July 2, 2026

July 1, 2026

OPEN THREAD: I know you’re out there, with rage in your eyes and your megaphones.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

IT’S NOT JUST THE WORLD CUP: The Decline of Germany: Football humiliation isn’t the only kind. “The refugee crisis of 2015-2016 ‘transformed’ politics within the country, according to Hans Kundnani, a senior research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, who told Newsweek that the AfD’s continued rise points to ‘massive backlash against non-white immigration.'”

Posted at 8:55 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE HIERARCHY OF COMPASSION: Who Counts?

Pete Buttigieg and his family should never have endured a malicious false report that brought police and Child Protective Services to their home, temporarily separated him from his young children, and forced his family through a needless ordeal. Authorities quickly determined the allegations were baseless.

The bipartisan condemnation that followed was appropriate. Political leaders from across the country spoke with one voice. Commentators expressed outrage. The message was unmistakable: there are lines that should never be crossed.

They were right.

But watching the response unfold left me asking a question I have carried since my daughter Katie was killed.

Why does our political class know exactly how to respond when one of its own is harmed, yet struggle to summon the same moral urgency when ordinary Americans are actually buried?

That is when I realized America has created a hierarchy of compassion.

It is not a hierarchy of human worth. Every life has equal value. It is a hierarchy of political attention, and in modern America, attention often determines whether anyone asks the questions that might prevent the next tragedy.

Read the whole thing.

Related:

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

HOW TO SPOT A DEMSOC:

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

ANDY NGO: BREAKING: North Texas Antifa Members Who Turned on Their Comrades Receive Years in Federal Prison. “Seven more convicted members of a North Texas Antifa terror cell were sentenced Wednesday in federal court, less than two weeks after one of the convicts allegedly attempted to kill herself while in custody. U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman and Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor handed down the sentences in Fort Worth following last week’s 450-year prison sentence, a historic punishment of the Antifa group’s first batch of trial defendants.”

Posted at 7:48 pm by Glenn Reynolds

MAMDANI WASN’T KIDDING ABOUT HIS “WARMTH OF COLLECTIVISM” SHTICK:

Posted at 6:47 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM CHICAGO, THAT HOTBED OF CONSERVATISM: David Axelrod Gets Brutal Lesson In Blue City Governance After Finding Man Passed Out In Chicago Heat.

Former President Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist and CNN analyst David Axelrod alleged that Democrat-run Chicago, Illinois, ignored an unconscious man in the heat and suggested that city could have done more.

Axelrod said he was walking past the Art Institute of Chicago on July 1 when he saw a homeless-looking elderly man unconscious on the museum’s stone front steps, according to a post on X. He later added that the city’s facing a real-feel temperature of 107 degrees Fahrenheit. AccuWeather listed an official temperature of 97 degrees Fahrenheit and a real feel temperature of 106 degrees as of publication.

Concerned, Axelrod said he asked the museum’s security guard about the issue. She allegedly told him that she had already woken him three times suggesting that he move into the shade, but that he had continued to refuse.

Not satisfied, Axelrod said he dialed 911. After he explained the situation, the operator allegedly said, “Well, is he ASKING for help?”

After replying that he hadn’t, the female operator allegedly replied, “Well I’m not going to send anyone.”

“So the man remained, passed out in the blazing noon sun,” Axelrod said. “I guess that’s how the City of Chicago deals with such situations.”

Yes, that’s the Chicago Way, as a famous fictitious Irish-American policeman with a suspiciously Scottish accent would say:

Axelrod was born in 1955; Chicago’s last Republican mayor left office in 1931. Insert hot dog guy meme here:

Posted at 6:42 pm by Ed Driscoll

CORN, POPPED:

Posted at 6:24 pm by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE STAR TREK LEFT: Noted Manly Men Will Wheaton and George Takei Attack Dwayne Johnson As a “Coward” For Not Endorsing Their Far-Left Imbecilic Identity Politics.

Dwayne Johnson is facing backlash for staying quiet on politics, with “Star Trek” icon George Takei telling him that “silence is complicity” and “Stand By Me” actor Wil Wheaton adding: “So disappointing to find out he is such a coward.”

Johnson told Fox News in 2024 that he regretted endorsing Joe Biden for president in 2020 because it caused division amongst his fans, adding at the time: “My goal is to bring this country together. I believe in that. There will be no endorsement. At this level of influence, I will keep my politics to myself. It is between me and the ballot box.”

The blockbuster actor expanded on his newfound aversion to political talk by telling Esquire this month: “What I have learned through experience is that I need to keep — need, not want — the main thing. And the main thing for me, the thing that in the morning I swing my legs out of bed and I run towards, is creating. It’s art. It’s storytelling. I’ve learned I’m going to keep my politics to myself. There are moments when, hey, there’s nothing we can’t talk about. If I’m wrong, I’ll tell you I’m wrong. Or if I feel like I got a leg up and this is the right way to go, I’ll share it with you. Politics is omnipresent and it’s forever. I don’t like it. I hate it at times. I hate the slinging. I hate all the bullshit that comes with it.”

When you’ve lost Mr. Sulu and Wesley Crusher, let’s face it:

Indeed:

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

ED MORRISSEY: DemSoc Goes National: Socialists Boot Progressive Dem in Colorado.

