July 7, 2026 — Scott Johnson

This just in

Featured image Following up on “Unstrait is the gate,” I think this deserves a separate note: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired at least two missiles at commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz early on Tuesday, two senior U.S. officials told Axios. Both ships suffered significant damage, but no casualties were reported, one of the cited officials said. U.K. Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) confirmed one of the incidents, saying a tanker »
July 7, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Tattoo you

Featured imageI wrote about Maine Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner on May 31 in “A Platner to make you plotz.” At that time I contemplated that the Democrats would send Platner out to pasture with a substitute after he secured the Democratic nomination, as he went on to do. Platner has now been abandoned by his Democrat friends as a political inconvenience. He is guilty of faults of the traditional kind »
July 6, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Thief River caper

Featured imageStranger than fiction. Last month, on the heels of the great Bemidji (MN) roofing raid where ICE nabbed more than a dozen illegal aliens at a residential job site, federal immigration authorities did a similar raid in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. According to federal court filings, the raid in Thief River Falls took place at a commercial roofing job site, believe it or not, of all places, at the Pennington »
July 7, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Unstrait is the gate

Featured imageAthough the Iranian regime agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz in the June 17 memorandum of understanding with the Unites States, it has failed to do so. General Jack Keane states it as a matter of fact in his bluntest appearance on Fox News yesterday. His statement of the case brings us up to date. Vice President Vance’s new friends in Iran appear not to be all that he »
July 6, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Do Democrats Even Pretend…

Featured image…to be patriotic anymore? YouGov conducted a poll of more than 1,000 U.S. adults, on the subject of flags. The results are dismaying. Steve Moore’s Unleash Prosperity Hotline highlights this: Democrats view the Black Lives Matter flag more positively than the American flag: Amazing, especially since Black Lives Matter turned out to be a fraudulent organization. The results at the link are generally pretty interesting, especially the crosstabs, but I »
July 6, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Farewell to Graham Platner

Featured imageGraham Platner, the self-described Communist with a Nazi tattoo and a long paper trail on social media, was obviously a person of low character from the beginning. But he polled pretty well against Susan Collins, so every prominent Democrat stuck with him. Or pretended to, anyway. Maybe they were just looking for the right opportunity to jump ship. That opportunity came today, when Politico released a report, based on its »
July 6, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Strange planet

Featured imageLast night TCM played the dystopian thriller Soylent Green (1973), starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson. It was Robinson’s last film. He was dying of cancer during the filming and Heston credited him with the success of the film. Robinson played his character’s death scene in the face of his own “true and imminent death,” as Heston subsequently wrote. Rereading Gulliver’s Travels, I’ve been thinking about Heston’s role as »
July 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker

On the Left, Dogma Beats Reality

Featured imageI wrote here about Zohran Mamdani’s hate-filled, anti-American July 4 rant. It was filled with poisonous distortions of American history, and Mamdani denounced “oligarchs”–an oligarch is any rich person who is not on the Left, and whose money liberals would therefore like to steal–and attacked Elon Musk as the world’s first trillionaire. (Relax, Zohran–Elon isn’t a trillionaire any more, as SpaceX shares have slid off their opening highs.) But I »
July 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Patriotism Has Become Partisan

Featured imageThat was a comment I made on television last night, talking about the 250th anniversary celebration, which I said is muted compared to the Bicentennial. I took a few minutes out from a family Independence Day party to appear on Outsiders–the first time the hosts had seen me without a tie on. Along with Independence Day, we talked about Tim Walz and Keith Ellison pardoning a convicted rapist to spare »
July 4, 2026 — John Hinderaker

The Pursuit of Happiness

Featured imageThe famous second sentence of the Declaration of Independence enumerates three “unalienable Rights.” The first is life, naturally. The second is liberty. Those concepts are rather standard. But the third–the pursuit of happiness–is not. It is an expression of Jefferson’s genius, I think, and it contains the seeds of what has made America unique. You will find it no other national charter, in no international human rights document. It is »
July 4, 2026 — Scott Johnson

From 150 to 250, this truth abides

Featured imagePresident Calvin Coolidge celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926, with a speech providing a magisterial review of the history and thought underlying the Declaration. His speech on the occasion deserves to be read and studied in its entirety. The following paragraph, however, is particularly relevant to the challenge that confronts us in the variants of the progressive dogma that pass themselves off today »
July 6, 2026 — Scott Johnson

A happy ending

Featured imageIn his It’s Noon In Israel newsletter Amit Segal recounts the story behind the wedding of former October 7 hostages Sasha Troufanov and Sapir Cohen in Israel over the weekend: Sapir was released…during the November 2023 ceasefire, not knowing whether Sasha was still alive. For Sasha, the nightmare stretched on for more than 400 days. He was shot in the legs by his captors, and by the time he was »
July 5, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Milton Friedman Isn’t Running the Show Anymore

Featured imageThat is what Joe Biden said in 2020. He also said, in 2019, “When did Milton Friedman die and become king?” Putting aside the non sequitur, Friedman certainly wasn’t running the show during the Biden administration, which is why the consumer price index increased by 21.2%. That Democrats are ignorant about economics is no surprise. But what about Republicans? I was dismayed to see this clip of a JD Vance »
July 5, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Habeas corpus makes a comeback

Featured imageThe number of habeas corpus cases filed in Minnesota is ramping back up again, reflecting both renewed ICE enforcement activity and increasingly lenient judges. Since March 25, when the federal 8th Circuit court of appeals ruled that “shall be detained” meant exactly that in relation to illegal aliens, some 222 new habeas cases have been filed in the federal district of Minnesota. These habeas corpus petitions seek the release of illegal aliens held »
July 5, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Sunday morning coming down

Featured imageSuzy Bogguss returns to town this Wednesday evening for a show in Minneapolis. Anticipating the show brought me back to one of her recordings that fits this special holiday weekend. I thought I would draw on that recording to continue the festivities this morning. Suzy seemed to me to have created a second career for herself when her country star faded, but in January she was inducted into the Grand »
July 4, 2026 — John Hinderaker

America at a Crossroads

Featured imageCelebration of America’s 250th anniversary has been, I think, muted. President Trump has tried to clean up Washington, D.C., for the occasion, and has sponsored various festivities. But Democrats have actively opposed his cleanup efforts, so we have the absurd spectacle of Democrats cheering on the algae in the Reflecting Pool. And they have largely boycotted the celebrations. Many have compared the enthusiasm and good cheer with which our Bicentennial »
July 4, 2026 — Scott Johnson

The eternal meaning of Independence Day

Featured imageOn July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and »