June 30, 2026 — Scott Johnson

There’s something about the MOU

Featured image There’s something happening in the Strait of Hormuz. What it is ain’t exactly the Jews. I have expressed my doubts about the the Memorandum of Understanding that was to open the Strait. Complications have arisen. Vice President Vance’s negotiating partners do not appear to be operating in good faith’ I read the news today, oh boy: US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law ‌Jared Kushner are in Doha »
June 30, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Supreme Court Term Ends

Featured imageThe Supreme Court term ended today with the release of three final opinions. I have not yet had time to read them, but for now will simply recite the results with a few additional comments. The most important decision is Trump v. Barbara, in which the Court held, 6-3, that the 14th Amendment requires that the children of illegal aliens be citizens of the United States. This result is disappointing »
June 30, 2026 — Scott Johnson

On the Hezbollah front

Featured imageThe terms of the Memorandum of Understanding to the contrary notwithstanding, the IDF continues at least some of its efforts to remove the threat of Hezbollah from its northern border with Lebanon. Havind discovered a massive underground weapons cache in recent days, the IDF destroyed if on Sunday evening after warning Israelis that the resulting explosion might feel like an earthquake. The explosion could be heard across northern Israel. Now »
June 30, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Mao’s party never ends

Featured imageFrank Dikötter is the author of The People’s Trilogy (“a series of books that document the impact of communism on the lives of ordinary people in China on the basis of new archival material”) and, more recently, China After Mao (2022). Dikötter serves as Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong since 2006 — “one wonders for how much longer,” Tunku Varadarajan added in his Wall Street »
June 30, 2026 — Scott Johnson

The Scott Wiener experience

Featured imageCalifornia state senator Scott Wiener is running for the San Francisco congressional seat that Nancy Pelosi is vacating after 20 terms. She’s leaving big high heels to fill. Wiener seems like he could fill them. He’s far out in all the required respects. However, he was harassed mercilessly by one Dimitry Yakoushkin “for insufficient alacrity in condemning Israel for supposed genocide in Gaza,” as Rich Lowry puts it in a »
June 29, 2026 — John Hinderaker

The Supreme Court Implements Article II

Featured imageToday the Supreme Court decided one of the most important cases of recent years, Trump v. Slaughter. The Court affirmed what Article II of the Constitution says: the President runs the executive branch. Specifically, he can fire an FTC Commissioner, with or without cause. I wrote about the case when it was argued last December: The case tests the constitutionality of the “independent agencies” that Congress has established over the »
June 29, 2026 — Scott Johnson

The complicated Jefferson

Featured imageIn this past weekend’s Wall Street Journal Review section Richard Brookhiser reviews four new books on Thomas Jefferson. This should be a big week for Jefferson as we celebrate the semiquincentennial anniversary of his immortal handiwork. As John Adams said in his last words, “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” Jefferson had actually died a few hours earlier, but Adams got it right in the larger sense we observe this week. Along »
June 28, 2026 — John Hinderaker

How “Feminists” Abandon Women

Featured imageI have read a lot of fiery op-eds over the years, but I haven’t read many as hot as this one by Camilla Long in the London Times. Her subject is the abandonment of women by supposedly feminist liberals in Great Britain, but you could make a similar case anywhere. Over to you, Camilla: I wasn’t going to write about the horrific findings of the Ockenden report, the many devastating »
June 28, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Citizen Vigilante [Updated]

Featured imageCitizen Vigilante, a new film by Uwe Boll, became a sensation after the German government tried to ban it. Elon Musk responded by making it briefly available for free on X, so the German ban had the usual effect of driving viewership. I watched Citizen Vigilante on YouTube. As you probably know, the film is about a vigilante who, outraged by Europe’s immigration policies and lax criminal justice system, begins »
June 28, 2026 — Scott Johnson

Whole lotta deconflictin’ goin’ on?

Featured imageVice 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 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 29, 2026 — John Hinderaker

Hamas Resurgent

Featured imageThis depressing report comes from Israel National News: Senior officials in the IDF Intelligence Directorate and Southern Command warned IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir last week that Hamas’ military wing is rebuilding its capabilities and preparing for another round of fighting, Kan News reported on Sunday. According to the report, the officers said Hamas is manufacturing hundreds of explosive devices and anti-tank missiles each month, recruiting operatives »
June 29, 2026 — Scott Johnson

At the Obama Center

Featured imageMiranda Devine assesses the legacy of Barack Obama as seen in The Obama Presidential Center. Her current New York Post column provdes an on-the-scene report from “the Obamination”: [T]he library-that-is-not-a-library is a monument to the self-regarding former president. Obama is the central focus of the entire museum, with enormous portraits and photographs of Barack and Michelle as imperial rulers, and dozens of installations, interactive exhibits and videos depicting his inspirational »
June 28, 2026 — Bill Glahn

Socialism kills

Featured imageFrom the U.K. Daily Mail, Venezuela earthquake rescuers discover collapsed buildings were ‘held up by STYROFOAM’ as catastrophic death toll reaches 1,430. Styrofoam. Not concrete. The Daily Mail reports, In the video, a man can be seen recording himself pulling away pieces of what appears to be collapsed walls with just his hand. The outside of the wall has a thin layer of concrete, while the inside is clearly Styrofoam »
June 28, 2026 — Scott Johnson

California’s billionaire tax

Featured imageWhat starts in Califoria doesn’t stay in California. A proposed “billionaire tax” has made its way onto the ballot in this year’s election. In “Exit the billionaire,” I looked to Hoover Senior Fellow Joshua Rauh to explain why it would make the state poorer in the long run. Well, as a famous economist once said, in the long run we are all dead. Proponents of the tax will live it »
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 »