A night they’ll never forget. These days, it seems like there’s nothing Zach Top cannot do. Riding the highs of his debut album last year, the Washington native has simply flown through the ranks in country music over the past 18 months. Whether it’s his ACM win for New Male Artist this past April, his high praise from fellow artists such as Dierks Bentley or his continued domination on social media, Top has, without a doubt, become the genre’s new “it” artist. This year has been no different for the “Bad Luck” singer. Beyond his five nominations at next week’s CMA Awards, which include nods for Male Vocalist of the Year, Single/Song of the Year (“I Never Lie”) and Album of the Year (Cold Beer & Country Music), last week, he scored his first three career Grammy nominations for Best Traditional Country Album (Ain’t In It For My Health) and Best Country Song/Solo Performance for “I Never Lie.” Fresh off receiving his Grammy nominations, over the weekend, Top continued his Cold Beer & Country Music Tour on Saturday in Bismarck, North Dakota, to a sold-out crowd at the Bismarck Event Center. It’s safe to say you never know what to expect when Top’s on stage. Over the past few months, we’ve seen him deliver classic covers such as Conway Twitty’s “Slow Hand” at his headlining show at Red Rocks, join the likes of Dierks Bentley and Post Malone for a killer performance of John Michael Montgomery’s “Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)” and arguably most hilariously, attempt to help a couple with a gender reveal while a West Virginia crowd got a little rowdy On Friday night in Bismarck, however, it was the Washington native playing the role of an engagement coordinator. During a performance of his new love song off of Ain’t In It For My Health, “She Makes,” Top pulled a couple out from the crowd on stage for a proposal they’ll never for forget. In footage captured by TikTok user, @LindyVision, the couple can be seen getting helped up over the pit barrier by security and getting escorted up to the stage while Top continues to perform the chorus of “She Makes.” Once they got on stage, Top invited the couple to the center stage and gave the man, whose name is unknown, the microphone before asking them their names. In response, the man would say: “Zach, you play some great music, man. I love it.” Getting Zach Top, of all people, to help you out with your engagement has all the makings of one of the greatest proposals of all time, right? There was one small problem, however: he forgot the ring. As the “South of Sanity” singer helped the man grab the microphone off the stand, he would reveal to both the crowd and his now fiancée, whose name was revealed to be Olivia, that his “idiot self” forgot it entirely, noting it was a very spur-of-the-moment decision. “Look, Olivia, my idiot self didn’t bring a ring tonight. This is pretty spur-of-the-moment, but you made me the happiest man for the past four years. And I want to make you the happiest woman for the rest of my life.” The man would then drop to one knee, ringless, before popping the question. “Olivia, would you do me the honor of being my wife?” The lack of a ring didn’t matter too much to Olivia as she said yes, all while Top and Co. continued to perform the instrumentals to “She Makes” throughout the proposal. Embracing her in a hug, he would tell the crowd, “Let’s hear it!” while they cheered as the couple capped off the engagement with a kiss on stage. It’s moments like these that truly make the concert-going experience so special. As I said previously, you never know just what to expect at any live show, and it’s times like this that prove it. It’s safe to say that the couple will never forget the moment Zach Top helped them out with their proposal, and it’ll be a moment they’ll pass down for the rest of their lives. Congrats to Olivia and her fiancée. Watch here: @fishy__bacon Congrats to these two. Pulling this off was epic! #zachtop #proposal #shesaidyes #shemakesmehappy #concert ♬ original sound – LindyVision Zach Top Tour Dates November 13—Eugene, OR—Matthew Knight Arena‡ November 14—Seattle, WA—Climate Pledge Arena‡ November 15—Vancouver, BC—Rogers Arena‡ November 22—Kennewick, WA—Toyota Center‡ November 23—Kennewick, WA—Toyota Center‡ December 12—Las Vegas, NV—MGM Grand Garden Arena‡ +with special guest Andy Buckner ‡with special guest Jake WorthingtonThe post Zach Top Brings North Dakota Couple Out On Stage For Impromptu Proposal: “My Idiot Self Didn’t Bring A Ring Tonight” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

