July 24, 2026

“THE POLICE WANT IT, THEREFORE WE SAY NO.”

https://x.com/MollyBeck/status/2080698417886507207

Posted at 8:26 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SETH MANDEL: AOC’s Latest Dual-Loyalty Hoax Is a Doozy.

“This amendment is an existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy,” declared Ocasio-Cortez.

How did we get here? The lie seemed to get off the ground in late May thanks to folks at the Quincy Institute, the isolationist activist forum, though it didn’t at first use the term “merge” but rather “integrate.” That word is important, because it also appeared in one of the sentences in the defense bill. Of course, the bill doesn’t say the militaries will be integrated, but conspiracy theorists decided it was one of the few straws they had in reach, so they’re grasping it.

A second conspiracy theory around the bill, pushed by the folks at Dropsite, the podcasters who were last seen trying to bully Ro Khanna into approving of October 7, is that a letter sent by Benjamin Netanyahu claims the bill was his idea.

In fact, Netanyahu sent a letter to a congressman who had written up a resolution that just said the two countries would move toward cooperation instead of the old aid model and called for a new Memorandum of Understanding. Netanyahu has been pushing this change for years, and he wrote that he was happy the two allies would now move in that direction.

So when you combine the two lies, you have: Israel is dictating U.S. laws, and the council of the Elders of Zion—Sorry, the Jewish state—now runs our military. Oh, and everyone who supported the U.S. defense bill is a traitor.

Tucker goes full Judgement at Nuremberg about that last idea:

Why would Tucker be in favor of the Nuremberg Trials Mark II, when he thinks the Germans were the good guys in WWII, and the millions of people they murdered were a tragic accident instead of a deliberately planned slaughter? As Steve asked in September of 2024: Seriously, What the Hell Is Wrong With Tucker Carlson?

Carlson’s interview on Tuesday with alleged historian Darryl Cooper — like his interview in April with Reverend Munther Isaac, referenced in today’s flashbacks — was so much worse than merely glib or incurious.

Carlson chose to interview Cooper, whom he endorsed as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States” to learn exactly how World War II didn’t happen. According to Cooper — and Carlson nodded along the entire time — Winston Churchill was perhaps “the chief villain of the Second World War” and “primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did.”

It’s true that Hitler did not want or expect Britain to fight. He wanted Britain to acquiesce to German dominance of Europe from the Urals to Gibraltar and subsume the UK to Nazi interests. This is all a matter of historical record. Britain could fight or submit — that was Hitler’s choice, not Churchill’s.

FLASHBACK: Carlson chose to interview Isaac to find out how the Jewish State of Israel treats Christians. Isaac is a priest who neither lives nor works in Israel and who uses the loaded phrase “Occupied Palestine” as his location on his Twitter/X profile. He is a Palestinian Christian from Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem, where Christian ministers serve at the mercy of the Palestinian Authority.

As for the Holocaust — brace yourself — Hitler was just being merciful, according to Cooper. “We can’t feed these people, we don’t have the food to feed these people,” Cooper imagined the Germans thinking after fighting on the Eastern Front accidentally created more prisoners and refugees than Germany could cope with. “And one of them actually says, ‘Rather than wait for them all to slowly starve this winter, wouldn’t it be more humane to just finish them off quickly now?’”

Vance really needs to have his Sister Souljah moment with Tucker, sooner, rather than later:

Flashback: The Last Temptation of JD Vance.

Posted at 8:17 pm by Ed Driscoll

LIFE NOT UNENDING: Ultimate Limit of The Human Lifespan May Be Identified, Study Suggests. “new study suggests immortal life may be scientifically impossible, even if we somehow found the perfect anti-aging medicine. If scientists managed to overcome every other aspect of aging, humans still couldn’t live forever, the new research shows. Random DNA mutations would continue accumulating in our cells until the body could no longer function. Simulations conducted by a team at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia suggest this process could impose a fundamental limit on human lifespan, with most people living no longer than about 150 to 190 years under this optimistic scenario.”

Posted at 8:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

TODAY’S STARSHIP LAUNCH WORKED:

Posted at 7:06 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OH MY: Ilhan Omar’s Sister Linked To Central Figures In Minnesota’s Fraud Scandal.

The federal meals scandal is described as the largest public theft in Minnesota history. The statehouse’s House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee is probing the Somali-born congresswoman’s involvement in the scandal, but Democrats in May blocked a subpoena that would require Omar to produce records.

Public records in the state, however, may tie Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, to the operation. Noor has run several businesses in the region, including the People’s Center Clinics & Services in the Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis, which controversially received a $2 million earmark while her sister was a state representative.

Noor went on to found a group called Grit Partners Consulting, and publicly says her company “has secured more than $20 million in funding for health initiatives” and has “consulted on projects backed by” federal health agencies such as USAID and the Center for Disease Control.

