Chuck Norris was rushed to the hospital two days ago. His friend called him and said he was in good spirits, joking as usual. He died soon after. He was an American martial artist, actor, film producer, and screenwriter. He won championships in several of the martial arts and established his own. Norris was conservative […] The post Chuck Norris, March 10, 1940-March 29, 2026, RIP appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller died Saturday at the age of 81, multiple outlets reported.

Economic Shocks Will Permeate Long After Iran Strikes Stop, Analysts Predict

'Genius'

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.

Our Civilian-Military Bond Is Cracked

When a military expert’s opinion is different than a politician’s, how are fact-checkers like PolitiFact supposed to adjudicate the politician’s claim? If a Friday article by Zoe Weyand is anything to go by, the answer is not at all, or at least if the politician is Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. However, Weyand's standard for giving Warren a “true” rating for a recent claim she made about President Trump is different than the one PolitiFact has traditionally applied to Republicans. Warren claimed that Trump has dropped more bombs on more countries than any president in the modern era, which was defined as since 9/11. In the “If your time is short” summary, Weyand wrote, “From the start of his first term to now, Trump has authorized military strikes in 10 countries, more than any other president in the 21st century. He has also authorized a higher number of military strikes than any other modern president.” However, she also observed how “An expert said the use of ground troops is a better way to analyze military activity. Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush deployed a far greater number of American troops during their tenures.” That expert was Mark Cancian, who Weyand described as “a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Defense and Security Department.” Cancian’s opinion that ground forces are a better way to measure military activity did not dissuade Weyand from giving Warren a straight-up true rating, but historically, Republicans have not been given that benefit. A few years ago during the Republican primary, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley lamented that the Chinese navy is bigger than the U.S. Navy, Louis Jacobson wrote in his “If your time is short” summary, “Numerically, Haley is on target with both countries’ ship counts.”  His experts told him that “counting ships says little about military capabilities” because "ship counts ignore overall tonnage, specific warfighting capabilities, and overall geographic reach, all of which are metrics where the United States maintains an edge over China.” Jacobson isn’t alone. Fact-checkers across several different outlets across several years have made similar naval arguments against Republicans. The opinion that tonnage is still what matters most as if it were pre-1967 aside, the very idea that someone had a different opinion on what matters was enough for Jacobson to give Haley a “half-true” rating. PolitiFact's double standards on experts are not confined to military matters. When PolitiFact ends up claiming Democrats are more truthful than Republicans, some like to defend that by saying that it is a simple fact that Democrats are more truthful. However, here we see the problem with that. A Democrat is given a true rating, while a Republican in the exact same situation was not.

