July 17, 2026

LATE BUT WELCOME: US Air Force turns to cheaper cruise missiles it can buy by the thousands. “The deals fall under the U.S. Air Force’s Family of Affordable Mass Missiles program, or FAMM. The Defense Department said it reached agreements with Anduril for its Barracuda-500, CoAspire for its Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile and Zone 5 Technologies for its Rusty Dagger.”

You can’t help but notice that none of the old, established defense contractors are on that list.

Posted at 1:48 pm by Stephen Green

PEOPLE DON’T TRUST A SYSTEM THAT DOESN’T ENGENDER TRUST…:

…which is why election integrity is an 80/20 issue everywhere but Capitol Hill.

UPDATE (From Ed):

Posted at 1:35 pm by Stephen Green

VDH: The World Made Anew.

The Middle East is now suddenly a different place. Whatever the final denouement with Iran, Tehran has lost a half-century and half-trillion-dollar investment in its military and nuclear industrial complex. The once-feared bully of the Muslim Middle East has been humiliated and exposed as a paper tiger, with its economy, and perhaps its very existence, now dependent on the disposition of the Trump administration. It leaves Israel alone because it knows the Jewish state can target any of its unhinged leaders whenever hostilities resume.

In a development that would once have seemed surreal, Israel is providing intelligence and missile defense to the Muslim Gulf states, which are effectively fighting alongside the United States and Israel against a fellow Muslim nation.

Hamas has been crushed. Hezbollah’s once-feared missile arsenal and many of its crazy leaders have been largely eliminated. The Houthis, lacking any credible air defenses, know that every missile they launch at Israel or into the Red Sea could cost them another port facility or power station. Lebanon is reawakening from its 50-year coma.

Russia lost its last client in the Middle East with the fall of the Assad regime. Neither China nor Russia can supply Iran by land, sea, or air, nor can either purchase its sanctioned oil. America’s allies are growing stronger, while the China–Russia axis grows weaker.

Soon the Strait of Hormuz—Iran’s supposed trump card—will be nearly as irrelevant to global energy markets as it is already to the United States. Existing pipelines that bypass the Gulf are being expanded, while new ones are planned or already under construction to the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Gulf of Oman beyond the Strait. The United States is the largest producer of oil and gas in history and does not need Middle Eastern oil or gas—or, for that matter, much of anything else besides.

Exit quote: “Add it all up, and the picture is almost surreal: at the very moment the Left insists that the United States has grown weak and isolated, America and its allies occupy a position of global preeminence not seen since the end of World War II.”

It’s VDH, so read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

BIAS THROUGH OMISSION:

The DNC-MSM refought 2016 and January 6 endlessly, but are “unexpectedly” not very curious about what happened to the entire world in March of 2020.’

UPDATE:

Posted at 12:55 pm by Ed Driscoll

CYNICAL PUBLIUS: Something About England. “A few weeks back, I visited the United Kingdom (mostly England, with some time in Scotland) for the first time in almost a decade. Having been there many times before, I was excited to discover whether all of the horrific news of a swing to tyranny was true or false. Although I started in London for a cruise to Norway, I arrived days earlier so as to explore the heart of London and the countryside of southern England. When I travel internationally, I try to eschew the usual tourist experiences and instead dig into the social milieu of a place. What I found disturbed me. Not only are the reports of a “1984“-style police state true, but the issues of social class, which have always plagued England, have taken on a new and disturbing twist, which I believe will soon result in the wholesale destruction of one of the greatest civilizations ever to exist.”

It’s CP, so read the whole thing.

I’d just add that the birthplace of English liberty — the thing the Founders waged a Revolutionary War to protect here — has become something entirely else. The special relationship wasn’t built on a common language, but on that shared love of liberty.

The British don’t seem to share it any longer. Or at least not the ruling class and the foreigners they continue importing.

Posted at 12:46 pm by Stephen Green

THE KING OF MISDIRECTION:

Posted at 12:32 pm by Stephen Green

IRAN MORPHED INTO MAMDANI’S NEW YORK SO QUICKLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: Iran issues grim new order to citizens after US strikes ‘hit power plants’ as conflict spirals.

Iran has told its citizens to turn off their air conditioning during peak hours as the country’s power grid came under strain amid US strikes.

