Conservative Blogger
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Trump-Backed Barr Wins Kentucky Senate GOP Race
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Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., won the Republican primary for Kentucky's U.S. Senate seat, which opened when Sen. Mitch McConnell decided not to seek an eighth term. Newsmax and Decision Desk HQ called the race for Barr, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, about an hour after polls closed. With 34% of votes counted, Barr had 59.8%, followed by former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron at 31.9%
and nine other candidates. Barr will be the heavy favorite to succeed McConnell in a state Trump won by nearly 31 percentage points in the 2024 election. McConnell, 84, was the GOP Senate leader from 2007 to 2025, the longest tenure for any party leader in the upper chamber's history. Barr would have faced entrepreneur Nate Morris, who was endorsed by Donald Trump Jr. and received financial support from Elon Musk. In a Truth Social post shortly before endorsing Barr, the president said he had asked Morris to "step aside" from the race to join his administration as an ambassador. "Nate is a terrific businessman and strong MAGA Warrior," Trump wrote, adding that he will announce Morris' specific role soon. Shortly afterward, Morris posted on X that he was proud to join the Trump administration and, in another post, endorsed Barr. Barr's opponent in the November general election will be former state Rep. Charles Booker. Newsmax and DecisionDesk HQ called the race for Booker, who had 46.7% of the vote with about 95% counted. Next was former Marine pilot Amy McGrath at 35.9%, followed by five other candiates. Booker narrowly defeated McGrath in the 2020 Democrat primary before losing to McConnell in the general election. Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate race in Kentucky since 1992. |
Hakeem the Extreme: Bitter Jeffries Unloads Rage at Voters, Athletes, and Reality
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08) has always had a slightly desperate air about him since he took over the reins from Rep. Nancy Pelosi in November 2022. He lives in her shadow, and in fact, many observers consider him her puppet. He has grown increasingly bitter over the years as his political impotence is exposed almost daily by the Republicans, who keep trumping him on issue after issue. He's gone from just being generally unlikable to bitter, vitriolic, and resentful, and his endless rage stands in stark contrast to the optimism and hope that Trump and the GOP radiate. He was at it again on Tuesday, using inciting rhetoric at a progressive event to further inflame his base. Even in an era where we’ve seen increased political violence, this is the kind of language he inexplicably finds appropriate:
What even is this?! He wants to “break” over half the voters in this country (77 million) who chose Trump in ’24? That’s some pretty sick stuff. Minnesota GOP Rep. Walter Hudson summed things up nicely: UNHINGED: Hot Takes: Hakeem Jeffries Implodes As Republicans Celebrate VA Supreme Court's Gerrymander Ruling Watch: Hakeem Jeffries Launches Wild Attack on SCOTUS in Wake of Voting Rights Decision Conservative Actor/Director/Producer/Author Nick Searcy, director of “Gosnell,” had some choice words for the divisive NY rep: “The good guys don't say things like this. The super villains do.” Hakeem the Extreme wasn’t done, though. On Tuesday, he stood on the Capitol steps, joining forces with the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), to stoke racial division by calling on black athletes to boycott the powerhouse athletic conference, the Southeastern Conference (SEC), to protest redistricting areas in southern states. You mean the kind of redistricting effort that you heartily endorsed just days ago in Virginia, and an illegal gambit that even the VA Supreme Court couldn’t stomach? Or the kind of trashing of the state constitution promulgated by California Gov. Gavin Newsom with his Prop. 50 scheme? Let’s see if we can undermine race relations and send them back to another era:
Bitterness, angst, fear, and hate: those appear to be the Democrats’ main political postures since Biden was finally exposed as a puppet president and sent packing. Hakeem is even outdoing his sclerotic counterpart in the Senate, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and it’s dangerous. No matter how much rage and hate rhetoric Jeffries spouts, it will never make him captivating or appealing to anyone but his most hardcore acolytes. In the meantime, however, he’s doing a lot of damage. |
Mamdani’s ‘Balanced Budget’ Is an Accounting Atrocity
