June 28, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Whole lotta deconflictin’ goin’ on?

Featured image Vice President Vance has bragged about “the deconfliction channel” Washington and Tehran agreed to set up during talks in Switzerland. Representatives from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the US Army’s Central Command are to sit together — where else? — in Qatar: “One of the things we wanted to come out with [was a] channel on the Iranian side [for reducing conflict], which we did,” Vance said in an »
June 28, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Sunday morning coming down

Featured imageI haven’t thought abut Gordon Lightfoot since he died at the age of 84 in 2023. Yesterday Albert O played “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” on WUMB’s Highway 61 Revisited and it brought back the memories. Borrowing from what I wrote in 2023, I want to recall him briefly this morning. Lightfoot was a proud Canadian, but one wouldn’t call him a Canadian folk giant. He was a folk giant simply — »
June 27, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Court Packing: A Step Toward Disunion

Featured imageI have said and written many times that the United States is on a path toward disunion. We are separating ourselves into distinct zones, Red America and Blue America. Red states are getting redder (and more prosperous) and blue states are getting crazier. A nation cannot exist half slave and half free, nor can it exist half socialist and half free. Unless something changes, the road we are on leads »
June 27, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Land acknowledgment

Featured imageFrom the New York Post, Minnesota school board member under fire after saying dogs should urinate on ‘White corpses’ in cemeteries. Lovely. Such a good example for our yutes. The Post reports, A Minnesota school board member is facing backlash after suggesting that dogs should be allowed to relieve themselves in Christian cemeteries, writing in a social media post that people should “leave indigenous land sacred and piss on the »
June 27, 2026 — John Hinderaker

The SPLC, Still Hanging On

Featured imageThe Southern Poverty Law Center has long been known as a far-left hate group, and now that it is under indictment for mail fraud and has been exposed as perhaps the largest funder of racist organizations in the U.S., one might expect its influence to wane. But left-wing organizations, like the teachers’ unions that control most public schools, won’t give up their allegiance to the SPLC without a fight. Thus »
June 27, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Arrested in Mogadishu

Featured imageIt would seem that Minnesota leads the nation in the production of international fugitives from justice. From the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, Our Burnsville Man was apprehended in Mogadishu, Somalia, after more than four years on the run from federal fraud charges. There is probably a Netflix miniseries embedded in that last sentence. Eidleh is Defendant No. 2 (out of 80) in the sprawling Feeding Our Future scandal, and is »
June 27, 2026 — Scott Johnson

At SPA, Daily Mail edition

Featured imageThe reign of Luis Ottley as St. Paul Academy head of school is at least of local interest. St. Paul Academy is a large and venerable institution. On the other side of the river, Blake and Breck have not suffered anything like the humiliation that Ottley has delivered to SPA in response to parents who have had the temerity to criticize him. He has wielded his authority to dismiss the »
June 27, 2026 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: Party Like It’s October, 1917 Edition

Featured imageSo my site access has been restored but my WiFi access continues to be spotty as my ocean-going continues, but it did prompt the first graphic in this week’s gallery by the producers of the Ricochet podcast, where I ended up being a mostly silent spectator this week between 10-second bursts of connection, which was about all I needed for my very few five-second bursts of lucidity. Meanwhile, I still »
June 26, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Our Insane Immigration Policies

Featured image8 U.S.Code Sec. 1182(a)(4)(A) states: Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible. There was a time when that provision was enforced. If you showed up at Ellis Island »
June 26, 2026 — Scott Johnson

It’s a long way to temporary

Featured imageThe Temporary Protected Status conferred on immigrants from designated countries provides yet another example of the meaning of “temporary” government programs. The meaning of “temporary” must be subsumed under a broader category of Newspeak that includes government programs adopted under the banner of “emergency.” Bruce Springsteen captured the spirit of the thing in “For You” on his first album: “Your life was one long emergency.” Governors including Minnesota’s ineffable Tim »
June 26, 2026 — Scott Johnson

California, here we go

Featured imageJames Freeman devotes his daily Best of the Web column to the proposition that “California leads the world in taxing the rich” (“Another socialist deception targets the Golden State’s economy”). In the column he takes up the “billionaire tax” that will appear on the ballot in November. We have covered the obvious problems that pervade the proposed law. Now that it has qualifed for the ballot, it is sure to »
June 27, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Fujimori wins?

Featured imageConservative candidate Keiko Fujimori, age 51, appears to have won election for the Presidency of Peru. She leads her left-wing opponent by around 50,000 votes, out of more than 18 million cast. Her lead appears to be larger than the number of uncounted votes remaining. That should make her the winner, shouldn’t it? Elsewhere, Wikipedia lists her as President-Elect, expected to assume office in late July. Reuters reports, Keiko Fujimori’s »
June 27, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Muslim pirates then & now

Featured imageMichael Oren is the Israeli historian and author of Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present (2007), among other excellent books. In the first chapter of Power, Faith and Fantasy he tells the story of our submission to, our subsequent struggle against, and our final victory over the Barbary pirates. Turning to that chapter this morning, I see how much of it I have »
June 26, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Heat Wave!

Featured imageSometimes it gets hot. Even in Northern Europe, currently in the midst of a heat wave. Many people don’t realize that London is farther north than anywhere in the contiguous U.S. It is at the same latitude as Calgary, Canada. Paris is at the same latitude as North Dakota and Montreal. So Northern Europe has not generally been home to high temperatures. Thirty-one years ago, my wife and I and »
June 26, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Bolton Pleads Guilty

Featured imageWe long were fans of John Bolton, because of his generally hawkish and pragmatic foreign policy views. But his career devolved into bitter anti-Trumpism, and today it came to an ignominious end as Bolton pled guilty to mishandling classified information: President Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, pleaded guilty Friday to a single count of hoarding national defense information while working in the White House, leaving the 77-year-old facing »
June 26, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Scared Strait

Featured imageIs the Strait of Hormuz open or closed? The Iranian thugocracy has sold the opening of the Strait to us twice, first in the April 8 ceasefire agreement and again, most recently, in the Memorandum of Understanding. Under the Memorandum of Understanding, the thugs are reaping huge and immediate finanicial gains. Based on President Trump’s public comments, one may infer that the many concessions made to the thugs in the »
June 25, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Air Conditioning? It’s Illegal!

Featured imageBritain is in even worse shape than I thought. From the Telegraph: “Air conditioning torn from homes under net zero clampdown.” Homeowners are being forced to tear out air conditioning from their private properties under climate laws, despite rising temperatures. Council planning officers ordered residents to remove air-con units over fears they produce too much carbon dioxide, stating they should only be used as a “last resort”. The net zero »