Tehran’s energy ministry said that the power restrictions were necessary ‘to help ensure a stable electricity supply in the southern provinces, which are currently facing extreme heat and attacks on electricity supply facilities.’

Temperatures in the capital were expected to hit triple digits Friday, with highs of 102F on Saturday and Sunday.

Donald Trump ordered the US military to hit Iranian bridges throughout coastal cities along the Strait of Hormuz. A report from Iranian state media claims an American missile struck in the vicinity of Qeshm, while other reports said locations around the island were hit by projectiles. The US also fired on a ship accused of trying to break the naval blockade.

Trump has threatened to broaden the campaign to Iran‘s power plants and bridges unless Tehran returns to talks, warning in a Fox News interview that attacks would intensify next week.

Related: “‘We are in an essential and existential war with America,’ [Iran’s] Qalibaf said. Who pulled a switcheroo on them? After decades of ‘Death to America’ ain’t that a surprise.”

Exit question from Lee Smith at Tablet: Is Trump Ready to Win Yet? “The reason America doesn’t win wars is not that it wants to turn tribal confederations into liberal democracies or teach surrealism to veiled schoolgirls or sow corruption abroad and reap the profits. Those are all effects of the fundamental problem, which is deciding, for whatever reasons, not to win. For Trump, the choices are stark: either preside over another American war without resolve and go down in history as the American president who forfeited America’s postwar birthright and lost the strait, or decide to win.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

HE BENT THE KNEE:

Never bend the knee.

Posted at 11:28 am by Stephen Green

“THE DEEP STATE IS A MYTH,” THEY TOLD ME:

Posted at 10:57 am by Stephen Green

WELCOME TO THE CLUB, LADIES: A Surge In Black Women Buying Guns Over the Past Decade Has Led to Mushrooming Social Gun Clubs That Go Way Beyond Target Practice.

Going by “FoxCee Washington” in her training mode, in homage to Pam Grier’s fierce film heroine, and often sporting a short curly white wig and thigh-high boots, she organizes “Brunch and Bullets” outings in Atlanta, Miami, and other cities.

They usually start with a tutorial on firearms fundamentals in her Sprinter party van on the way to a shooting range, where she shows her clients, many of them learning to shoot for the first time, how to handle and shoot semi-automatic pistols and rifles with confidence, while concentrating on making them feel comfortable.

“I like to focus on breath work before they even shoot,” she says. “I talk very softly, put my hand on their shoulder. A lot of men that I’ve trained with just put the gun in your hand and say, ‘Go for it.’ And I’m like, ‘This is not what women need, you know? We’ve got a lot of fear and trauma we’re dealing with. We need calm.’ And I’ve had so many amazing responses. Some women cry because they feel relieved.”

More like this, please.

Posted at 10:42 am by Stephen Green

GO AWAY:

Posted at 10:26 am by Stephen Green

GOOD: DHS to begin placing stricter time limits on student visas. “The change is meant to combat the rising number of visa holders, a trend that the department says ‘poses a challenge to DHS’s ability to monitor ​and oversee ⁠these nonimmigrants while they are in the United States.’”

Posted at 10:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

HEY, BIG SPENDER: Taiwan computer chipmaker TSMC pledges another $100 billion to expand US chipmaking capacity.

The latest commitment appears to bring the company’s total pledges for investment in U.S. chipmaking to $265 billion. The company also raised its annual revenue forecast after booking record high profits thanks to runaway demand from the boom in artificial intelligence.

The world’s largest contract chip manufacturing and one of the world’s most valuable companies, TSMC is seen as a barometer for the global chip industry and for AI at a time when worries about a potential AI bubble have been buffeting financial markets.

As AI-related demand continues to jump and needs for computing power from data centers surge, TSMC has been expanding chip fabrication plants in the U.S., Japan and Taiwan. It said it is increasing its annual capital expenditure budget for this year to $60 billion-$64 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $52 billion-$56 billion.

And we still need more chips.

Posted at 9:40 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Another Week, Another Gropey Sleazebag Democrat. “Gallego also brings extra heaps of awful to the story. As Catherine goes on to note, he served divorce papers to his wife when she was very, very pregnant and, as we’re all aware, was Eric Swalwell’s defender wingman.”

Posted at 9:09 am by Stephen Green