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In mid-May, after extending the executive deadline, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released his $124.7 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Executive Budget. After warning that NYC faces a budget crisis of “historic magnitude” in late April, Mamdani now assures the 8.5 million residents of the Big Apple that the city is on “firm financial footing” after he “balanced the budget” “without raising property taxes” or “slashing services.” While it is certainly true that Mamdani did not slash services or raise property taxes even higher than they already are, it is ludicrous for him to declare that NYC’s budget is sound and sustainable. Aside from Mamdani’s smoke-and-mirrors budget summary, the harsh reality is that the Big Apple is bankrupt. According to NYC Comptroller Mark Levine, the “$2.2 billion budget shortfall for FY2026 and projected $10.4 billion gap for FY2027… is the first time since the Great Recession that the City faces a budget shortfall of this magnitude.” Based on Mamdani’s “balanced budget,” the FY 2026 and FY 2027 deficits are no longer a concern. Much of the gap has been taken care of by what Mamdani calls a “partnership with Albany.” New Yorkers outside of the Big Apple call it a bailout. “Thanks to Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, the City secured an additional $4 billion in state support and actions to help stabilize the budget,” Mamdani bluntly put it. However, Albany could not supply enough money to make the short-term math work. Thus, Mamdani’s balanced budget relies upon accounting gimmicks and “new tax revenue.” “A considerable amount of savings comes from a delay of payments into New York City’s municipal pension funds, a measure that Mamdani said could save $1.6 billion in the upcoming fiscal year,” reports TIME. In budget parlance, this is known as “restructuring unfunded pension liability.” It is also referred to as kicking the can down the road. In this case, it is an accounting atrocity because NYC miscalculated the return on pension investments for years, thereby creating an additional $27 billion unfunded pension liability on top of the enormous amount of money NYC has already promised to current and future public employees. For context, NYC spends nearly $30 billion per year on pension payments and debt service compared to about $95 billion for all agencies and services. In the NYC budget pie chart, two agencies, the Department of Education and Department of Social Services, eat up approximately two-thirds of the $94.7 billion in spending. Meanwhile, the uniformed agencies (NYPD, FDNY, DSNY) are allotted 12 percent of the total budget, health 5 percent, and transportation 2 percent. NYC spends more than $42,000 per student, the highest in the nation, but NYC public schools are failing to teach students how to read or write. ALSO SEE: Because of Course: NYC Throwing Tax Dollars at Public Schools While Enrollment and Test Scores Tank I highlight this to demonstrate that spending more money on services like public education by no means guarantees better services. Although Mamdani claims that he achieved his miraculous balanced budget via “strong fiscal management” and “aggressive savings,” that could not be further from the truth. Austerity measures are like kryptonite to the democratic socialist agenda. Already, after being in office less than six months, Mamdani has turbocharged the NYC nanny state with “free childcare” and government-run grocery stores. His FY2027 budget is chock-full of new public programs and more money for existing programs, especially “help for homeless” people. In 2020, NYC spent $200 million on homeless programs. In 2027, it will likely exceed $2 billion. Predictably, Mamdani repeatedly referred to “taxing the rich” as the magic budget bullet. However, his proposed pied-Ã -terre-tax, which needs to be approved by the NYC Council, would amount to just a drop in the revenue bucket. As Mamdani and the NYC Council squabble over the FY 2027 budget, the real story is that even under Mamdani’s dream budget scenario, NYC faces projected budget shortfalls of $7 billion in FY 2028, $9 billion in FY 2029, and $9.7 billion in FY 2030. Meanwhile, Albany does not have the wherewithal to provide future Big Apple bailouts because the Empire State is also on the verge of bankruptcy. In February 2026, the New York State Comptroller warned that “the trajectory of projected State spending is estimated to increase at a rate faster than expected revenues, creating cumulative outyear budget gaps estimated by the Division of Budget to total $27.5 billion through SFY 2030 while reserves remain stagnant.” Unlike the federal government, which can run giant annual deficits by printing money, states and cities must balance their budgets, eventually. The oldest trick in the book, raising revenue, is already producing diminishing returns in NYC and New York because most of the revenue generators have skipped town and state for locales that welcome them with very low taxes. Earlier this year, Mamdani alluded to the fact that he thinks property taxes would need to be raised again, possibly to 9.5 percent, to keep New York City afloat. New York City deserves better than this. New York City residents should demand a freeze on new spending; waste, fraud, and corruption investigations into existing programs; accountability for those who misspent public funds; and at least a 9.5 percent across-the-board cut from the bureaucratic management levels at both the Department of Education and Department of Public Services. |
MAGA Vs. Massie: Scott Jennings Delivers Kentucky Republican Incumbent’s Primary Post-Mortem on CNN
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On Tuesday night, Republican Representative Thomas Massie suffered a humiliating defeat to Republican challenger Ed Gallrein in the Kentucky US House 4 Primary. It appears the incumbent Massie will lose by almost 10 points. On CNN, Republican commentator Scott Jennings weighed in on the trouncing. Jennings says Massie wasn’t MAGA, and voters resented him fighting against President Donald Trump’s America-first agenda. Here’s Jennings with his Massie primary post-mortem. (WATCH)
Trump voters are simply tired of anti-MAGA RINOs who work hand-in-hand with Democrats. Later on CNN NewsNight, Jennings reiterated some of his assessment for Massie’s loss while highlighting his sore loser jab at Ed Gallrein. (READ)
Here’s Jennings. (WATCH)
Massie indeed had a lot of support, but it was mostly from the Democrats. Posters cheekily admit that’s a clear sign that Massie’s reelection hopes deserved to go down in flames.
Massie might as well have had a ‘D’ after his name. Oh, there’s more.
He had both Joys backing him? Oh, man. Well, Massie will have plenty of time on his hands to get acquainted with some of his biggest Democrat supporters… on cable TV.
Undoubtedly, he’ll probably soon be rubbing shoulders on cable ‘news’ programs with fellow pre-Trump ‘Republican’ luminaries like Ana Navarro, Michael Steele, and Joe Scarborough. |
Ed Gallrein defeats Massie in Ky. GOP primary
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In a demonstration of his enduring grip on the Republican electorate, President Donald Trump appeared to score another major intra-party victory as the Associated Press officially called the race in favor of Ed Gallrein, defeating incumbent Representative Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District Republican primary. With polls closed and results coming in, Gallrein took a clear lead. Earlier in the day, he was already projected to win by a slew of news networks as he held roughly a 54%-46% advantage in early counting — delivering a blow to one of Capitol Hill’s most independent and libertarian-leaning lawmakers. The contest, which became the most expensive House primary in U.S. history with tens of millions spent, pitted a Trump loyalist against an incumbent who has repeatedly clashed with the president and GOP leadership. Massie, an MIT-educated engineer who had held the northern Kentucky seat since 2012, often highlighted areas of alignment with conservative principles. However, his votes against key short-term government funding measures and opposition to signature Trump-backed legislation ultimately proved too much for Republican voters to overlook. The campaign drew massive national attention and heavy financial intervention. Gallrein, a farmer and retired U.S. Navy SEAL, centered his campaign on loyalty to President Trump’s second-term agenda. The White House and Trump allies also notably deployed strong support, including an appearance by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth the day before the vote. There, Hegseth publicly criticized Massie’s pattern of obstruction. During his Monday campaign stop in Northern Kentucky, Hegseth leaned heavily into military and battle analogies to describe Massie, calling him an “obstructionist” and slamming him for breaking party unity during a period of international conflict.
Meanwhile, Massie’s defeat was also driven by a multi-million-dollar wave of outside negative advertising and conservative donors angered by his consistent opposition to foreign aid packages, including funding for Israel, and his votes against related symbolic measures. Additionally, in the final week, Massie faced personal allegations from a former partner regarding a congressional staff matter. He denied them as lies and rumors, but the controversy added to the momentum against him among traditional conservative voters. The Allegations Cynthia West, a former girlfriend of Massie who dated him for about six months between late 2024 and early 2025, alleged that he had helped secure her a temporary congressional aide position in the office of Representative Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), one of Massie’s close allies in the House. West claimed that the arrangement was intended to allow her to spend more time with Massie in Washington, D.C. According to West, after her relationship with Massie ended, she was wrongfully terminated from Spartz’s office after raising concerns about a toxic work environment. She alleged that Massie later personally offered her $5,000 in cash to drop a formal wrongful termination complaint against Spartz. West also claimed she was offered a separate $60,000 settlement through official channels to settle the dispute with Spartz’s office, which she turned down because it required signing a strict nondisclosure agreement (NDA).