The most talented father/son duo in country music… or really… all of music in general. Last week, the Recording Academy announced the full list of Grammy nominees for the 68th annual show, which will take place on Sunday, February 1st, 2026 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, and broadcast on CBS and Paramount+. Performers and presenters will be announced at a later date. And you might have heard that this year, there’s a brand new category for the country genre called Best Traditional Country Album. The previously titled Best Country Album category has been changed to Best Contemporary Country Album, so there will be two opportunities for some of your favorite country artists to win one of music’s most prestigious awards. Of course, as you might imagine, the Best Traditional Country Album category is stacked. We have Charley Crockett’s Dollar A Day, Margo Price’s Hard Headed Woman, Zach Top’s Ain’t In It For My Health, Lukas Nelson’s American Romance and his father, Willie Nelson’s, Oh What A Beautiful World all up for the award. Yes, the category is 40% Nelson, and it’s only the second time in history that’s happened at the Grammys, in terms of a father and son both being nominated in the same category for different albums. The only other time it happened was in 1998, when Julio Iglesias and his son Enrique Iglesias were both nominated for Best Latin Pop Album, though neither one of them won it, as the award went to Luis Miguel. Funny enough, Julio and Willie have worked together in the past, on their hit song “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before.” Both Willie’s Oh What A Beautiful World and Lukas Nelson’s American Romance are incredible albums, and I think either one of them is deserving to win, though as I’ve said before many times, Lukas debut solo album has easily been my favorite country project released this year, so that is the one that has my vote. I think this new category is certainly the best in terms of talent and the music that is true to the best parts of country, and it would only be fitting for a Nelson to win the first one ever. It has to be an incredibly special and full-circle moment for the Nelson’s, and it also includes Willie’s youngest son Micah, who is nominated with his dad as the producer on Willie’s Last Leaf on the Tree record, which is up for Best Americana Album. I’m sure they’re all cheering for each other and will be happy regardless of who wins (they seem like a very supportive family), if one of them does, and it certainly makes country music look good to have them all up for some of the most prestigious awards. If I was a betting woman, I think you’re going to see all of them take home an award come February… and deservedly so. The apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the musical tree when it comes to the Nelson’s, and all of our ears are much better off for it. View this post on Instagram 2026 Grammy Nominees The full list of country nominees is below. COUNTRY Best Traditional Country Album Dollar A Day, Charley Crockett American Romance, Lukas Nelson Oh What A Beautiful World, Willie Nelson Hard Headed Woman, Margo Price Ain’t In It For My Health, Zach Top Best Contemporary Country Album Patterns, Kelsea Ballerini Snipe Hunter, Tyler Childers Evangeline Vs. The Machine, Eric Church Beautifully Broken, Jelly Roll Postcards From Texas, Miranda Lambert Best Country Solo Performance “Nose on the Grindstone,” Tyler Childers “Good News,” Shaboozey “Bad as I Used to Be [From F1® The Movie],” Chris Stapleton “I Never Lie,” Zach Top “Somewhere Over Laredo,” Lainey Wilson Best Country Duo/Group Performance “A Song to Sing,” Miranda Lambert And Chris Stapleton “Trailblazer,” Reba McEntire, Miranda Lambert, Lainey Wilson “Love Me Like You Used to Do,” Margo Price & Tyler Childers “Amen,” Shaboozey & Jelly Roll “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame,” George Strait, Chris Stapleton Best Country Song “Bitin’ List,” Tyler Childers, songwriter (Tyler Childers) “Good News,” Michael Ross Pollack, Sam Elliot Roman & Jacob Torrey, songwriters (Shaboozey) “I Never Lie,” Carson Chamberlain, Tim Nichols & Zach Top, songwriters (Zach Top) “Somewhere Over Laredo,” Andy Albert, Trannie Anderson, Dallas Wilson & Lainey Wilson, songwriters (Lainey Wilson) “A Song to Sing,” Jenee Fleenor, Jesse Frasure, Miranda Lambert & Chris Stapleton, songwriters (Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton) AMERICANA/ROOTS Best American Roots Performance “LONELY AVENUE,” Jon Batiste Featuring Randy Newman “Ancient Light,” I’m With Her “Crimson and Clay,” Jason Isbell “Richmond on the James,” Alison Krauss & Union Station “Beautiful Strangers,” Mavis