July 23, 2026

REPUBLICANS MOVE TO CLIP AOC’S WINGS* AMID 2028 SPECULATION:

Asked whether she would mount a presidential campaign in 2028, Ms Ocasio-Cortez said on Monday: “I can’t say that I’ve ruled it out.”

She would be likely to become the standard-bearer of the Left if she entered the contest. The party’s progressives appear to be in the ascendant following a series of recent primary victories for socialists in New York and Colorado.

A poll released on Wednesday showed Ms Ocasio-Cortez leading the Democratic pack in New Hampshire, an early-voting state that will be highly influential in selecting the party’s next presidential nominee.

The University of New Hampshire’s “Granite State Poll” showed Ms Ocasio-Cortez had 22 per cent, one point ahead of Pete Buttigieg, the former US transportation secretary.

“Ocasio-Cortez draws much of her support from self-described socialists and progressives, while support for Buttigieg is spread about evenly among progressives, liberals, and moderates,” pollsters said in a statement.

Some exceptions likely apply: Social Media Users Point Out Pete Buttigieg Less Popular Among Black People Than Ex-KKK Leader David Duke Was in 2016.

* To be fair, she certainly wanted to clip ours during her manic pixie new socialist “It Girl” phase in 2019: “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Someone should take this idea to its logical conclusion:

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

THEY WON’T EVEN ACT IN THEIR OWN BEST INTEREST, MUCH LESS THE COUNTRY’S:

Posted at 4:37 pm by Stephen Green

PROPAGANDA FAIL: IRGC’s New Israel Hit Is Just Old American A-10 Footage.

“Did you get that? That’s right – the Iranian/IRGC ‘drone’ was an American A-10, going BRRRRT on a target that absolutely wasn’t in Israel. And yes, this actually made me burst out laughing when I first viewed it. That’s not easy to do these days. We really do know to expect this. The Iranians are such inept propagandists as to make the late, unlamented Baghdad Bob look like Ernie Pyle.”

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

RESIST COLONIALISM:

Posted at 3:35 pm by Stephen Green

EVERGREEN HEADLINES: The Democrats Have a Communist Problem. “The milquetoast Democrats are no match for Piker and Mamdani. They don’t have any real men in the party anymore who can take them on – they’re all too frightened of the voters. They can’t Gavin Newsom their way out of this one. We’d all better hope it’s Kamala Harris and not AOC in 2028.”

Posted at 2:49 pm by Stephen Green

THAT THING THAT NEVER HAPPENS…:

Posted at 2:34 pm by Stephen Green

I LIKE THE CUT OF HIS JIB: Rep. Brandon Gill Grills Head of American Bar Association About DEI, Future of Law Schools.

More here, from Bethany Mandel: Brandon Gill’s Socratic method.

“If I wanted to yell at liberals,” he said, “I could sit behind my desk and make a video yelling at liberals.”

A congressional hearing, in his mind, serves an entirely different purpose.

“The whole West’s intellectual edifice is based on the Socratic method,” he continued. “It’s based on asking probing questions and coming to truth by asking probing and enlightening questions. A committee hearing is the perfect place to do that.”

That one sentence explains almost every viral moment Gill has had since arriving in Washington. Take the abortion hearing that made him a household name in conservative circles. The exchange wasn’t built around a rehearsed one-liner — it was built around a simple premise. If someone has dedicated decades of her professional life to defending abortion rights, shouldn’t she be willing to describe, plainly and without euphemism, the procedure she is defending?

“If you’re going to dedicate your life to defending this,” Gill recalled thinking, “tell me your favorite method.”

The question wasn’t designed simply to shock. It forced the witness to abandon abstractions and confront the concrete reality of what she was advocating. When she refused to answer, that refusal proved more revealing than any prepared statement could have.

Listening to Gill describe the exchange, it became obvious that he doesn’t think of hearings the way most members of Congress do. Many lawmakers view their five minutes as an opportunity to deliver a speech that happens to include a witness. Gill treats the witness as the point of the exercise. The hearing is valuable precisely because the person sitting across from him is under oath, the cameras are rolling, and millions of people can watch ideas tested in real time.

And they just can’t do it:

Evergreen:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll