July 12, 2026

July 11, 2026

¡NO PASARÁN!: Today Is George Bush’s Birthday (George Turns 23).

Today George Bush will be celebrating his birthday. Some will protest and say, that’s not true, the former president‘s birthday was July 6. But we’re not talking about the same person, apparently. Nor about his father. Because this George Bush turns only 23 today.

The George Bush I have in mind is not the one whose full name is George Walker Bush, nor the one whose full name is George Herbert Walker Bush, but the one whose full name is George Bush Abdul Kader Faris Abed El-Hussein (no relation to Saddam). And this George Bush was born in Baghdad on July 11, 2003.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 11:20 pm by Ed Driscoll

OPEN THREAD: I can’t cry anymore, while you post around.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

NARRATIVES DON’T ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN THEMSELVES, YOU KNOW:

Posted at 6:18 pm by Stephen Green

ABOUT THE SAME:

Here’s what happened:

The FA always seems like such a good idea until the FO, and maybe there could have been a little more FO in this case.

UPDATE (From Ed):

Posted at 5:46 pm by Stephen Green

THAT GAY CRUISE SHIP DENIED ENTRY INTO TURKEY? Egypt Just Said ‘No’ Too:

I bet Gaza could use the tourist dollars, and apparently a lot of the aid money was looted by Hamas, and fancy nightclubs are springing up on the Strip.

That was my first thought when I read that the Egyptians had followed the Turkish example of denying entry to the Virgin cruise ship hosting a gay-themed cruise.

What were they thinking, scheduling a gay cruise to visit Muslim countries? It’s not that Egypt or Turkey is exactly a craphole—both have been centers of civilization at times, and neither is crushingly poor in the way that Conan O’Brien’s and Anderson Cooper’s favorite vacation destination, Haiti, is.

Are we certain of who Egypt and Turkey are angry with here?

What will happen to the ship if no nation lets them in?

Actually, there is one Middle Eastern country that will happily let them in. Curiously, that destination doesn’t seem to be on the ship’s itinerary:

Posted at 5:13 pm by Ed Driscoll

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