MOLOTOV–RIBBENTROP PACT SHATTERED: Bernie Sanders says he told Graham Platner to ‘step aside.’
July 7, 2026
IT WOULD TAKE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH: OPEC is in a struggle for its survival. It could mean $40 oil.
OPEC countries with major operations in the Persian Gulf mostly struggled to get their crude out to their customers. Iran’s closure and America’s subsequent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz locked in a fifth of the world’s oil supply.
Several OPEC members – namely Iran, Iraq and Kuwait – had no choice but to shut in their crude production and wait.
Now that traffic in the strait has started to ramp up again, the jockeying for production quotas has begun. Iraq, the bloc’s second-largest oil producer, is reportedly the next shoe to drop – the country’s oil minister told Bloomberg that Iraq would have to decide whether or not to remain with OPEC if production targets don’t dramatically increase.
Iraq’s production was the hardest hit by the war, dropping by 75% to just over 1 million barrels a day in April and May – down from more than 4.5 million a day in January and February. Iraq wants permission to produce a record 5 million barrels a day coming out of the war, with a long-term aim of getting production up to 7 million barrels a day, Bloomberg reported.
At first I thought the OPEC nations were looking to take market share from Iran while they could. If they’re jockeying against one another, even better.
FLORIDA, MAN: Ex-Florida Democratic Governor Nominee Andrew Gillum Busted In Alabama For Drug Possession.
People forget that Gov DeSantis beat this guy in 2018 by less than 0.5%.
He would’ve been our Governor during Covid, kept us locked down, and the country would’ve never been the same.
The reason he almost won was b/c deep blue Broward County kept “finding” votes weeks after… https://t.co/uHs9v8QBOP
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) July 7, 2026
THEY’LL EVEN GASLIGHT YOU ON THE DAILY TEMPS:
powerful moments in bar chart technology pic.twitter.com/Wnje4hJR2q
— richard (@richard_normal) July 6, 2026
ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES: New Yorkers Are Already Pissed at Mamdani, and He’s Just Getting Started.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Richard Dreyfuss’ ex-wife demands futuristic sex toy after running out of men in Idaho. “Emily said all her mom wants is to fulfill her longtime dream of owning a ‘sex robot,’ the San Francisco Standard reported.”
SCHRÖDINGER’S SENATOR: Mitch McConnell’s health emergency sparks questions on whether he will return to Senate.
REUTERS FORGOT TO INCLUDE “AGAIN” IN THE HEADLINE: Cuba begins to restore power to Havana following nationwide blackout.
RIGHT JOURNOS DECLARE INDEPENDENCE: It was seven years ago when Investors’ Business Daily (IBD) went down, taking with it one of the finest editorial page sections in the country. But members of the team writing the editorials and columns refused to wave a white flag.
So they started “Issues & Insight” (I&I) web site, which in the years since has consistently turned out superb free market/pro limited government-guided commentary on the issues of the day.
But being an independent editorial site on the Internet is no easy task and after trying all the ad partnerships (think Google’s AdSense), the team had enough of the censorship that came along with Big Tech. So they are now going 100% reader-supported.
Very much inspired by Mr. Jefferson’s original work, the I&I crew have now issued their own Declaration of Journalism Independence, and it is well-worth your time in giving it a good read.
SALENA ZITO: Young Washington: History’s ultimate gritty origin story.
The crushed stone along the quiet pathways here at the “Great Meadow” where Fort Necessity sits has always held wonder to me. Here is where 22-year-old George Washington, a brash, sometimes headstrong, but always ambitious young man trying to figure out his fate, suffered the first and only military surrender of his lifetime.
On the big screen, I’ve always imagined that the series of events that led to this moment, beginning with his run-in with the French Captain Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in present day Erie, to being shot point blank in Butler, to accidentally starting the French and Indian War in Jumonville Glen, would look vivid and stark — that they would show a man on his way to greatness despite failures along the way.
But after seeing the new film, Young Washington, and standing on the hollowed grounds of a meadow tucked away in the dense, green ridges of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, it is difficult to comprehend why it took so long for this story to be told.
It’s Salena, so of course, read the whole thing.
WHO DOESN’T NEED MORE BATTERIES? Duracell x Messi Limited Edition Coppertop AAA Alkaline Batteries. #CommissionEarned
GHOST RIDERS IN THE (MASSACHUSETTS) SKY: Deep-dive data analysis by Open the Books of Medicaid-funded transportation of beneficiaries to medical services finds thousands of such rides took nobody anywhere, except taxpayers to the cleaners.
