July 11, 2026

JENNIFER SEY: The Graham Platner Saga.

Maine Democrats now scramble to replace him via a convention process with no direct voter input — echoing their handling of Biden: prop up the flawed candidate until politically untenable, then override primaries for the “right” choice. They preach “democracy” while sidelining the voters who picked Platner.

My thoughts: He’s the nominee. They nominated him. Own it. Live with it. (I know this isn’t happening but I’m just telling you what I think should have happened.) I think they should be stuck with this loser.

But when the optics finally collapsed, the party operatives pushed him out.

But what was the line, really? That he lied about his background didn’t do it. That he trolled teens online didn’t do it. That he twisted Lindsay Fifield’s arm behind her back and locked her in the bathroom didn’t do it. Those were all fine, seemingly. Just a real working class dude! Only when Racicot detailed the rape, did anyone seem to care. Did voters seem to care. Not sure why that was the straw that broke the camel’s back but voters finally started to question if he was fit for office and his numbers started falling and the Dems said you need to drop out.

And he did.

But he went out with a bang: Graham Platner, Classy to the Last.

Particularly because the real Graham Platner – the anti-social, privileged, communist failson mouthing slogans – finally emerges from behind all that professionally crafted guff right at the end. Platner’s final sign-off:

“F*ck ICE. Free Palestine. Up the hearts.”

Ah, now that’s more like the scumbag I know. Of course, because this is Platner, my first thought is: when he said “f*ck ICE” did he mean that in a gay way, or more like a viking? And I don’t even want to know what “up the hearts” even means – no offense, but it sounds like some kind of commie gobbledygook to me*. But as for “free Palestine” being Platner’s final sign-off? That’s a tell. That explains why he was recruited by his handlers in the first place. The Democratic Socialists of America may talk its programmatic game about fully automated luxury communism and whatnot, but what ultimately animates this movement, putting the steel in its spine, is the emotional charge of an enemy to unite against.

Earlier: Graham Platner: The Left’s Caricature of the American Everyman.

* It apparently is commie gobbledygook: “‘Up the Hearts’ is a rallying cry for Portland Hearts of Pine, Maine’s first professional soccer club.”

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

Posted at 1:10 pm by Stephen Green

Should anyone be surprised? JustTheNews details the weaponization of the SEC in the Biden era to go after Trump and his supporters, particularly Elon Musk:

“Republicans pointed to former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s hiring of former Democratic operatives to staff the agency, and his former work as CFO for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, where, according to congressional testimony, he had final approval authority for the campaign’s payments for the discredited Steele Dossier, as evidence the agency was biased against Republicans. Gensler is a former investment banker who served as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2021 to 2025”
***

“You seem to have a very troubling pattern of hiring, at an impartial regulatory agency, a lot of people who seem to have a vendetta against the former president, and I fear, and I worry that that has implicated itself and affected the policy of the SEC,” then-Sen. J.D. Vance told Gensler at a Senate hearing in 2023.”

Although many saw it happening in real time and called it out (thanks, VP Vance) it never got mainstream media traction. I wonder why that is? 

Posted at 12:45 pm by Charles Glasser

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE:

Tweet concludes, “Faculty from 55 elite universities form one towering blue spike of ideology far out on the left, density exploding past 6, with virtually nothing on the conservative side. This was built through decades of selective hiring, social enforcement, and the systematic purge of dissent. And because they credential the people who run media, law, government, and tech, the monoculture leaks into every elite institution downstream.”

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

RIP: Randolph Mantooth, Firefighter-Paramedic Johnny Gage on Emergency!, Dies at 80.

Mantooth was just getting started as a contract player at Universal when he was hired in 1971 to play Gage opposite Kevin Tighe as his partner, Roy DeSoto, on Emergency!, created by Dragnet legend Jack Webb and Robert A. Cinader.

When he was told he was going to play a paramedic, the first thing Mantooth said was, “What the hell is a paramedic? At that time, there were only [a handful] in all of California,” he told Amy Harrington in a 2013 interview for the TV Academy Foundation website The Interviews.

He said he initially didn’t want to do it because it meant he would have to get a haircut.

Gage and the more buttoned-down DeSoto worked out the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Station 51, interacting often with Rampart General Hospital personnel Dr. Kelly Brackett (Robert Fuller), nurse Dixie McCall (Julie London) and Dr. Joe Early (Bobby Troup, London’s real-life husband).

Emergency! aired for six seasons, from January 1972 through May 1977, then tacked on seven telefilms over the next couple of years. There even was a Saturday morning animated series in 1973-74.

When the show premiered, there were 12 paramedic units in all of North America. In the next three years, 46 states enacted laws that allowed paramedics to practice emergency medicine. Within 10 years, more than half of all Americans were within 10 minutes of a paramedic rescue or ambulance unit.

As Deadline notes in their obit for Mantooth, “Running for five seasons into September 1977, the hourlong drama with comic elements never was a ratings hit, only denting the year-end primetime Top 30 once in the three-network universe. But it was solid counterprogramming [for NBC] against its 8 p.m. Saturday competition of CBS’ All in the Family and in its final two seasons, Norman Lear classic spinoff The Jeffersons.”

Tweet concludes, “I very much recommend 1-5. The doctors were supposedly the stars of the show. Johnny and Roy stole it. They are who we remember and want to watch.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

KEEP YOUR DISHWASHER CLEAN: Affresh Dishwasher Cleaner. #CommissionEarned We use this and it works well!

Posted at 11:02 am by Helen Smith

I KNOW YOU LAY AWAKE ALL NIGHT WAITING FOR SATURDAY MEMES!  Your wait is over. Rejoice:  Bring Out Your Memes.

Posted at 10:29 am by Sarah Hoyt

SEDITION:

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

IMAGINE NEW YORK AS THE BRITISH EMPIRE’S CAPITAL: That might have become a reality had there been more common sense and foresight among the ministers in King George III’s cabinet in the decade leading up to 1776, according to Brit historian Andrew Roberts

Posted at 7:47 am by Mark Tapscott