After years of a media-driven pressure campaign over pay and treatment, WNBA players have secured a significant salary increase. On March 18, the league and its players' union (WNBPA) announced their verbal/tentative agreement on a new collective bargaining deal that will dramatically increase player salaries by tying pay to revenue shares.But given that the WNBA has long been financially propped up by the NBA and has only recently started generating enough revenue to trigger player revenue sharing (and potentially turn profitable), Jason Whitlock sees the league’s new deal as undeserved welfare disguised as earned success.“Nothing that happened with the WNBA and their CBA agreement had anything to do with proper business or these women getting what they're owed or what they've earned or what they deserve. This is being given to them to execute an agenda,” he says.On this episode of “Fearless,” Whitlock exposes the corruption behind this new WNBA agreement and calls out ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith for pandering to the “alphabet agenda.” “They want the next group of leaders to all be in support of the alphabet movement, the disruption of the nuclear family, the destruction of the nuclear family, the destruction of a Christian culture, and so they are making alphabet mafia soldiers the heroes and leaders for your kids,” says Whitlock. “That's what this is all about.”He pokes fun at ESPN's Stephen A. Smith for enthusiastically celebrating the landmark deal on a recent episode of “First Take,” during which he praised Nneka Ogwumike (Seattle Storm forward and president of the players' union) for her leadership, telling her sister Chiney Ogwumike that Nneka "has set a standard," "deserves to be applauded," and that the agreement is "a damn good deal.”But the truth, says Whitlock, is that this deal had nothing to do with Nneka Ogwumike or any genuine achievement.“Two things are responsible for them getting overpaid: Caitlin Clark and the alphabet agenda," he says.“We just gave the welfare sport more welfare money. The WNBA is a welfare sport. It's no different than women's soccer. That was a welfare sport for 40 or 50 years,” Whitlock continues, exposing the pattern of “take money away from men, give it to women” to create “more lesbian feminist leadership.”He accuses Smith of pandering to the WNBA: “He’s applauding it out of arrogance, foolishness, the desire to remain in power, the desire to remain in the good graces of the feminist and the alphabet mafia people that actually control his salary, control his platform.”“This is what selling out looks like.”To hear more of Whitlock’s commentary, watch the video above.Want more from Jason Whitlock?To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Frank Meyer’s fusionism combined free-market libertarianism and religion-friendly traditionalism to create the modern conservative movement. As a political alliance against the threat of communism, the movement served its purpose. But the principles that undergirded Meyer’s synthesis were not an adequate basis for attaining and sustaining national power.The difference between the defeated Barry Goldwater faction and the victorious Ronald Reagan coalition was the vote of white Catholic Democrats alienated from their former party by its anti-anti-Communism and embrace of the three A’s: amnesty (for draft evaders), acid, and abortion. We need a clearer, more uncompromising articulation of a pure MAGA doctrine that distinguishes our agenda from the libertarians and so-called principled conservatives.Those former Democrats did not want smaller government, so Reagan preserved, for them and the country, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with generating ever-larger deficits.Meyer’s synthesis, however, was not as new as is often claimed: In important respects, it represented 19th-century Bourbon Democracy spruced up for the post-World War II era. What distinguished the Bourbons from the Republicans (and from the populist Democrats) was their commitment to smaller government, free trade, and cheap labor. That meant unfree labor in the 1850s and more-or-less free labor once the South was successfully “redeemed” from Republican rule and black civil rights enforcement after the Civil War.What America needs today instead is fissionism. We need a clearer, more uncompromising articulation of a pure MAGA doctrine that distinguishes our agenda from the libertarians and so-called principled conservatives.MAGA in foreign and security matters means using American power to secure American interests. Foreign policy is not the application of abstract principles, which are worse than useless in international relations. What were Franklin Roosevelt’s principles or Andrew Jackson’s or Teddy Roosevelt’s? Their guiding star in foreign policy was not principle but the ruthless pursuit of results. As for draining the swamp, the trench warfare over DOGE and U.S. attorney appointments proves that deconstructing the administrative state requires a pro-Trump Senate. But the current Senate remains beholden to the uniparty. If you are happy with your “principled conservative” senator obstructing the president, then you are on the other side.Against those screaming for lower taxes and less government at all costs, protective tariffs are core to MAGA — and for that matter, core to the Republican Party before it was taken over by Reagan, a former Democrat and fusionist. MAGA demands an economic policy geared toward national greatness. It means an end to regulations engineered to cripple the U.S. economy in the name of DEI, apocalyptic climate alarmism, or the latest elite neurosis.Targeted regulations and tariffs to onshore our supply chains and rebuild the American industrial base? Absolutely. That has been Donald Trump’s consistent agenda since he first started commenting on public affairs in the 1980s. If the “principled conservatives” fail to recognize this, that exposes their own ideological blindness, not a flaw in the MAGA platform.RELATED: Will Republicans fight for the SAVE Act — or fold again? Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty ImagesFundamentally, “principled conservatives” don’t want America to be stronger and freer if it means traditional Republican governance. They prefer Bourbon Democracy: small government, cheap goods, cheap labor (citizens and noncitizens alike), and dependence on others — once Britain or the North, now China — for industry, including vital defense-related manufacturing. As for the world, China can do what it wants. Anything else would require the old guard conservatives to compromise their precious “principles.”People who don’t want the United States to be reliant on China, as Mississippi was on Manchester in 1850, or Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1890, should see “principled conservatives” as political opponents — allies of the Democrats. They are helping to destroy Trump and everything the president stands for.Does drawing clearer partisan lines mean shedding potential support required for electoral victory? That is a very real risk. The compensating benefit is that once we know what we want, we can accurately identify our allies and band together to address the crises of our time.A “principled conservative” administration would have preferred Big Pharma to RFK Jr. and MAHA. A “principled conservative” administration would make no room for a Tulsi Gabbard, an Elon Musk, or any other heterodox defector who wants to restore American foreign and security policy and advance American power, national honor, and national freedom.Fissionism means drawing clear battle lines, dividing what was once the “conservative movement.” The “principled conservatives” can keep their pristine — and currently useless — “principles.” I am on the side of America, which means the side of Trump.Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.