A day in the life...of Managing Video Editor Jay Morales

Jay Morales is the Managing Video Editor of the New York office and Continuity Supervisor. He has been with Mercury Radio Arts/TheBlaze since 2010, when he was hired as a video editor. In addition to managing the six editors in the New York office, Jay is involved in directing, shooting, and editing various projects for TheBlaze TV. Below is a glimpse into his typical day.

5:00 AM: The alarm goes off at 5 o’clock. I hit snooze. Then it goes off at 5:15. I hit snooze again. I try to get up around 5:30 to go to the gym. I go to the gym and come back about an hour later. In the morning, usually I get up and it is music right away. I really like music, so it is always on as soon as I get up. I get up and read my Bible app and my Pulse app to catch up on news, graphics, videos. It gives me a daily feed. And if I don’t do that as soon as I wake up, I usually will do it after I get home from the gym, or on the subway, or waiting for the subway.

6:30 AM: I have two pugs, Brutis and Wallace. If my wife, Angie, hasn’t fed the dogs, I’ll feed the dogs and get them all taken care of. I take them out, come back, and then battle with Angie for the bathroom. I try to take a shower while she does her hair and makeup – she gets mad at me if I steam up the bathroom. For breakfast, if I am running late, I will throw peanut butter on an English muffin, grab a banana, and bring it to work. Otherwise, I will have a bowl of cereal, or an English muffin with orange juice, or some toast.

7:45 AM: My wife and I try to leave together to catch the shuttle from our place to the subway at Columbus Circle. Then we take the 1 train a couple of stops. We get off at the same stop. I kiss my wife goodbye, and it’s off to the office.

8:15 AM: I get to the office anywhere between 8:15 and 9 o’clock. I like to get here early so I can just kind of get ready mentally. If I am working on a project, I like to have that quiet time to work on anything I was thinking about. I kind of obsess over it – over the process of the project. It never leaves my mind. I am always thinking about how can I improve it, what’s lacking, whether its color, story, whatever it is. If I am working on something, I like to have some time in the morning to pick that up before I get going and start checking in with everyone.

9:00 AM: Between 9 and 10 I make rounds and check in with everyone. I check in with all the editors – follow up to see how everyone is doing with their projects. I manage six editors now. I like to follow up with the producers to see what is coming next. Then I check in with Michele [Smiley, Network Operations Manager] and let her know what I have going on. She downloads me on anything that is coming down the pipe or any surprises, things that we may not have known about. We are just shuffling the pieces and saying, “Am I doing this? Do I have someone else who can pick it up?” And then I get back to my desk. I put all of the information into an email to the producers, the editors, Michele, and the Dallas edit team, so that everyone is on the same page. Sometimes people approach us with a project without knowing what else is going on, so it is a good way to keep everyone informed.

10:00 AM: If I haven’t had coffee along the way, I will have my coffee then. Depending on the day, it’s a Starbucks Triple Mocha. I hate ordering Starbucks the way they ask you to order it, like with the “Venti” and stuff. I just say large. Otherwise, on a normal day – if I have gone to sleep and everything else – I will just grab my Dunkin Donuts. I used to make my coffee at home, when my wife was drinking it too, but she is pregnant now, so she isn’t really drinking coffee. I used to make the coffee in the morning, have a cup at home, get to the office, have another cup, and then have my afternoon cup. But I have been scaling back on the coffee lately.

10:30 AM: After I send out my emails, typically I am picking up on my project or following up on anything pending. Michele and I are pretty much the hub in New York, so either she is funneling projects to me, or I pick them up along the way. I mean I will be walking past and people are like, “Hey, I had an idea.” That’s typically how it goes. But if I am working on something, it is right back to the project. Lunch is secondary. I’ll eat when I can eat. If I am really into a project – which if I am working on it, I’m into it – I won’t eat until 3 or 4 o’clock. It depends on the day. It depends on the project.

2:00 PM: In the afternoon, I will check in again. If I need to come up for air, or if I am just stuck or not clear on where I want to go creatively on a project, I will take that time to touch base with everyone. Even when I am not working on a project, I am doing research – watching tutorials, collaborating with the guys, seeing what they are working on, watching their stuff, watching the network, watching the commercials to see how it is flowing together, listening to Glenn’s crazy ideas. The best way to figure out what is happening is to listen to the show. You will find out about things that way and be like, “Oh, that’s good to know. I probably should have known that.”

6:30 PM: I get out between 6 and 7. Usually when I hear Real News come on, I get the idea that it is time to wind down. On a good day, my wife will meet me downstairs, and we will walk home if the weather is good. It’s about 35 or 40 minutes, but it doesn’t feel that long in New York. It’s a good time for us to catch up because we don’t really talk during the day. She is super busy. She is a buyer in fashion, so she is running around all day. We really catch up at the end of the day. But if I am working on a project with a short turnaround – I mean, I am known to stay here until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and still come back at 8… whatever it takes to get it done.

7:15 PM: We get home, and Angie starts dinner. We take care of the dogs. If I am working on a project, I will probably be at the kitchen counter with my iPad, watching it, showing it to her. She gives me really good feedback. She thinks it’s kind of obsessive sometimes, but that’s the way I do it. I can’t get away from it. That’s the only way I can get over it. It consumes me.

8:30 PM: We usually get on the couch after dinner with the dogs, watching a show or catching up on emails that aren’t work related. I am really bad. I don’t really talk to anyone, especially during the week. I hardly talk to my wife during the day, let alone anyone else. So I am really bad about that, but luckily I have good friends who understand my job.

11:00 PM: I try to get to bed around 11. Since I was a kid, I have slept with music on. Now I need to have the fan on instead. I need some sort of noise to drown out the silence. Sleeping doesn’t always happen. I am usually tossing and turning. Sometimes I’ll see ideas in my head about something I’m working on, and it is like, wow, I can do this. If I get stuck, it almost always comes to me when I am in bed.

As told to Meg Storm

 

A new Monroe Doctrine? Trump quietly redraws the Western map

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Colorado counselor fights back after faith declared “illegal”

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!