June 6, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Norwegian Pride!

Featured image I don’t usually write about un-American sports, but who can resist Norway’s World Cup soccer squad and its iconic team photo? Certainly not me, as an almost 100% descendant of Norwegians. Click to enlarge: The Norwegian players are evidently proud of their Viking heritage. As are many in my home state, Minnesota, where our NFL team is called, as everyone knows, the Vikings. Yet there are always killjoys. One of »
June 6, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Vance, Starmer, and Western Civilization

Featured imageWe have been following the Henry Nowak case that his roiled Great Britain. It is only the latest of many instances of Britain’s two-tier justice system, but for whatever reason it seems to be the incident that has opened the floodgates. Yesterday JD Vance weighed in on Twitter: Vance’s comments were only incidentally about the particulars of the Nowak case, and only partly about the U.K. His point was broader–a »
June 6, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Charles Durning recalls

Featured imageYou undoubtedly saw the actor Charles Durning in what might have been a favorite movie or two, including such gems as The Sting, Dog Day Afternoon, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and several others. Those just happen to be my favorite of his films. Durning died in 2012 at the age of 89. His accessible Variety obituary is posted online here. Durning was also a decorated Army vet who served »
June 6, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Anti-fraud summer tour in Minnesota

Featured imageBeginning later this month (Monday, June 22), American Experiment will be kicking off its annual summer tour of Minnesota. The theme this year is fighting fraud in social welfare programs, a timely topic getting national attention. We have sixteen (16) events on the calendar, covering the state, which can be seen here. One or two more may be added. My personal goal is to appear at every event. John will »
June 6, 2026 — Scott Johnson

D-Day remembered

Featured imageMy college classmate John Floberg retired after a distinguished career in neurology. We took Professor Peter Bien’s freshman seminar on Politics and the Novel together during our first term. John is originally from Chicago but we reconnected in the Twin Cities through Power Line 40 years after our studies with Professor Bien. Last year John wrote “Doorstops” for us. Following in a family tradition, John served as a commissioned Navy »
June 6, 2026 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: Pulling Pelley Edition

Featured imageOn the whole, it’s been a good week. It’s not every week that serves up the kind of supreme schadenfreudey goodness that comes from the firing of the pompous CBS News blowhard Scott Pelley, with more to follow. Less noticed was that NPR laid off most of its climate change reporters this week, too. If NPR is giving up on the climate crusade, it is well and truly over. The »
June 5, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Minnesota’s most wanted

Featured imageThe feds are offering a $150,000 reward for one of the international fugitives in the Feeding Our Future scandal. A post from the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, Mr. Ereg is defendant No. 61 (out of 80 or so) in the sprawling $500 million Feeding Our Future fraud scandal. He was indicted, along with his wife (Najmo Ahmed, No. 62), back in January 2024 on charges of stealing more than $4 »
June 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Jobs Boom

Featured imageMore good economic news: The BLS number of jobs reported this morning for the month of May was close to 265,000 – when including the upward revisions from previous months. This is a phenomenal number given the declining workforce. The workforce is declining due to illegal aliens self-deporting or, in a smaller number of cases, being deported. This chart shows the numbers: At the same time, the financial markets are »
June 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker

The KKK, Rubio’s Shoes and 60 Minutes

Featured imageLast night, I was on the Sky News U.S. Report with host James Morrow. It was an excellent conversation that covered the latest allegations in the prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the clown show that Democrats have made out of Congressional committee hearings, and the collapse of 60 Minutes. There is a harkening back to Rathergate, and discussion of the Ku Klux Klan–a group that, years ago, I »
June 4, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Who’s Obsessed With Race?

Featured imageLiberals like to denounce the rest of us as racists, but the truth is that they are the ones who are obsessed with race. This is a classic example: “BBC apologises for misquoting Farage on Nowak murder.” The BBC has apologised to Nigel Farage after one of its presenters misquoted his comments about the killing of Henry Nowak. During Tuesday’s Newsnight programme, Matt Chorley, the presenter, said that the Reform »
June 4, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Bolton to Plead Guilty

Featured imageJohn Bolton reportedly will plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information, and will pay a $2.25 million fine to avoid jail time. From the indictment that gave rise to the current plea: “From on or about April 9, 2018, through at least on or about August 22, 2025, BOLTON abused his position as National Security Advisor by sharing more than a thousand pages of information about his »
June 5, 2026 — Bill Glahn

The shrinking federal workforce

Featured imageThe trend is your friend. John had already covered earlier today the big news on the blowout May jobs report and the upward revisions on past months’ data. I like to dig into the report each month for certain numbers that reinforce helpful trends within the bigger trends. In May, the federal government workforce shrunk by another 2,600 for the month. The post office made up for that with more »
June 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker

On Platner, Fetterman Breaks Ranks

Featured imageAs one scandal after another befalls Graham Platner, national Democrats have closed ranks behind him. No doubt they are privately calculating whether they need to dump him, and if so, whether it can realistically be done. But in public, they are with Platner 100%. With one exception: as in so many other instances, John Fetterman dissents: “Every Democrat knows P-Hustle has Nazi ink, was Captain D–k-Pic on Kik, abusive towards »
June 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker

A New $250 Bill?

Featured imageDemocrats are outraged over the news that the administration is considering issuing a $250 bill in commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, with President Trump’s picture on it. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent displayed a mockup of the hypothetical bill: I think this is a marvelous troll on the part of President Trump. Trump has a sense of humor, and his critics generally don’t. Thus, they often fail to understand when »
June 5, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Personal and confidential: Berney Strauss

Featured imageI am traveling early this morning and most of the day to the wedding of John Hammel Strauss, the son of Berney Strauss, in upstate New York. Berney was my best college friend. After college we went to graduate school together pursuing our interest in literature before shifting our attention elsewhere. In lieu of my usual deliberations over the news of the day, I want to invoke Berney’s memory while »
June 4, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Gen. Keane on the Iran status quo

Featured imageJack Keane is the retired four-star General, former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and chairman of the Institute for the Study of War. He is smart and well-informed. He discusses where we are and whither we are tending in the conflict with Iran. His observations on the status quo help to arbitrate the differences between John and me. He is the guest on the current What the Hell »
June 4, 2026 — John Hinderaker

A More Optimistic View on Iran

Featured imageI have often expressed puzzlement over the Trump administration’s cease fire in Iran and its strategy going forward. In general, my views align with Scott’s, as expressed earlier today. However, for a more optimistic view, check out Condoleezza Rice’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal: The war against Iran has been a limited war, and its outcome is likely to be inconclusive. But it has achieved enough to produce a »