July 23, 2026

TRUMP, OCASIO-CORTEZ SPAR OVER COMMUNISM LABEL AS DSA’S INFLUENCE GROWS IN DEMOCRATIC PARTY:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushed back Wednesday on GOP accusations that her fellow democratic socialists will drive into Congress a communist agenda, saying Republicans “are seeking to usher in a new McCarthyism for this era.”

“Their only way in a time of deep unpopularity is to try to stoke fear and new conspiracies. And so they’re trying to inject conversations about communism to scare people,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat said, before ticking off DSA policies she supports, including Medicare for all, raising the minimum wage and stronger unions.

“If a Republican wants to call a stronger union ’communist,’ they’re more than welcome to do that. I’m not going to be deterred,” she said.

That’s what frightens the rest of us — we remember your “ban all the things” Green Nude Eel phase in 2019, and believe you still very much want to implement every bit of it.

Exit question:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

Posted at 7:09 am by Glenn Reynolds

THE ECONOMIST: America should stop making it so hard to have fun.

Thriving nightlife is good for both economic and social reasons. Economically, livelier streets tend to make cities better places to live, helping create productive clusters of skilled young workers who wish to socialise as well as build careers. As a side-benefit, the extra foot traffic can make streets safer.
A bustling late-night economy also makes for good social policy. Bars, music venues and nightclubs are the sorts of places where young people can have fun together, regardless of whether alcohol is involved. Official data show that, between 2003 and 2023, the average amount of time 18- to 30-year-old Americans spent socialising each day fell by 38%. According to one survey, roughly one-third of single people aged 22 to 35 say they have not been out on a date in the past year. Dancing is, according to our fact-checked analysis, a far superior activity to doomscrolling.

American cities should make it easier to create places for people to gather and have fun. Many of those places will be open late into the night and involve alcohol. That means speeding up permits so that applications do not languish as business owners rack up costs; simplifying licensing rules that only a specialist can navigate; and getting rid of arbitrarily low quotas on liquor licences. Cities should also invest more in measures that actually improve safety. Better late-night public transport would be a good start. More police resources would help, too.

The good news is that more American cities are now taking an enlightened view of the night. In New York City, red tape that limits dancing in bars has been cut. San Francisco has begun simplifying its permit process for entertainment venues. The debate over Boston’s later closing hours was prompted by hordes of good-natured Scottish football fans who descended on the city for the World Cup in June. The Scots may not be that good at football but they did show the city how wonderful the wee hours can be. Even before then, Boston had increased its supply of liquor licences.

Keeping up this momentum is good economics and even better social policy. And if that sounds a little dry, there’s a simpler argument: a night out is a lot of fun. More American cities should embrace it.

As Edward Slingerland discusses in his excellent book, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization (which I discuss here) alcohol consumption has upsides and downsides, but we only drive policy with the downsides.

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

FROM JEFF DUNTEMANN:  Morning Man.

When Wisconsin farmer Nelson Threader inherits his late father’s estate, he dreams of being a DJ and buys the nearby town’s little two-DJ dawn-to-dusk AM radio station from its retiring owner. He then buys an AI DJ as a spare to allow the human DJs to take time off. The bottom-of-the-line AI appliance comes with just one voice personality, and can “wear” only one voice at a time. When WXQJ’s beloved morning man leaves on a long-overdue vacation, AI DJ Mike Noon quickly gets on the town’s nerves, especially the station’s advertisers. Nelson realizes he can either run his voice ragged DJing full 16-hour summer days or go broke. The AI offers to help him, but Nelson is definitely of two minds about the help he gets.

Posted at 7:00 am by Sarah Hoyt

WHAT A LONG STRANGE ROAD IT’S BEEN. SO I FINISHED THE SOUND TRACK:  The End of the Sound Track.

Perhaps my first try and getting stuck on writing the sound track for a building shouldn’t have been for my longest book!

Posted at 12:28 am by Sarah Hoyt

July 22, 2026

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

TRUMP’S NEW IRAN POLICY:

Ed Morrissey adds, “The US Navy has done what it can to protect ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, but the IRGC still has the capacity to attack commercial ships, and that is effectively closing the Strait despite Trump’s attempts to keep it open. If he can’t stop the attacks, oil will soar once again past the $100 mark, and this time global reserves won’t be able to buffer those effects. Bridge and Power Day may not be sufficient to end this quickly enough to prevent real economic damage. It might be time for Infrastructure Week instead.”

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: The Age of AI Movies Will Be Driven by Spite.

And I believe him. In fact, it’s something I’ve predicted would happen for some time. As I wrote back in February:

I would not be surprised — and I’d put my money on — hit movies and serials hitting platforms like YouTube that are completely AI-generated, and made by people like little Timmy, who put the film together between homework and dino nuggies. A housewife may create one of the greatest rom-coms ever after she puts her kids to bed for the night. A sitcom created by a blue-collar worker could spring up that takes the world by storm.

Hollywood will have nothing to do with it. It’ll be all regular people like you and me.

Flashback: Backyard Filmmakers Are Hollywood’s Greatest Fear. The entertainment industry’s real threat isn’t piracy, it’s backyard Spielbergs armed with digital movie gear.

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

HASAN PIKER CALLS MAO ‘ONE OF THE GREAT LEADERS:’

Hasan Piker, the leftist influencer, has millions of followers across Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms. And so it is not without interest that he has described Mao as “one of the great leaders of this world” and that, when challenged about this, he conceded that “there was a lot of f***ing excesses, let’s be real, but. . . .”

Ah yes, there is always a “but.”

The “but” in this case was that “the People’s Republic of China would not exist without Mao Zedong.”

True enough. Then again there were tens of millions of Chinese who would have existed for quite a bit longer were it not for Mao or his republic. And many of those did not meet their deaths because of yet another catastrophic communist “reform,” but because they were, in one way or another, murdered.

The easy response to Piker’s comments is to write him off as a provocateur or a nut. But the wiser course is to take him seriously, to believe that he either believes what he says or, at least, that he wants his followers to believe what he says. If that’s so, he will want them to agree with his comment about the greatness of Mao, and to join with him in dismissing those millions of dead as “excesses,” a blot on a glorious record. It’s an old argument. To borrow from a notorious phrase, those millions were the eggs broken to make an omelet.

In addition to the fine art of omelet making, Piker also enjoys celebrating urban renewal:

UPDATE:

Tweet continues, “Now, I think the ‘which genocidal murderer was the worst’ game can get pretty stupid, because people often seem to think that coming in second or third to Hitler absolves mass murderers of any condemnation. I think you can come up way short of Hitler and still deserve to be remembered as a monster who deserves to burn in Hell. Let’s say of the 40 million people you concede Mao killed — just not on purpose (lol)— he only killed 1 percent deliberately. That’s really generous. It also means he deliberately murdered 400,000 people. Doesn’t that count as disqualifying for our esteem and admiration? Or are you one of those guys that thinks liquidating a few kulaks is the price you have to pay for power?”

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll