investigation, for which he later spent time in prison. He lost his primary on Tuesday. The post Artificial Intelligence is Taking Over Political Campaigns appeared first on The Daily Signal.

During the recent Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, it came to light that one of the most prominent and celebrated athletes—Alysa Liu—was born via surrogacy and an anonymous egg donor. Surrogacy is an assisted reproductive technology whereby a woman (the surrogate mother) is impregnated and carries a child for so-called “commissioning” or “intended” parent(s). It is generally divided into two forms—“traditional” and “gestational” —based on whether the surrogate mother is biologically related to the child. While the circumstances of Alysa’s conception do not diminish her human dignity or exemplary accomplishments in any way, various commentators have expressed the serious legal, moral, and ethical concerns surrounding the nexus between eugenics and assisted reproductive technologies. After escaping China following the Tiananmen Square protests, Alysa’s father, Arthur Liu, built a life in the U.S. He chose to start his family in a “non-traditional way” and became a single father by choice to Alysa and her four younger siblings with the help of another woman who essentially helped raise all of his children. Conveying profound questions as a child surrounding her sense of identity and familial origins, in interviews after the Olympics, Alysa candidly remarked how she knew from an early age that she and her siblings were different: “I mean, we didn’t know about it for a long time. I actually figured it out because, I don’t know, I was like, because our mom is full Chinese, too. And I was like of like, ‘Oh, I totally don’t look full Chinese. Like, there’s something up.” While Alysa’s tale culminated in gold, the transnational and cross-border implications of surrogacy, as well as its heightened risks in facilitating trafficking, abuse, or neglect, have once again brought surrogacy to the forefront of international conversation across the ideological spectrum. For example, children born via surrogacy have increasingly voiced objections to the practice based on how it traumatized them. One of the most prominent advocates for the global abolition of surrogacy, Olivia Maurel, has stated: “The most difficult thing is the trauma of abandonment. … We all need to know who we are, where we come from, who our grandparents are, because it defines us for the rest of our lives.” Rather than viewing it as empowering, certain feminist critiques of surrogacy have attacked it for commodifying women, especially vulnerable low-income women. They have also argued that it perpetuates various abuses against surrogate mothers in the context of, inter alia, oppressive legal contracts, lifestyle restrictions, and inadequate aftercare. Likewise, advocates for persons with disabilities have also criticized surrogacy for promoting ableism and the interests of big fertility. There have been reports of “commissioning” or “intended” parents abandoning support for surrogate mothers and children or seeking to compel abortion of the unborn child on various grounds, including fetal abnormality or genetic disorders. Finally, civil society groups have also engaged through the Declaration of Casablanca for the Universal Abolition of Surrogacy. These efforts have gained the support of both the late Pope Francis as well as Pope Leo XIV, who recently stated: “By transforming gestation into a negotiable service, [surrogacy] violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a ‘product,’ and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family.” These critiques are consistent with international human rights law, which does not recognize any affirmative “right to a child,” as such. Rather what is clear is that every child has rights from conception. The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes the child’s right to “special safeguards and care, including legal protection, before as well as after birth”, and the child’s right “as far as possible, to know and be cared for by his or her parents.” A child also has the right not to be “separated from his or her parents against their will” except when conforming to judicial procedures, the law, and in the “best interests of the child.” In this regard, the CRC’s optional protocol prohibits the sale of children, defined to mean “any act or transaction whereby a child is transferred by any person or group of persons to another for remuneration or any other consideration.” While the legal framework is explicit, various U.N. organs and mandate holders have also begun to call for action to end this harmful practice.   