According to analysts, with Gallrein’s projected victory, President Trump has once again shown that even entrenched incumbents who choose repeated confrontation over cooperation cannot withstand the power of his political movement. This builds on other recent successes, including the primary defeat of Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy. Since Kentucky’s 4th District remains a solidly Republican stronghold along the Ohio River, Gallrein is all but guaranteed to win the seat in November’s general election — adding another strong voice to a House GOP that is increasingly aligned with Trump’s agenda. |
President Donald Trump Backs Paxton, Sen. John Cornyn Concedes
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Senator John Cornyn’s offhand “I think that ship has finally sailed” comment about a possible presidential endorsement was not just a shrug — it was a concession. President Donald Trump has now publicly thrown his weight behind Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican Senate runoff, ending weeks of arm‑waving and wishful thinking. For a race where every vote and every activist matters, that two‑step — Cornyn’s admission followed by Trump’s endorsement — is the moment that rewired the contest.
Trump’s endorsement changed the dynamics
Make no mistake: a presidential nod in a tight Texas GOP runoff moves the needle. Polling showed Paxton with momentum heading into early voting, and Trump’s endorsement supercharged that base energy. Cornyn had hoped neutrality or a last‑minute intervention might save him, but his “ship has sailed” line exposed the reality — the base had already decided, and the president answered their call. That is what endorsements do: they turn enthusiasm into turnout, and in a runoff every turnout point matters.
Why the SAVE Act offer mattered — and why it was a political bluff
Paxton dangled the SAVE Act — a relentless voter‑ID measure — as his bargaining chip, saying he’d consider dropping out if Senate Republicans rammed it through. It was a clever bit of theater aimed at Trump loyalists who want big, bold election security changes. But anyone who knows how the Senate works knew it was unlikely to happen on Paxton’s timetable. Cornyn’s team should have called that bluff and run hard on conservative results instead of letting the spectacle become the story.
Cornyn’s misplay — and what he can still do
Look, Cornyn is a seasoned senator and a smart politician, but this campaign tasted too much like inside baseball. He seemed to assume an endorsement was negotiable like a trade at the country club. That was naive. If he loses the runoff, he’ll have only himself to blame for misreading the mood of the Republican base and underestimating Trump’s sway. If he wins, he needs to move fast to prove he can deliver conservative wins — and stop treating grassroots voters like an afterthought.
The stakes for November and the GOP
The bigger worry isn’t just who wins the runoff — it’s whether the party can stop fighting itself long enough to defend the Senate seat in November. Paxton carries baggage that Democrats will exploit in a general election, and Cornyn would be a weaker general‑election nominee if he survives the runoff bruised and divided. Republicans should want a clear outcome and then a united front. The messy drama of last‑minute endorsements and public concessions is exactly the kind of show Democrats sell to independents.
At this point the lesson is simple: stop making politics into polite factional theater. If Trump wanted to settle the matter, he did. If Cornyn wanted the endorsement, he should have courted it before the game was half over. Now both camps must pick up the pieces, rally the voters, and prove that conservative principles win when they’re argued for, not outsourced to drama. The voters in Texas don’t need another inside‑the‑Beltway script — they need results and respect.