Staples Best Americana Performance “Boom,” Sierra Hull “Poison in My Well,” Maggie Rose & Grace Potter “Godspeed,” Mavis Staples “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark,” Molly Tuttle “Horses,” Jesse Welles Best American Roots Song “Ancient Light,” Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan & Sara Watkins, songwriters (I’m With Her) “BIG MONEY,” Jon Batiste, Mike Elizondo & Steve McEwan, songwriters (Jon Batiste) “Foxes in the Snow,” Jason Isbell, songwriter (Jason Isbell) “Middle,” Jesse Welles, songwriter (Jesse Welles) “Spitfire,” Sierra Hull, songwriter (Sierra Hull) Best Americana Album BIG MONEY, Jon Batiste Bloom, Larkin Poe Last Leaf on the Tree, Willie Nelson So Long Little Miss Sunshine, Molly Tuttle Middle, Jesse Welles Best Bluegrass Album Carter & Cleveland, Michael Cleveland & Jason Carter A Tip Toe High Wire, Sierra Hull Arcadia, Alison Krauss & Union Station Outrun, The Steeldrivers Highway Prayers, Billy Strings ALL-GENRE Record of the Year DtMF, Bad Bunny Manchild, Sabrina Carpenter Anxiety, Doechii WILDFLOWER, Billie Eilish Abracadabra, Lady Gaga Luther, Kendrick Lamar With SZA The Subway, Chappell Roan APT., ROSÉ, Bruno Mars Album of the Year DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, Bad Bunny SWAG, Justin Bieber Man’s Best Friend, Sabrina Carpenter Let God Sort Em Out, Clipse, Pusha T & Malice MAYHEM, Lady Gaga GNX, Kendrick Lamar MUTT, Leon Thomas CHROMAKOPIA, Tyler, The Creator Song of the Year Abracadabra, Henry Walter, Lady Gaga & Andrew Watt, songwriters (Lady Gaga) Anxiety, Jaylah Hickmon, songwriter (Doechii) APT., Amy Allen, Christopher Brody Brown, Rogét Chahayed, Henry Walter, Omer Fedi, Philip Lawrence, Bruno Mars, Chae Young Park & Theron Thomas, songwriters (ROSÉ, Bruno Mars) DtMF, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, Scott Dittrich,, Benjamin Falik, Roberto José Rosado Torres, Marco Daniel Borrero, Hugo René Sención Sanabria & Tyler Thomas Spry, songwriters (Bad Bunny) Golden [From “KPop Demon Hunters”], EJAE & Mark Sonnenblick, songwriters (HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna, REI AMI) Luther, Jack Antonoff, Roshwita Larisha Bacha, Matthew, Bernard, Ink, Scott Bridgeway, Sam Dew, Kendrick Lamar, Mark Anthony Spears, Solána Rowe & Kamasi Washington, songwriters (Kendrick Lamar With SZA) Manchild, Amy Allen, Jack Antonoff & Sabrina Carpenter, songwriters (Sabrina Carpenter) WILDFLOWER, Billie Eilish O’Connell & Finneas O’Connell, songwriters (Billie Eilish) Best New Artist Olivia Dean KATSEYE The Marias Addison Rae Sombr Leon Thomas Alex Warren Lola YoungThe post Willie & Lukas Nelson Are Just The Second Father/Son Duo Ever To Be Grammy-Nominated In The Same Category For Different Albums first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

One of the best performances in recent CMA Award history – and it didn’t even come from inside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. The 2025 CMA Awards are getting underway next week, November 19th to be exact, and once again Lainey Wilson return to host the ceremony for her second consecutive year. Of course, Lainey is also nominated for a number of awards, and set to perform on the self-proclaimed “country music’s biggest night.” Also set to perform is BigXthaPlug, who will join Luke Combs for a duet of their collab, “Pray Hard,” because, you know… having a rapper on the show will add an few million extra eyeballs that wouldn’t otherwise normally watch a country music awards show. Or at least, what’s what they think will happen, but it never does, because nobody who loves rap is tuning in to see the CMAs. You know who WOULD tune in to the CMAs if they had good country music artists perform… country music fans. Crazy, right? But featuring pop and hip hop acts is nothing new for the CMAs or any country music awards show, and since I’ve been blogging bout country music (over a decade now), it’s been a constant complaint. One that has fallen on deaf ears. Where’s the good country? Where’s the real country? Where’s Tyler Childers? Where’s Sturgill Simpson? Where’s Cody Jinks? But in 2017… Sturgill Simpson DID show up… just… not inside the building. He wasn’t invited… Busking On Broadway In 2016, Sturgill Simpson released his 3rd career studio album, A Sailor’s Guide To Earth, and it was quickly heralded as a fantastic project, and rewarded with a Grammy Award in early 2017 for Best Country Album. It was also nominated in the all-genre Album of the Year award, alongside heavy hitters like Adele, Justin Bieber, Beyonce, and Drake. Seems like somebody you’d want to have on the CMA Awards, right? After