July 7, 2026
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.
21st CENTURY HEALTHCARE: I was making sexy content when my co-star felt a lump in my breast — OnlyFans saved my life. A doctor friend once told me that breast lumps tend to be discovered sooner in the left breast, because most husbands are right-handed.
APPEASEMENT NEVER WORKS: Scared Hakeem Jeffries rolls out the red carpet for DSA extremists — while they prep to feast on his carcass.
The Democrats are in a sad state when Hakeem Jeffries is the moderate one.
YES:
I don't have the patience or the stomach to line up all the established rapey stuff associated with Democrats and large percentages of people from certain countries, but it is notable how obsessed they are in their messaging with accusing non-rapey people – and canines – with…
— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) July 7, 2026
“You have to step back and ask yourself who are these people and what are they trying to do to both our society and the people in it?”
FA, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BY FO: Jails Are Full After TikTok-Inspired Mob Riots in the Wrong California Beach Town.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: New Balance Men’s 997H V1 Classic Sneaker. #CommissionEarned
MARK JUDGE: The Trial: A Rare Documentary Reveals the Hell of a Communist Show Trial.
It is a stroke of genius that in The Divine Comedy Dante depicts Satan as trapped in a giant bedrock of ice. Hell isn’t necessarily flames, which can be beautiful and life-sustaining, but ice – cold, non-generative, deadly.
A cold Moscow winter in 1930 is the setting for The Trial, a rarely seen but vitally important 2019 documentary by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa. The Trial – which should not be confused with Trial, the great 1955 anti-communist drama starring Glenn Ford – is constructed of restored black-and-white footage from one of Joseph Stalin’s first show trials, recorded in 1930 in Moscow. Stalin had falsely accused a political rival of seeking to sabotage the USSR at the behest of French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré and other Western leaders. In shocking footage, the accused, all innocent, confess to crimes they never actually committed.
Read the whole thing.
HMM: Hamas dismantles government to allow Board of Peace-approved panel to take over. “Anonymous officials from the Gaza-based terrorist group announced the dissolution to AFP on Monday after preliminary reports swirled late Sunday evening. The officials confirmed that the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, created by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, would fill the power vacuum in the Gaza Strip.”
It isn’t so much who serves on the Board of Peace now, but who gets slipped in once our attention is elsewhere.
SEEMINGLY ALL TECH STUFF IS ABOUT MANIPULATION: How Much Is AI Manipulating Us?
Huntington Beach has erupted after a judge ordered the city to adopt ranked-choice voting for council members — amid fears it could destroy the Republican supermajority.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Craig Griffin ruled late June that the MAGA enclave needs to move away from its at-large system after a years-long court battle.
A wave of Southern California municipalities have been forced to change the way they vote in recent years as courts found at-large is unfavorable to minority voters under the California Voting Rights.
The push is being led by Malibu’s activist Democratic lawyer Kevin Shenkman, who has spent decades suing and threatening cities across the region to stop at-large voting.
It comes as Huntington Beach led the West Coast for its show of patriotism on Fourth of July, with an insane fireworks extravaganza that drew about 500,000 to its famous shores.
But the patriotic paradise could be under threat as locals claimed to the California Post the voting change is a desperate Democrat attempt to turn the town blue.
Gooder and harder, California.