Trump Unlocks UAP Files, Shakes Up Government Secrecy for Good
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President Trump followed through on a promise that would have made previous administrations choke on their secrecy: he directed federal agencies to begin identifying and releasing government files related to unidentified anomalous phenomena, a move framed as putting power back in the hands of the American people rather than shadowy bureaucrats. This is the kind of bold, unapologetic transparency voters were promised — and too often denied — by elites who prefer cover-ups to accountability. On May 8, 2026 the Pentagon began publishing an initial batch of declassified UAP files as part of a rolling disclosure initiative, making previously hidden documents accessible to citizens who have a right to know what their government has been investigating for decades. The administration has organized the releases under a new system meant to stream records to the public rather than bury them in dusty archives. Conservative patriots should applaud a president willing to challenge the permanent class in Washington that hoards information under the guise of secrecy. For years, whisper networks and anonymous officials treated the public curiosity about aerial phenomena as fodder for ridicule instead of legitimate concern, and it’s refreshing to see an administration choose openness over another bureaucratic stonewall. Make no mistake: some in the establishment and their allied media are already trying to spin the disclosures into a two-step process of gaslighting — claiming “nothing to see” while simultaneously scoffing at the very idea of accountability. Conservatives know better than to let Democrat operatives and coastal pundits shut down the debate; the files deserve sober examination, not reflexive dismissal. There are legitimate national security considerations, and responsible declassification must protect sensitive sources and methods, but that should never be an excuse for an open-ended cover-up. Defense leaders have said the process will be handled carefully and in coordination with agencies, which is appropriate — but vigilance is required to ensure redactions aren’t used to protect political favorites or well-connected insiders. This first release is a promise delivered; it’s now on everyday Americans, their elected representatives, and honest reporters to follow the trail. If you value truth, you should demand that this administration keep moving forward, that Congress hold oversight where needed, and that the media stop reflexively protecting the permanent government and start doing its job for the people. |
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Gen. Kellogg to Newsmax: Trump Should Bring Iran to Its Knees
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg
told Newsmax on Monday that President Donald Trump should suspend negotiations with Iran and instead move aggressively to choke off Tehran's economy by seizing strategic locations, including Kharg Island. "I cannot believe how reasonable he's been in this whole process and how measured he's been," Kellogg told "Rob Schmitt Tonight." Earlier Monday, Trump said he had called off a planned strike against Iran because there was still "a good chance" a deal could be reached, despite the White House rejecting Tehran's latest nuclear proposal as inadequate. The Iranian proposal included broader language pledging not to pursue a nuclear weapon but did not contain specific commitments to halt uranium enrichment or surrender existing stockpiles of highly enriched uranium. Kellogg argued the administration should stop negotiating altogether. "What I'm saying is I think we should break negotiations off," Kellogg said. Kellogg said the United States should seize Kharg Island, Iran's primary oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. "We should seize Kharg Island for a couple of reasons," Kellogg said. "One, it controls 90% of their economy. You put the whole country at risk, especially the leadership." Kharg Island handles most of Iran's crude oil exports and is widely viewed as economically vital to the regime. Kellogg also called for U.S. forces to take Larak Island, which he described as Iran's command-and-control position near the Strait of Hormuz. "You take Larak Island, which is your command-and-control hub for the strait," he said. "You put your Marines in there." Kellogg said the U.S. Navy should then position minesweepers to keep shipping lanes open. "You line up your Avenger-class minesweepers, and you escort everybody out of the Gulf on the Omani side," he said.
The retired general warned against trusting Iranian officials during negotiations, specifically mentioning Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. "I don't trust the Iranians, the Revolutionary Guards at all," Kellogg said. "We're falling right into Araghchi … the playbook that he set out." Kellogg argued that targeting Iran's economic survival would be more effective than solely eliminating military leaders. "That's the reason I said, you go after a place like Kharg Island, you take away their economy, you put them at risk, you strangle them," he said. Asked how long such a strategy would take to weaken the regime, Kellogg said he believed the pressure could produce results relatively quickly. "I don't think it takes years. It may not even take months," he said. Kellogg also openly endorsed regime change in Tehran. "Does it mean regime change? Yeah, because you cannot deal with a theocratic government," he said. "These guys are thugs." He said the U.S. should make clear negotiations are no longer the priority. "You basically say, 'You have my phone number. Give me a call when you want to talk,'" Kellogg said. "But you put everything they own at risk right now." |
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