Senator Mitch McConnell was confirmed to have been hospitalized on June 14 for an unknown condition — but that was now weeks ago, and the people of Kentucky have received no meaningful updates about his condition.

Now, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is asking questions that Washington refuses to answer.

“Here are the rumors. And they’re rumors. If they’re true, they’re tragic. If the rumors are false, then somebody needs to step up and tell the American people the truth. Either way, this is not how a constitutional republic is supposed to function,” Glenn says.

According to these rumors, it’s been three weeks since the people of Kentucky have heard about the condition of Senator Mitch McConnell.

“His office has issued really carefully worded statements. He’s recovering. He appreciates everyone’s support. They don’t say what happened. They don’t say when he’s going to return,” Glenn explains. “They don’t answer even the basic question every citizen has a right to: Can he still do the job?”

“Is he still thinking? And this is not a cruel question, but the guy is a sitting senator, and it’s a question that matters, because this is bigger than Mitch McConnell. We watched America do this with President Biden,” he continues.

“Republicans are now the mirror image of the people they criticized,” he says. “You know, if your party has spent years demanding honesty about the president’s health, you kind of have an obligation to demand honesty about your own leader in your own GOP.”

“This is not about left or right. This is about representation,” he adds.

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‘Election month’ is California’s delay by design

“Accuracy comes before speed.” That was California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s message to voters in a press release issued two days after officials began counting ballots from June’s primary. In the same release, she reminded voters that the count could continue for up to 30 days after Election Day.

Weber argued that California is “taking the time to do this work correctly” to protect voters’ rights and ensure election integrity.

After 2022, 2024, and this year’s primary, the problem no longer looks like a glitch. It looks like a pattern created by poor policy choices.

She is right about one thing: Accuracy matters.

Every lawful ballot should be counted. Every voter should be confident that election officials will get the count right.

But a week after Election Day, California was still processing 1.4 million ballots under a system that routinely extends vote counting for days and sometimes weeks after voters cast their ballots.

That raises a question California’s leaders seem increasingly unwilling to answer: Why are voters repeatedly told they must choose between accurate elections and timely results?

This is not the first time California has found itself in this mess.

In 2022, several California congressional races remained unresolved long after Election Day while control of the U.S. House hung in limbo. Two years later, California took 38 days to certify its election results. Now in 2026, Californians are again waiting weeks after Election Day for final results.

The details change. The outcome does not. Californians keep waiting.

So why does this keep happening?

The answer starts with California election law. According to CalMatters, the delay is due in part to policies California adopted to make voting easier after the COVID-19 pandemic: Every registered voter receives a mail ballot, and ballots remain valid as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at county elections offices within seven days.

Election law expert Hans von Spakovsky has argued that California’s slow vote count is not an isolated incident or unexpected complication. It is the way the state’s election system is designed.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In other words, California is not experiencing an unexpected delay. It is experiencing the predictable results of the laws it chose.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) helped cement those policies in 2021 when he signed AB 37, making universal vote by mail permanent. His office promoted the law as “landmark elections legislation” that would expand vote by mail and strengthen election integrity.

Yet, Californians are now being sold the idea that waiting days or weeks for election results is simply the reality of modern elections.

It is not. It is the reality of California elections.

Timely results are part of election integrity. The longer ballots remain uncounted, the longer election officials must maintain secure chains of custody, verification systems, and storage. Delay does not automatically mean fraud. But delay does create more opportunities for confusion, suspicion, and avoidable controversy.

If California leaders want faster results, they should examine the policies that slow them down.

Instead, voters are told these delays are the unavoidable cost of administering elections in a large state. That explanation falls apart under scrutiny.

Look at Florida. The 2000 presidential election exposed serious weaknesses in that state’s election system. Legislators responded by reforming the state’s election administration and ballot-processing procedures.

Today, Florida is one of the fastest states in the country to report election results.

Florida allows election officials to begin processing mail ballots before Election Day, giving counties a head start on verification. The state also requires most mail ballots to be received by Election Day rather than days afterward. Voters whose signatures are missing or do not match generally have a much shorter window to fix those problems than California voters do.