all, it’s “country music’s biggest night.” Welp… all that apparently that wasn’t enough to get him an invite to the CMA Awards, which instead featured performances from P!nk and former One Direction member, Niall Horan, that year. Just what country fans want to hear… And while Sturgill may not have been invited, he decided to show up and perform anyway – outside of Bridgestone Arena during the ceremonies. “They were all out of seats, I couldn’t get a ticket. So I thought I’d come down here and play some country music since we’re celebrating it tonight in Nashville, Tennessee.” He put his Grammy in his guitar case, and for nearly an hour Sturgill busked outside of the CMA Awards as shocked onlookers started to realize what they were witnessing. Sturgill streamed the whole performance live online (and probably got more viewers than the actual awards ceremony) as he treated the crowd to “Turtles All the Way Down” and “Water In A Well,” as well as his controversial thoughts on Donald Trump. He answered questions from his fans – and even gave a preview of what his acceptance speech would sound like if he ever were to win a CMA Award: “Nobody needs a machine gun. Coming from a guy who owns quite a few guns. Gay people should have the right to be happy and live their life any way they want to, and get married if they want to, without fearing getting drug down the road on a pickup truck. Black people are probably tired of getting shot in the streets, and getting enslaved by the industrial prison complex, and hegemony and racism is alive and well in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you very much.” Whether you agree with his liberal politics or not, can you imagine an acceptance speech like that at the CMA Awards? In the same spirit as Rickey Gervais’ Golden Globes monologue, the LAST thing I want to do is hear celebrities get up there and lecture me from the stage, but I would love to see a rant like that just for the simple fact that it would make producers extremely uncomfortable. Of course, that’s why we’ll never see him up there… Stu also revealed that he would perform Merle Haggard’s “Are The Good Times Really Over” if he were ever invited to the CMA Awards (which at this point it’s pretty clear, he won’t be). It was quite the scene, seeing a Grammy-winning country singer busking outside of the CMA Awards while the eventual Entertainer of the Year winner, Garth Brooks, was inside lip-syncing his newest single. It highlighted the absurdity of the Nashville popularity contest, where all too often the best country artists aren’t even invited to the show – and are forced to busk on the sidewalk. Check out the full performance: 2025 CMA Awards Nominees Entertainer of the Year Morgan Wallen Luke Combs Lainey Wilson Cody Johnson Chris Stapleton Album of the Year Am I Okay? – Megan Moroney Producer: Kristian Bush Mix Engineer: Justin Niebank Cold Beer & Country Music – Zach Top Producer: Carson Chamberlain Mix Engineer: Matt Rovey F-1 Trillon – Post Malone Producers: Louis Bell, Charlie Handsome, Hoskins Mix Engineer: Ryan Gore I’m The Problem – Morgan Wallen Producers: Jacob Durrett, Charlie Handsome, Joey Moi Mix Engineers: Charlie Handsome, Joey Moi Whirlwind – Lainey Wilson Producer: Jay Joyce Mix Engineers: Jason Hall, Jay Joyce Male Vocalist of the Year Chris Stapleton Morgan Wallen Luke Combs Cody Johnson Zach Top Female Vocalist of the Year Lainey Wilson Ella Langley Megan Moroney Kelsea Ballerini Miranda Lambert Vocal Group of the Year Old Dominion The Red Clay Strays Little Big Town Lady A Rascal Flatts Vocal Duo of the Year Brooks & Dunn Dan + Shay Brothers Osborne The War and Treaty Maddie & Tae Single of the Year “4X4XU” – Lainey Wilson Producer: Jay Joyce Mix Engineers: Jason Hall, Jay Joyce “Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma” – Luke Combs Producers: Luke Combs, Chip Matthews, Jonathan Singleton Mix Engineer: Chip Matthews “Am I Okay?” – Megan Moroney Producer: Kristian Bush Mix Engineer: Justin Niebank “I Never Lie” – Zach Top Producer: Carson Chamberlain Mix Engineer: Mat Rovey “You Look Like You Love Me” – Ella Langley ft. Riley Green Producer: Will Bundy Mix Engineer: Jim Cooley Song of the Year “4X4XU” – Lainey Wilson Songwriters: Jon Decious, Aaron Raitiere, Lainey Wilson “Am I Okay? – Megan Moroney Songwriters: Jessie Jo Dillon, Luke Laird, Megan Moroney “I Never Lie” – Zach Top Songwriters: Carson Chamberlain, Tim Nichols, Zach Top “Texas” – Blake Shelton Songwriters: Johnny Clawson, Josh Dorr, Lalo Guzman, Kyle Sturrock “You Look Like You Love Me” – Ella Langley ft. Riley Green Songwriters: Riley Green, Ella Langley, Aaron