In her 2018 report, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children called for States to adopt “clear and comprehensive legislation that prohibits the sale of children … in the context of surrogacy.” In 2024, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 79/154 on human trafficking that called upon U.N. Member States to take “preventive measures to address … exploitative commercial surrogacy.” Finally, in 2025, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls  called for the global abolition of all forms of surrogacy, recognizing that surrogacy is a “system of violence, exploitation, and abuse” that “reinforces patriarchal norms by commodifying and objectifying women’s bodies and exposing surrogate mothers and children to serious human rights violations.” While we should be sensitive to the plight of couples experiencing infertility and accompany them with appropriate healthcare services that are both ethical and evidence-based, we should not forget that it is surrogate mothers and children themselves who bear surrogacy’s harshest physical and mental burdens. Therefore, we must strive for its universal abolition to ensure that no woman is further abused and so that each child can be welcomed as the profound gift that he or she is. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Alysa Liu’s Olympic Spotlight Draws Attention to the Dangerous Practice of Surrogacy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Planned Parenthood just can’t wait until July 4, 2026. That’s the day taxpayers will have to start subsidizing the abortion industry all over again.   How did this happen? Answer: The defunding of abortion providers has an expiration date. The reason? Weak negotiating by Senate Republicans. The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025, includes several policies aimed at benefiting families through tax relief, credits, and new savings opportunities. The provisions focus primarily on reducing tax burdens, supporting child-rearing costs, and encouraging long-term savings for children.  However, it was the defunding of abortion providers, including abortion giant Planned Parenthood, that captured pro-lifers’ hearts.  The largest abortion provider in the country, Planned Parenthood, is an organization founded on the principles of eugenics and is responsible for 35%-40% of all abortions in the United States. In its most recent available annual report, Planned Parenthood affiliates reported performing 402,230 abortions (an increase from 392,715 in the prior report). In Planned Parenthood’s 2023-2024 most recent report (covering roughly fiscal year 2023-2024), affiliates reported $792.2 million in total government health services reimbursements and grants. This includes both federal and state sources. A 2023 GAO report found Planned Parenthood affiliates received roughly $1.78 billion in tax dollars over a span of three years. The total collective federal funding that has gone to abortion providers since 1970 is in the $10-$15 billion range. I can think of nothing more egregious for our nation’s semiquincentennial than to reinstate this funding to the largest provider of abortions in the world. Life is a gift, one that many Americans have fought and died for over the last 250 years.  Thomas Jefferson, who authored the Declaration of Independence, said it well: “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” The president and Congress turned off this gravy train of death once before; they need to do it again. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Abortion Is the Worst Way to Celebrate America 250 appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun, and while the transgender movement may feel new and modern, it echoes a cult from ancient Rome—during a “culture war” not dissimilar from our own, according to the detransitioner Forrest Smith. The cult of Cybele or the Magna Mater, an ancient Roman “mystery religion,” highlighted effeminate men and even included the story of a man getting castrated in a religious ritual. “I learned about this because it was a piece of rhetoric within my former community that trans people have always existed,” Smith—a man who identified as a woman and went under the knife in pursuit of that identity—told The Daily Signal in an interview before Detransition Awareness Day. Smith recalled reading the Roman poet Catullus, whose 63rd poem tells the story of a man castrating himself for a goddess. Catullus, writing in the first century before Jesus Christ, described a cult that had existed for several hundred years. “He imagined this young man who was actually dressing up as the goddess before he castrates himself,” Smith explained. “Catullus imagines him regretting it, and it’s beautifully written.” The detransitioner noted that Catullus did not make up the phenomenon—he had been “watching a public spectacle of men cross-dressing and castrating themselves,” a cult that is “very similar to what we have going on now.” “It was a bit of a culture war in the ancient world, just like we have now,” Smith explained. “The parallels are very striking.” Rome, like ancient Athens, had a very pluralistic culture, with many active cults. Romans would pray to—and sacrifice for—different gods for different things. They condemned early Christians as “atheists” because early Christians refused to worship