If you loved IngSoc and Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984, you’re gonna love DemSoc in 2026 America. It won’t be confined to just New York City and the oyster farms of Maine. And in fact, it has only ever been confined to Academia, but last night’s primary in Colorado shows that “Democratic Socialism” has broken out of the lab and may start a pandemic.

House Democrat Diana DeGette served 15 terms in Congress, belonged to the Congressional Progressive Caucus and even got its endorsement, and helped Colorado shift left over the last 20 years. DeGette got repaid by having DemSoc paint her as a stooge of the establishment, and DeGette’s constituents dumped her for the new flavor of anti-Semitic Communism.
…
The Wall Street Journal notes that the results in New York had already frightened “centrists” in the Democrat Party. DeGette wasn’t a centrist, the report later acknowledges, and it never quantifies how many “centrists” still remain within the ranks of party leadership.

Enough to keep feeding the crocodile, apparently, hoping to be eaten last.

UPDATE (From Ed): Fresh new faces, pushing very old and clapped out ideas: Mamdani Is Ignoring 40 Centuries of Economic Lessons.

Jonah’s tweet concludes, “There’s not a single major idea proposed by the DSA crowd that wasn’t an old idea before I was born. From price controls and rent-freezes, to wealth taxes, or shunning Jews. It’s all old, old hat. You can agree with it. Or admire it’s newfound energy or something. But the ideas are old, tried, and failed.”

MORE (From Ed):

Posted at 5:30 pm by Stephen Green

NOTED:

Posted at 5:19 pm by Stephen Green

HOW IT STARTED: Springtime for Tucker.

How it’s going: Tucker Carlson Is Building a New Political Party After Ditching the Republicans.

Tucker Carlson is moving on after his breakup with the Republican Party.

The former cable news star on Wednesday said he is working to “help build” a new third party. Carlson said it’s imperative because the Republicans and Democrats are too busy worrying about foreign affairs while the lives of average Americans crumble.

“I’m going to help build a third party,” Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review. “There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country.”

He continued, “I mean, if you make sixty thousand dollars a year, you’re degraded. Your life expectancy has gone down, and the promise of your children’s lives is likely gone. No one seems to care. It’s not even a factor. “What about Hamas?” I officially don’t care about Hamas. The US government should have, as its first priority, the welfare of its own people.”

That announcement comes after Carlson said on June 22 he was done voting for Republicans.

“How could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States. That puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens,” Carlson said. “It’s not possible to vote for people like that, and I’m not going to.”

This will end as badly as Ross Perot and Ralph Nader’s attempts at building a third party, and seems like far more cynical an effort.

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

NIFTY: U.S. Pacific Air Forces Flex B-2 Stealth Bomber LRASM Capability. “LRASM, originally conceived under a broader program to active a variety of maritime strike missiles over a decade ago, has become the most capable air-launched ship-sinking capability known to be deployed by American forces. With a range of over 200 nautical miles and a warhead of 1000 pounds, the Lockheed Martin missile is derived from the stealthy Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile. Its low-observable capabilities and use of modern technologies represents a marked leap from the Cold War-era Harpoon missiles.”

Stealth antiship missiles carried by stealth bombers with global reach is exactly the 21st Century you knew America could do.

Posted at 4:52 pm by Stephen Green

JIM GERAGHTY: Nina Totenberg and the Gerontocracy Strike Again.

She heard the word “retirement” and just assumed that it was Alito?

The explanation is so shocking that social media has plenty of Alito retirement “Truthers” who contend the justice is planning to announce his retirement soon and Totenberg simply erred by reporting it too early; but that theory doesn’t make sense, because if that were the case, she would simply clarify her story. Some others wonder if this was Alito trying to sniff out the Supreme Court employee who leaked the Dobbs decision. (Back in April 2023, Alito sat down for an interview with the Wall Street Journal and said, “I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible, but that’s different from the level of proof that is needed to name somebody.”)

Totenberg is 82. She has covered the Supreme Court since I was born, and I have a kid in college. Also, in the 1970s, Totenberg became close personal friends with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and one might think that a close personal friendship with someone you cover professionally is a major conflict of interest that ought to be disclosed to listeners, but “her friendship with Ginsburg was almost never mentioned in the hundreds of news stories, interviews and features Totenberg has done about the court over the years.”

Another one of Totenberg’s greatest hits, this one targeted at the late Senator Jesse Helms (R., N.C.): “In 1995, on the syndicated political television program Inside Washington, guests including Totenberg turned to a proposal by the North Carolina senator that Congress reduce spending on AIDS research. Totenberg said, ‘I think he ought to be worried about the — about what’s going on in the good Lord’s mind, because if there’s retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it.’” Wishing painful death upon the family of people you disagree with is the kind of comment we’ve come to expect from unhinged hatemongers, like the attorney general of Virginia.

Apparently, nothing matters when you’re on the left side of the aisle. Just do whatever you want, and there will never be any consequences.

As NewsBusters’ Tim Graham adds, “Totenberg is Exhibit A in how NPR is a thoroughly ideological outlet that should never have been funded by the taxpayers.”

UPDATE: Heh, indeed:

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll