July 25, 2026 — Scott Johnson

And on the fourteenth day

Featured image Having noted Victor Davis Hanson’s comments on our recent ceasefire deals with Iran, I wanted to add that Centcom announced no strikes on Iran for the first time in two weeks last night. Are we talking again with the regime to reach a desired result? At this point, I think war war is better than jaw jaw. Searching Centcom’s X feed, I find the X post by Foundation for Defense »
July 25, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Force majeure

Featured imageFrom the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Post Modern Times’ promise of free meals may have been too good to last. Restaurant that gave away food for free is forced to close for lack of money. No one could have seen that coming. Another way to look at it, restaurants that don’t charge for food are soup kitchens. The Star Tribune reports, Outside the restaurant walls, neighbors told a different story. They »
July 25, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Around the world with VDH

Featured imageOur friend Victor Davis Hanson sat for an interview with the Washington Post’s Kate Andrews. Andrews is one of the rotating hosts for the Post’s Make It Make Sense podcast. I hadn’t heard of the podcast and haven’t seen anything about this episode. It is available at the Washington Post here, but also on podcast platforms including YouTube (below). In its 35 minutes they cover the California dystopia (12 minutes), »
July 25, 2026 — John Hinderaker

About the Minnesota “N-Word” Case

Featured imageMinnesota can’t seem to stay out of the news. Yesterday a jury in Rochester returned a guilty verdict in the prosecution of Shiloh Hendrix, a young woman was caught on video calling a Somali man a “nigger.” The incident occurred in a public park, where a Somali boy stole something from a bag belonging to Hendrix and her own young child. Hendrix recovered the item from the boy and called »
July 25, 2026 — John Hinderaker

The Week In Pictures: Long Strange Trip Edition

Featured imageThe long strange trip is, of course, the Odyssey. The Christopher Nolan film dropped, to mixed reactions from conservative reviewers. Along with reviews, it gave rise to a number of entertaining memes. It was a rather slow week, so there were leftover memes–the World Cup, the buffalo, and so on. But the largest number of memes attacked socialism. Socialism has always been a target in meme-world, but with the Democratic »
July 24, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Accused Widdecombe killer in court

Featured imageFrom the U.K. Daily Mail earlier this week, Ann Widdecombe ‘was bludgeoned 21 times with a hammer after killer walked through open front door’. Yikes. The Daily Mail reports, Disturbing details of her brutal murder emerged today as her alleged killer Joshua Kerry appeared in court for the first time. And yes, if Kerry is the killer, he is exactly as you would imagine him to be. Who is the »
July 24, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Trump’s Success, and AI’s Bias

Featured imageMy colleague David Zimmer dug into the data to assess the success of President Trump’s immigration policies. He found them to be very successful, indeed: There has been a concerted effort by “open immigration” advocates, “anti-Trumpers,” and a supportive legacy media, to portray the immigration enforcement efforts of the Trump administration in the poorest light possible. Many detractors have virtually ignored the success the Trump administration has had at securing »
July 24, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Senator Sheehy has a few thoughts

Featured imageMontana Senator Tim Sheehy is a Minnesota native and alumnus of St. Paul Academy as well as the Naval Academy. After graduation from the Naval Academy in 2008, he “completed several deployments and hundreds of missions as a US Navy SEAL Officer and Team Leader, deploying to Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, and the Pacific region. Tim was honored to serve alongside many American heroes and was involved in dozens of »
July 24, 2026 — Scott Johnson

The J.D. Vance experience

Featured imageLast week the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel devoted her weekly column — “Vance Goes AWOL” — to criticism of Vance by congressional Republicans. Strassel channeled the frustration of congressional Republicans for his scarcity on Capitol Hill in general and his cancellation of a scheduled meeting with them on Tuesday last week: “They instead were notified of a scheduling conflict as Air Force Two winged to Texas. Wednesday was spent »
July 23, 2026 — John Hinderaker

About Those USAID Cuts

Featured imageLiberals claimed, using made-up arithmetic assumptions, that many thousands of Africans would die as a result of the Trump administration’s cuts to hopelessly corrupt USAID programs. Not surprisingly, demographic statistics show that those projected deaths did not occur. But that doesn’t mean the USAID cuts had no effects. The Associated Press mourns the plight of a group to which you probably have given little thought: transsexuals in Nepal. We can »
July 23, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Red States Win, Going Away [Updated]

Featured imageI think it is generally understood that red states outperform blue states by any possible measure. The Committee to Unleash Prosperity offers a new analysis that reaches that conclusion. This approach is unique because it tries to eliminate other variables, and isolate the importance of political philosophy: [W]e needed to use more sophisticated statistical analysis to account for these other, non-political factors. We want to be able to say with »
July 24, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Nuremberg Trial For Trump?

Featured imageWe have followed the sad descent of Tucker Carlson into madness. Here, he accuses President Trump and the entire Republican Party (except for Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, now gone from the party) of treason. He wants them subjected to Nuremberg-style show trials. Why? It has something to do with Israel. As best I can reconstruct it, some tinfoil hat types are saying that the National Defense Authorization Act »
July 24, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Real friends of fake Dan

Featured imageYou may have read about the fake Dan Sullivan running in Alaska to confuse voters and undercut Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan. The Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman and Collin Anderson have turned over a few rocks to find the stealthy hand of Chuck Schumer in the mix: Days after Chuck Schumer denied any involvement in the campaign of Dan J. Sullivan—the newly declared Republican known as “Decoy Dan” who is »
July 24, 2026 — Scott Johnson

A gathering storm

Featured imageCentcom has announced the thirteenth straight night of strikes against Iran: “CENTCOM targeted Iranian military command centers, drone storage facilities, communication networks, coastal surveillance sites, and maritime capabilities to further diminish the threat Iran poses to civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.” With the limited set of targets so identified, it sounds the same as it ever was over the past two weeks. Centcom’s statement is »
July 23, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Exposed: The Establishment’s Love of Race Discrimination

Featured imageThere was a time this afternoon when more than half of my Instagram feed consisted of video clips of Congressman Brandon Gill questioning witnesses in committee hearings. Gill is the new hero of the conservative movement, largely because of his skill at questioning liberal witnesses. To be honest, it isn’t that hard: Gill’s secret is that, instead of giving speeches as most members of Congress do, he actually asks the »
July 23, 2026 — John Hinderaker

No Deal?

Featured imageEarlier today, President Trump threw an apparent monkey wrench into the announced Saudi nuclear deal by adding a condition that the Saudis join the Abraham Accords, thus recognizing Israel. Not having followed this issue closely, I found the context in the linked article helpful: Negotiations for a Saudi nuclear power plant began in earnest under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, who envisaged it as part of a broader deal that would »
July 23, 2026 — Scott Johnson

The Lindell road to GOP ruin

Featured imageIt turns out that Trump-endorsed Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Mike Lindell has a plan. It’s a six-month amnesty plan for illegal aliens. The Washington Examiner reports: “Mike Lindell proposes six-month amnesty for illegal immigrants if elected Minnesota governor.” Fortunately, Mike Lindell will never be elected governor of Minnesota. Unfortunately, if he prevails in the August 11 primary, he may bring down Republicans in state and federal races all over the state. »