Florida proves that accuracy and speed are not mutually exclusive.

California has chosen a different approach.

This is about more than administrative efficiency. In five months, Californians will return to the polls for the midterm election. Voters deserve confidence that the results will be accurate. They also deserve confidence that those results will arrive on time.

Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Lawmakers should examine whether ballots should continue arriving after Election Day and still be counted. They should review whether lengthy ballot-curing timelines help voters or simply extend uncertainty. Election officials should also receive every opportunity to process ballots before Election Day so results can be reported faster once polls close.

Most important, California leaders should stop pretending accuracy and speed are enemies. Florida proves they are not.

Weber says accuracy comes before speed. California voters should ask why they cannot have both.

After 2022, 2024, and this year’s primary, the problem no longer looks like a glitch. It looks like a pattern created by poor policy choices.

California built an election process that can take a month after Election Day to resolve.

Voters should stop accepting that as normal.

Alarming levels of heavy metals found in protein powders, sparking investigation from Texas AG Paxton

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday an industry-wide investigation into protein powder manufacturers following the release of a pair of damning reports that confirmed the presence of various heavy metals in popular powders and ready-to-drink shakes.

Roughly 15 years ago, Consumer Reports tested 15 protein drinks in a laboratory and found that all of the drinks "had at least one sample containing one or more of the following contaminants: arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury."

'Far too many corporations have snuck harmful ingredients in their products.'

The investigators determined that while the heavy metal levels detected in most drinks were in the "low to moderate range," certain drinks had enough to warrant concern if consumed multiple times a day.

Last year, Consumer Reports conducted a new round of tests, scrutinizing 23 protein powders and read-to-drink shakes from popular brands. The CR investigators discovered that the problem facing the protein products of yesteryear is now not only commonplace but supercharged.

"For more than two-thirds of the products we analyzed, a single serving contained more lead than CR’s food safety experts say is safe to consume in a day — some by more than 10 times," said the report.

Lead is toxic to humans. Exposure in adults — for which there is no known safe level — can cause numerous health conditions including decreased kidney function, heart problems, infertility, and joint weakness.

Alexandre Simoes/Borussia Dortmund/Getty Images

According to the Food and Drug Administration, "The most serious effects of lead exposure can occur during times of active brain development. High levels of exposure to lead in utero, infancy, and early childhood can lead to neurological effects such as learning disabilities, behavior difficulties, and lowered IQ."

The new CR investigation, led by chemist and food safety researcher Tunde Akinleye, found that the average level of lead in the protein powders was much higher than that observed in the previous CR tests and that there were fewer products with undetectable amounts of it.

Yesteryear's worst in show apparently have nothing on today's outliers.

According to the report, Naked Nutrition's Vegan Mass Gainer powder — the product found to have the highest lead levels among those tested — had twice as much lead per 315-gram serving as the worst product analyzed in 2010. It reportedly contained 7.7 micrograms of lead per serving, which is roughly 1,570% of CR's level of concern for the heavy metal.

Lead levels in a 90-gram serving of Huel's Black Edition powder — reportedly 6.3 micrograms of lead, or 1,288% of CR's daily lead limit — similarly raised concerns among testers, as did the levels in Garden of Life's Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein and Momentous' since-discontinued 100% Plant Protein powder, which allegedly contained lead between 400% and 600% of CR's level of concern.

The report concluded:

roughly 70% of the products tested contained over 120% of CR's level of concern for lead, which is 0.5 micrograms per day;
three products exceeded CR's level of concern for inorganic arsenic and cadmium — Huel's Black Edition powder, for instance, contained 9.2 micrograms of cadmium, which is more than twice the level that health experts say could be harmful to have daily;
consumers should avoid Naked Nutrition's Vegan Mass Gainer and Huel's Black Edition and limit consumption of Garden of Life Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein and Momentous' 100% Plant Protein to once a week; and
plant-based protein powders had, on average, nine times the amount of lead found in products made with dairy proteins like whey and twice as much as beef-based products.