any idols. Smith explained that the cult of Cybele traced back to Phrygia, a land in central Turkey that gained a reputation for wealth. The story of King Midas originated in the same area. “It was an ancient civilization that was on the decline,” the detransitioner noted. He paraphrased the ancient Greek geographer Strabo: “It’s not the water or the air that is making these men effeminate. It’s the wealth, it’s the riches.” What happened to the cult? When Christianity grew in the Roman Empire, it “shut down a cult that was already on the decline,” Smith recalled. He noted that many of the early church fathers, such as St. Augustine and St. Justin Martyr, wrote polemics against the cult of Cybele. Smith also noted that Europe became more feudal as the Roman Empire collapsed, leading to a period often called the “dark ages.” The prominence of transgenderism suggests cultural rot in America, and a growing feminization often associated with excess wealth. Smith, like many detransitioners, is struggling to find necessary medical care. Experimental drugs and surgeries to make men appear female and vice versa are themselves new and relatively rare, but a growing number of these patients later go on to reconcile with their biological sex, and wish to reverse the interventions they took in the name of “gender-affirming care.” Groups like Genspect are asking the Centers for Disease Control to establish new medical codes to help detransitioners like Smith get the help they need. In the Cybele myth, the man who castrated himself, Attis, dies. Smith, however, spoke about “life beyond transition.” The post ‘STRIKING’ PARALLELS: What Can an Ancient Roman Cult Reveal About the Transgender Movement? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

MIAMI—Operation Epic Fury bears significant consequences for Russia, according to European leaders. Russia is financially benefiting from the joint U.S.-Israel operation in Iran, but the conflict’s long-term implications are more complex. Russian oil sales significantly increased following the launch of the operation in Iran. With the Iranian regime threatening to strike ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane, Russia is benefiting from rising oil costs and increased demand. Since the operation in Iran began three weeks ago, “Russia has now received suddenly a lot of new funds, up to $150 million daily … purely from the oil sales,” Estonia’s Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur told The Daily Signal at the Miami Security Forum. The additional oil revenue is not going into Russia’s reserves, but instead Russia will pour “it immediately [into] the Ukrainian war,” Pevkur says. Estonian Minister of Defence Hanno Pevkur attends a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 12. (Leon Neal via Getty Images) It has been more than four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s economy had been “showing signs of severe strain” in recent months, according to the Atlantic Council, a policy organization focused on foreign affairs. But now, with rising oil prices, “Moscow may be able to repair much of the economic damage done over the past four years,” the council says. Russian President Vladimir Putin is “applauding” the conflict in Iran and will “never tell the Iranians that, ‘Hey, sit behind the table with Americans and find a solution,’ because he’s winning from this war,” Pevkur said. Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs K?stutis Budrys agrees that in the “short term,” the U.S. and Israeli operation in Iran “helps Russia to increase its income,” and even distracts from Russia’s war against Ukraine. However, he predicts the military action will cost Russia in the long-term. If the operation against Iran is successful, “it will weaken Russia, because it will eliminate another regime that was assisting them,” Budrys said. Lithuania’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kestutis Budrys speaks to the press in Brussels, Feb. 23. (John Thys/AFP via Getty Images) President Donald Trump eased oil sanctions on Russia after Operation Epic Fury sent oil prices soaring, but the sanctions should be “returned when the situation allows,” Budrys said, because “Ukraine cannot be the tradeoff of stabilizing economic effects because of Iran’s behavior.” Still, the Lithuanian minister said America’s actions in Iran were “the right thing to do,” and serve European interests. “Iran’s missile program and nuclear program were threats to our security. They are closer to Europe than they are to the United States,” Budrys said, adding. Iran launched a drone attack on Cyprus in early March, and NATO has intercepted Iranian missiles aimed at Turkey. It is up to Iran now, Budrys says, to come to the negotiating table and find a diplomatic solution. “My message to my colleagues in Europe,” Budrys says, “is that it is in our interest to stop this threat and to break the Iran-Russia access.” The post Is the US Operation in Iran a Gift to Putin? appeared first on The Daily Signal.