Raitiere New Artist of the Year Zach Top Ella Langley Stephen Wilson Jr. Tucker Wetmore Shaboozey Musician of the Year Jenee Fleenor (Fiddle) Paul Franklin (Steel Guitar) Brett Mason (Guitar) Rob McNelley (Guitar) Derek Wells (Guitar) Music Video of the Year “Am I Okay?” – Megan Moroney Directors: Alexander Gavillet, Megan Moroney “I’m Gonna Love You” – Cody Johnson & Carrie Underwood Director: Dustin Haney “Somewhere Over Laredo” – Lainey Wilson Director: TK McKamy “Think I’m In Love With You” – Chris Stapleton Director: Running Bear “You Look Like You Love Me” – Ella Langley & Riley Green Directors: Ella Langley, John Park, Wales Toney Musical Event of the Year “Don’t Mind If I Do” – Riley Green ft. Ella Langley Producers: Scott Borchetta, Jimmy Harnen, Dann Huff “Hard Fought Hallelujah” – Brandon Lake w/ Jelly Roll Producer: Micha Nichols “I’m Gonna Love You” – Cody Johnson w/ Carrie Underwood Producer: Trent Willmon “Pour Me A Drink” – Post Malone ft. Blake Shelton Producers: Louis Bell, Charlie Handsome “You Had to Be There” – Megan Moroney ft. Kenny Chesney Producer: Kristian BushThe post CMA Awards 2017: Sturgill Simpson Busks Outside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena After Not Being Invited To The Ceremony first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Politics It’s Rubio—If He Wants It Should MTG enter the 2028 presidential primary, the secretary of state will have his path. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend Brian was adamant. Writing to X Wednesday, the morning after Democrats smoked the Republicans in an election that was very clearly a rejection of President Donald Trump’s second term, Brian Glenn, an advocacy journalist for Real America’s Voice, wrote in big, capital letters for the world to see.  “I AM YOUR SOURCE,” he shouted, as if miming the mannerisms of his 51-year-old girlfriend Marge. “MTG has NO plans to run for president in 2028.” Well. That settles it then, right? Only one problem: I don’t believe him. Neither do many pundits and politicos who are already watching the race for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. Everything the Georgia firebrand has done these last few months suggests an interest in challenging the MAGA power structure for the top gig in ’28.  Who can blame her? This is America. Here, coronations are the garish stuff of Lifetime movies. Tacky, boring, and cowardly, coronations are exactly how we got Joe Biden. How did that turn out?  In truth, the crown should never simply be passed on. It should be fought over and earned. So, despite the former Trump hater and current Trump bestie Vice President J.D. Vance getting his ducks in a row, I’m not entirely sold on the idea that Vance has the clearest path to the nomination. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say the whole thing is lining up as a real battle royale featuring the likes of Vance, MTG, and Trump’s favorite second-term lackey: Secretary of State Marco Rubio.  It’s become clear that Trump really, really likes the man he once routinely mocked as “Little Marco.” Rubio is exactly the kind of toy Trump appreciates the most: a good boy who listens and obeys. The president made this abundantly clear on Wednesday, during a hastily-arranged meeting with Republican senators in Washington after Tuesday’s “blue bath,” during which the aging president fantasized about his ideal administration.  “I want my Cabinet to be like Xi Jinping’s,” Trump told his legion of yes-men who play senators during waking hours. “I want them sitting up like that, nice and straight. I’ve never seen men so scared in their lives. J.D. doesn’t behave like that. He butts into conversations.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), perhaps the only man with a spine left in that room, uncomfortably sipped from his glass of water as Vance launched his head back the way he does when he wants everyone to know just how incredibly funny he thinks Trump, the man he once worried might be “America’s Hitler,” really is. That Trump! Always joking about how he wants a bunch of unquestioning, scared-out-of-their-minds goons to nod in agreement and clap along as he does another rambling rendition of the YMCA dance. The moment between Trump and Vance may have seemed like another run-of-the-mill interaction between the president and a man who desperately wants to be president, but for astute observers the writing was clear to see—Vance will do anything if it gets him even an inch closer to Trump’s endorsement and the Republican nomination for president. There’s only one problem with that picture: Trump is in no rush to hand out his endorsement.  “A lot of people want me to run, but… we have a strong bench,” Trump confessed during his primetime interview with the 60 Minutes host Norah O’Donnell last week. “I do like J.D. Vance, I like Marco Rubio, I like so many people. We have an unbelievable bench!” In that non-answer was the real answer about whom Trump prefers in 2028—himself, of course. Steve Bannon, who is spending nearly every day on his War Room podcast shouting to the hills about how there is no MAGA without Trump and the Mar-a-Lago playboy should simply dare the courts to stop his attempts for a third term, surely hasn’t helped the situation. Never mind the fact that millions of American voters from New York to California just repudiated what is becoming a failed populist political movement—that’s just how Boomers are. They’ll clutch the steering wheel until the final breath or until some 34-year-old, as we just saw in New York City, rips it out of their cold, cold hands.  Which is the major issue facing Vance. He isn’t really in the position to rip the steering wheel from Trump’s hands, is he? The whole reason J.D. won the job to begin with is that he looked and sounded and smiled like the type of Midwestern aw-shucks type who could go along and get along.  Get along he has. Whenever Trump has failed the American people, whenever he has lied to the American people, whenever his best laid plans have blown up in his face, there has been J.D. to clean up the mess, defending Trump with all his might. As J.D. works to put out Trump’s fires, MTG has gone in search of the real MAGA, correctly criticizing the Trump administration and the Republican Party at large for its inability to deliver on a bevy of Election Day promises. Her message is resonating, especially when she speaks bravely about the genocidal intentions of the Israeli government. Here is where she has found a hotbed of conservative support that could spell real trouble for Vance’s presidential aspirations if the two were to square off in a primary fight. J.D. knows it too. Look no further than the vice president’s recent visit to Israel. He made a calculated decision not to appear at the Wailing Wall, but instead chose to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In a video posted to Vance’s X account, J.D. and his wife Usha prayed at the site believed to be Christ’s tomb. It was meant as a rebrand, a propagandizing of the next iteration of MAGA, the one that is ever so slightly less aligned with Israel. But Vance’s mere presence in the country provided essentially the same message on Israel that we’ve received from Republicans for the better part of a century.  With the tentative ceasefire between Israel and the remnants of Hamas hanging in the balance, it is likely that the Republican Party’s relationship with Israel will require intraparty examination in the three short years leading to the next presidential election. The mess at the Heritage Foundation is evidence enough of this growing divide. If MTG does enter the race and continues to call the Gaza campaign a genocide, then Vance will be on the back foot and immediately fighting for a considerable voting bloc. In such a scenario, he will spend considerable political capital and energy defending his America First bona fides as MTG points out the failure of his administration to stop the killings, to release the Epstein Files, to end the wars, and, most importantly, to provide the sort of economic relief that was once at the core of Trump’s populist messaging. So let us imagine, for one moment, that the year is 2027 and the primary fight is well underway. MTG is challenging Vance from the right and Rubio, because of course Rubio still wants it, is challenging Vance from the center. Trump, who has no interest in tarnishing his brand by picking a loser, is mostly sitting this one out, comfortably lounging through his Bidenesque beach era as the Bannonites beg him to challenge the Supreme Court for another term. The conservative media, many of whom have never fully bought into Trump or the MAGA movement, is publishing earnest essays about how Rubio is the sort of crafty statesman who can return the Republican Party to the sort of tax-centric wonkism of yesteryear. The picture is clear.  If you think I’m exaggerating, consider Rep. Steve Scalise’s (R-LA) words at Thursday’s presser on Capitol Hill.  “Ronald Reagan said it best: Freedom is only one generation away from extinction if we don’t fight to defend it,” Scalise said to nods from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and a host of Republican cheerleaders. “Those words of Reagan’s still ring true today.” The GOP still is, despite the Trump era, a party largely owned and dictated by cultural squares and tax nerds obsessed with Reagan’s legacy. Cometh the hour, cometh the man: Marco Antonio Rubio. The 52-year-old Floridian looked destined for the top in 2016 before a parched mouth and the man on the golden escalator sank his fortunes. It must not have been easy for Rubio to fall in line for Trump, a man who had made a fool of him for America and the whole world to see. But he did it. Rubio became a staunch defender of Trump’s first administration from the Senate, where he praised Trump’s decision to launch 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria and later accused Democrats (without evidence) of rigging a close Florida Senate race. When Trump was criticized for his decision to host the 46th G7 Summit at the Trump National Doral Miami, Rubio, a native of the southern city, said it was a “great” choice that would spur on sales at local businesses.  Most importantly, when President Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 Election, Rubio came to the 47th president’s defense, arguing there had been “irregularities” in the election and that Trump had every right to challenge the results. It all helps explain why, when Trump won a second term in 2024, he decided to elevate the senator from Florida to be the most important cabinet member, secretary of state. For the MAGA faithful, who have always questioned Rubio’s hawkish instincts, the selection of Rubio for such an important role was worrisome. For Trump, who has always prized abject fealty more than any other quality, Rubio was the perfect loyal mutt. In the 11 months since Trump reassumed the Oval Office, Rubio has played an outsized role relative to all other members of the Trump team, including Vance. Rubio is so visibly in the catbird seat that there is open and rampant speculation that Trump may prefer Rubio to Vance in 2028, a notion that the president has done little to dispel when questioned by the press. That duty has fallen to Rubio, who has, interestingly enough, worked privately to tamp down suggestions that he may be eyeing a White House bid.  “Marco has been very clear that J.D. is going to be the Republican nominee if he wants to be,” a person close to the secretary told POLITICO on Friday. “He will do anything he can just to support the vice president in that effort.”  For Rubio, who has shown himself to be a cold, hard calculator, assuming the vice president’s seat on a Vance ticket makes a ton of sense. It would save both men from an uncomfortable primary season in which both their records, as loyal servants for Trump, would be picked apart first by one another and then potentially by Marge, the disappointed base, and finally the rabidly anti-MAGA press. Most of all, as noted in the POLITICO piece, it is simply the “expectation” at this point that J.D. will take the pilot’s seat with Rubio happily playing second fiddle.  But expectations are meant to be subverted, and nothing is more easily messed than the best-laid plans. In the event that a run from MTG, who spent yesterday picking apart Trump’s second term during a friendly appearance on CNN, the idea of provenance and expectations will surely go straight out the window. Is Rubio so dedicated to Vance that he wouldn’t consider his chances in a three-way race where Rubio would suddenly play the moderating voice? America is growing increasingly weary of the bombastic Trump era, as evidenced by polls and Tuesday’s vicious Democratic sweep. Would Rubio not see the center lane opening wide before him? Would he not take it?  The more MAGA fractures, and the more MTG courts its true populist core, the less tight Vance’s hold over its reins will be. In the event that two of MAGA’s superstars enter the ’28 primary, the “Youngkin voter” will command firm control of the party’s sway. And those voters, the tax wonks, tired and leery of YMCA shtick, eager to correct the party’s alignment, will clap like seals if Rubio takes his shot at glory again.  If MTG enters the race, and battles Vance for the MAGA wing of the electorate, it’s Rubio—if he wants it. The post It’s Rubio—If He Wants It appeared first on The American Conservative.

You aren’t imagining things; “ducking” is a real trend.

A close call. The post The song that made Frank Zappa want to quit music: “I don’t need to do anything else” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The reaction to the LP wasn't as he had anticipated. The post The one album Jeff Lynne admitted was a “disappointment” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.