Naked Nutrition's chief marketing officer James Clark told CR that his company takes "customers' health very seriously"; sources its ingredients from "select suppliers" that provide documentation attesting they were checked for heavy metals; and had requested a third-party test of its product Mass Gainer.

A spokesman for Huel stressed that the company was "confident in the current formulation and safety of the products," adding that its ingredients undergo "rigorous testing."

Will McClaren, a spokesman for Momentous, claimed his company had executed a "massive overhaul" of its lineup and discontinued the products that CR had tested, namely the company's Whey Protein Isolate and its 100% Plant Protein.

A spokesperson for Garden of Life US said the company's products were safe for daily use and that the company's limits for heavy metals were determined by closely following food safety guidance from the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other safety authorities.

Both Garden of Life and Momentous told CR that they tested their ingredients and finished protein products for heavy metals.

The Clean Label Project, an advocacy organization committed to greater transparency in product labeling, similarly found from a review of over 160 of the top-selling protein powders — according to Nielsen and Amazon best-seller lists — that heavy metals were a common issue.

The advocacy and research group stated in its January 2025 report that "47% of products exceeded at least one federal or state regulatory set for safety."

Texas AG Paxton said on Monday, "Protein is a vital macronutrient for human health, and Texans deserve clean protein powders without having to worry whether the products contain heavy metals or other harmful chemicals."

"Far too many corporations have snuck harmful ingredients in their products, and I am committed to doing everything I can to help Make America Healthy Again," added Paxton.

Paxton's investigation will "examine whether companies falsely marketed or misrepresented the safety and contents of their products and whether they failed to disclose known information about heavy metal contamination in violation of Texas law."

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CIA official allegedly stole $40 million in gold bars for 'work-related expenses' after lying on resume

The FBI arrested a high-level spook last week who was sitting on a veritable treasure trove of allegedly purloined gold bars and cash, altogether worth tens of millions of dollars.

The bureau characterized David Rush in a May 20 federal court filing as a "former Senior Executive Service level employee at a United States government agency" with top secret compartmented information clearance and access to classified information. Sources familiar with the investigation spelled it out further, telling the New York Times that he was, up until recently, a senior CIA official.

'A C.I.A. internal investigation identified potential violations of the law.'

According to the affidavit, there is probable cause to believe that between 2009 and this month, David Rush "knowingly embezzled, stole, purloined, or knowingly converted a thing of value of the United States or received, concealed, or retained the same with intent to convert it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen, purloined, or converted, including by obtaining a fraudulently inflated salary and fraudulently obtaining military leave, the value of which exceeded $1,000."

Rush allegedly made several requests to the federal government between November 2025 and March 2026 to obtain a boatload of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for "work-related expenses." The affidavit claims that Rush successfully obtained the gold and cash.

A review of the storage space at the government site where Rush had an office turned up only some of the riches the spy had acquired, according to the affidavit. The government apparently was unable to locate the remainder of the cash and bullion or any record of Rush "providing information to his employer regarding the disposition of the currency or gold bars."

The mystery of the missing treasure was apparently solved on May 18, when the FBI raided Rush's home in the Eastern District of Virginia.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

Federal agents reportedly seized roughly 303 gold bars, each weighing a kilogram. At the time of writing, a kilo of gold was valued at around $144,900 — meaning that Rush was allegedly sitting on over $43 million in gold alone. Agents also reportedly seized roughly $2 million in U.S. currency and 35 luxury watches, many of which were Rolexes.

Besides allegedly purloining a galleon-load of treasure, Rush has been accused of lying about his credentials and fudging military leave information on his official time sheet.

Citing findings in the FBI's investigation, the affidavit claims that Rush submitted multiple applications for government jobs "containing false information about his education background and work with the United States military." Contrary to his statements, Rush allegedly never attended Clemson University or the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; wasn't a pilot for the Navy; and does not have a Federal Aviation Administration certificate or pilot's license.

"After a C.I.A. internal investigation identified potential violations of the law, C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe referred the information to the F.B.I. for a law enforcement investigation," the CIA and FBI said in a joint statement.

The FBI arrested Rush on May 19.

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