HISTORY: The Pentagon Paid Moldova $40 Million for 21 MiG-29s So Iran Couldn’t Have Them. The Minister Who Signed the Deal Went to Prison for It. “In 1997, the United States quietly paid a former Soviet republic tens of millions of dollars to buy an entire fighter regiment — not to fly it, but to keep it away from Iran, and to take it apart. The Moldova deal is remembered as one of the Pentagon’s cleanest nonproliferation coups, and in one sense it was: the intelligence haul shaped American weapons for a decade. But the full story runs stranger than the legend, taking in a rationale Moscow disputed the same week, a defense minister who went to prison for signing it, and six fighter jets that no one on Earth would ever buy.”
WHERE THE K-12 IMPLOSION MEETS THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE: College students’ academic readiness falls as universities expand support programs. “Universities nationwide are reporting concerns about declining academic proficiency among incoming students, as institutions expand tutoring, remediation, and academic support programs to address gaps in reading, writing, and mathematics skills.”
Universities just shouldn’t admit unready students, but they need the warm bodies, and the diversity points.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: A Tale of Two Air Wars. “A pair of overnight airstrikes didn’t just light up the skies over Russia and Ukraine on Sunday night; they illuminated the very different realities of a war now well into its fifth year.”
LIMITED TIME DEAL: DREO Portable Air Conditioner 515S, 12000 BTU ASHRAE. #CommissionEarned
SCIENCE MARCHES ON: Professor gets NIH grant to study ‘rural gender diverse youth.’
ONCE YOU SEE IT…:
Democrats and their media cohorts have relied for decades on this tried and true technique since Hillary's laughable keep lying/stonewall strategy failed in the wake of l'affaire Lewinsky.
They created a slogan that spawned a PAC, https://t.co/IKg3V8Gd0l. Both remain everyday… pic.twitter.com/FXs6RB1qBD
— Biff LaTourette (@BiffLaTourette) July 7, 2026
…oh, wait — you saw it decades ago, didn’t you?
THANKS, FELLAS: OPEC+ companies slightly boosting production as oil prices slide.
Seven OPEC+ nations have said they will increase their production goals by 188,000 barrels per day. The participating countries are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman.
Multiple nations in the Middle East have had their oil production throttled by the war in Iran, which closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane in the region.
A temporary agreement between Iran and the Trump administration reopened the strait, meaning more oil should be able to flow and reach the market, sending prices downward.
Stay tuned…
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN…:
Here are things that the Platner story has that the Kavanaugh allegations did not have:
1) proof of contact between the accuser and the accused
2) documented allegations from the accuser naming the accused to others *before* the accused rose to the national stage
3) multiple… https://t.co/TLlGilclly— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) July 6, 2026
“They are also letting you know that they don’t care about evidence. They will accuse their enemies without any documented evidence. They will protect their own even with mountains of evidence.”
…and into the fire:
So yeah, about that DSA-endorsed candidate that folx want to replace Platner:
"As Maine Senate President in a state senate caucus meeting several years ago, Troy Jackson in a heated disagreement struck a female colleague with a bottle he threw at her." https://t.co/iE2GildZXY
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) July 7, 2026
This is not your father’s quietly Republican Maine.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Der Platnerfürher Might Finally Be Too Creepy for the Dems. “Things should never have gotten this far with Platner and the Democrats. Let’s face it, the Nazi tattoo should have been the only disqualifier that they needed. The Democrats may be united in their frothing hatred of President Trump, but that has made them adrift in everything else. I’ve got decades of dealing with their tortured rationalizations under my belt but everything since November 2024 has really been out of control.”
FOOD STAMP FOLLY: One of every 10 Food Stamp payments by the federal government is incorrect, usually more than it should be and occasionally a little less. Trump’s Ag Sec, Brooke Rollins, is implementing needed reforms.
BRING IT ON HOME: Toyota to invest $3.6 billion to move Tacoma pickup truck production from Mexico to Texas.
The investment is expected to create 2,000 U.S. jobs at the facility, add a second vehicle assembly line and roughly double the size of the 2.7-million-square-foot plant by 2030, the automaker said. It will expand the plant’s annual capacity from roughly 200,000 to 350,000 units, Toyota said.
The announcement is part of Toyota’s stated plans to invest up to $10 billion more than previously expected domestically in the U.S. through 2030. It comes less than a week after the Trump administration confirmed it would not extend its trilateral trade pact with Canada and Mexico, instead opting to conduct annual reviews.
It shouldn’t need to be said, but building things here is good.
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Socialists prey on Americans’ apathy — even in places you’d never expect.