Grit Partners was incorporated at a home on Hyacinth Ave. in Lakeville, Minnesota. That address, and the woman who lives there, are lynchpins tying together at least three Feeding Our Future convicts, The Daily Wire found.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 5:54 pm by Stephen Green

THE WEST LOSES ITS MORAL COMPASS AND DESCENDS INTO SELF-PARODY: Australian ABC News:

A man who wore a T-shirt with a banned Nazi symbol outside the antisemitism royal commission in Sydney has been convicted and fined $1,500.

Ian Minus, 68, was moved on by police in May after officers saw him wearing the T-shirt, which was printed with a swastika and the slogan, “Antisemitism. Proud to be accused. Speak up!” on May 6.

“I cannot be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that his conduct was motivated by any hatred against any religion … or antisemitism,” Judge Allen said.

“Rather he was frustrated with the horrific events as he perceives them … from the Middle East.”

I’m strongly opposed to hate speech laws, but the notion that wearing a shirt with a swastika that also states you are proud to be accused of antisemitism, outside a hearing on antisemitism after 13 Australian Jews were murdered in cold blood, may not have been motivated by antisemitism is really something.

Posted at 5:03 pm by David Bernstein

HEH:

Posted at 4:38 pm by Stephen Green

STRENGTH THROUGH JOY: Why Democrats Can’t Do Better Than Kamala Harris in 2028.

There are only two lanes to the Democratic presidential nomination two years from now, and one of them is already blocked—by Kamala Harris.

Get ready for the Kamala comeback, followed, in all likelihood, by a replay of her crushing defeat by the Republican nominee. Believe it or not, the ex-VP occupies what counts as the “center lane” within the party, and for most of the last three decades that’s the one that’s led to the nomination.

Republicans used to be the party of orderly succession, even if the candidate whose turn had come looked like a certain loser: think Bob Dole in ’96. But recently, it’s been Democrats who’ve tended to pick a party elder as their nominee: Al Gore, as a sitting VP, might not have been remarkable in 2000, but in ’04 it was John Kerry, in ’16 Hillary Clinton and in 2020 Joe Biden—with only Barack Obama butting ahead of the line in 2008.

Democrats like a known quantity, a reliable liberal who isn’t too overtly radical; the radicalism can wait until after Election Day. So they’re leaning to running Harris again, even if donors aren’t happy about it: They blew nearly $2 billion on her campaign and aligned PAC’s in 2024, only for Harris to lose every battleground state to Trump.

Given her weak performance in 2020 and 2024, I strongly suspect someone else will also be “butting ahead of the line” on the left’s road to 2028.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

THERE NEEDS TO BE SOME ACCOUNTABILITY: Why is Tate Adamiak Being Treated More Harshly Than Most Criminals ATF Prosecutes?

fter ATF agents kicked down his doors, they found nothing illegal or even suspected of being illegal. As a result, the ATF brought in a specialist, ATF Firearm Enforcement Officer Jeffrey R. Bodell, who discombobulated the actual items that the agents had found—all of which are still sold legally online, most do not even require an ID—and turned them into machineguns and destructive devices.

Adamiak was charged with illegally possessing a machinegun for a toy STEN submachinegun found during the search warrant. He paid $75 for the non-firing Spanish replica—or toy—which was made by Denix and is still sold online. Bodell inserted a real STEN barrel and receiver, neither Bodell nor his assistant could make it fire more than one round at a time. Despite their hard work, the toy STEN would not even accept a real magazine. Still, Bodell officially ruled that the toy was a machinegun.

Adamiak was charged with illegally possessing two destructive devices, two inert RPGs that had holes drilled into their receivers and were stripped of internal parts. ATF’s “expert” added parts from real RPGs until they would fire a single subcaliber 7.62x39mm round. As a result, he classified the RPGs as destructive devices. The inert RPGs are still legally sold today without an FFL or any other paperwork.

People’s careers should end for this kind of behavior.

Posted at 4:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

FROM THIS WEEK’S ROCKET REPORT: Will Amur ever fly?

Nearly six years have passed since the state-backed Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, unveiled plans to develop a reusable rocket called “Amur-LNG.” Clearly designed in response to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Amur was intended to have a reusable first stage, methane-powered engines, and the capability to deliver 10.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit in reusable mode. At the time, Russian space officials said they planned to debut the rocket in 2026, so basically right about now. The latest update from Roscosmos suggests the Amur rocket won’t begin flight tests until 2031, Ars reports.

Year for year… To summarize, when the Amur rocket was announced in 2020, its flight date was scheduled for 2026. Some six years later, its projected launch date has moved five years into the future. The only reasonable conclusion is that Russia’s answer to the Falcon 9 rocket will not arrive any time soon, and it is unlikely to do so until at least two decades after SpaceX first landed an orbital rocket.

Quite a comedown for a country with such a storied space program.

Posted at 3:52 pm by Stephen Green

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG:

Posted at 3:39 pm by Glenn Reynolds

ONGOING:

Posted at 3:36 pm by Glenn Reynolds

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: He Brought a Horse to a Rodeo Fight… Wait, WHAT? “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn how not to pick up women at Lowe’s, all about proper rodeo etiquette, and why Wyoming has the coolest nine-year-old in the world.”

Posted at 3:21 pm by Stephen Green