And I don't know if tabs are illusions, don't know if I see it true ...
They’re virtue signaling because they’re all afraid of each other, in the same way Chancellor Hawgood is afraid to say men can’t have babies. That’s all being in progressive media is - trying to avoid being dogpiled by your “friends.” https://t.co/QFA2A4Zj0q
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) July 16, 2026
Ed: Matt hit the nail on the head after someone ripped him for not talking about Palestine enough. He's exactly correct. I wrote about Dr. Hawgood's idiotic testimony yesterday and how these ideological straitjackets have led Americans to distrust Academia, the media, and other institutions. Matt offers blunt talk at his Substack, and it's one of the few to which I pay to subscribe. Even when I disagree, he's still insightful and honest.
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Mostly Peaceful: Secretary of State Marco Rubio host the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism, an international conference on far-left violence, on Thursday and reiterated that his department will continue to go after anarchists across the globe.
While Antifa is well-known throughout the United States, it is also part of a larger movement that spans multiple Western countries.
These international far-left groups are responsible for 21 violent attacks in Europe in 2024, compared to 24 attacks from jihadists that same year. Of the 45 reported terrorist attacks in Europe in 2025, 12 were attributed to far-left and anarchists, according to the State Department.
“These are not distinct and isolated cells, they are interconnected networks. They do not recognize our borders. They do not believe in the nation-state itself,” Rubio told the assembled diplomats.
“Through intelligence and information sharing, through coordinated law enforcement strategy, through financial targeting and disruption, we will dismantle these networks brick by brick. It is time for the people of the civilized world to defend ourselves,” Rubio continued.
Ed: It is long past time that we tackle the organized terror network called Antifa. The Trump administration is off to a good start in Texas, sending several Antifa terrorists to prison for decades after conspiring to shoot a CBP agent. The DoJ has to take the lead here in the US, but the State Department has a robust role to play internationally. This is just another iteration of the Baader-Meinhof/Red Army Faction brand of violent leftists, and we need to treat it as such.
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— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) July 16, 2026
Ed: I'm getting there, too.
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Hugh Hewitt at Fox News: Trump’s restraint about clearing the bench of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is interesting.
The public faces of the rump regime in Iran — President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi — don’t have any authority over the killers with the guns. (Trump puts the number of Iranians massacred by the regime over two days in January at 52,000, so we know the ruthlessness of the men in charge.) When the campaign against Iran by the U.S. and Israel opened on Feb. 28, those strikes devastated the first and second tiers of "leadership" in Iran. Pezeshkian and Araghchi were not important enough to be in the command bunkers.
Sixty-eight-year-old Ahmad Vahidi emerged from the wreckage and his "retirement" after the wipeout of the senior leadership of the Islamic Republic to take command of the IRGC. Imagine how utterly ruthless a benched and passed-over killer must be, and how many grudges he must hold against those who put him out to pasture in the first place.
Eli Lake is among the most respected national security reporters in the U.S. On Tuesday, July 14, Lake wholly agreed with what Trump told me Monday: It is unrealistic to expect the Iranian people to rise up only months after such a traumatic mass murder.
Instead, Lake explained, students of the history of regime collapses tell us we ought to be watching for splits within the ranks of the men with guns. That’s how revolutions against dictators and their henchmen at the top begin and then gain momentum. The lower levels of security services or a cadre within the military become unwilling to join in the killing anymore. They see the end game and they don’t want to be around or on the wrong side when everything falls apart. Sometimes they flee. Sometimes they turn the weapons on the top men. When that begins, Lake added, it can accelerate quickly.
Ed: When it begins, it helps to refrain from attempting to negotiate with the people at the top of this tottering regime. The three-month ceasefire didn't just delay this, it actively disincentivized it. And until Trump makes it clear that he will not deal with the current regime, very few will risk their necks to oppose it.
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Judge VanDyke writes a separate dissent: "The Supreme Court should consider summarily reversing some of our wayward Second Amendment decisions. To put it more colloquially, it’s time for some benchslaps." pic.twitter.com/cWLXIhf63e
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) July 16, 2026
Ed: Be sure to read the whole thread. The lid is coming off of the Ninth Circuit's refusal to apply Supreme Court precedent in 2A-related cases, especially Heller and Bruen precedents. I imagine that Chief Justice John Roberts would prefer not to engage in a public feud with a circuit court, but reminding these judges that they are constitutionally inferior to the Supreme Court is part of his job. The jurists in that circuit are pleading for an intervention on behalf of Americans who are being denied a fair review of their cases.
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Christopher Rufo: Corruption is rampant. South Africa’s race-based procurement model shows “systemic signs of corruption and political interference,” according to the World Bank and the OECD. President Cyril Ramaphosa boasts an estimated net worth in the hundreds of millions as of 2015. Former president Jacob Zuma has faced a litany of corruption, fraud, racketeering, and money-laundering allegations.
Predictably, the measures deemed necessary in the aftermath of apartheid have become permanent. For many of the country’s leaders, the question is no longer whether racial redistribution is permissible; instead, the question is how extreme the racial redistribution will be. Race has been reinforced as a continual site of social conflict, instead of fading into the background of a multiethnic society.
Three decades later, the South Africa model is being replicated in an unlikely place: California. The state’s leaders have increasingly embraced a radical, race-based vision of politics that echoes South Africa’s post-apartheid experiment in racialized government. ...
This City Journal investigation—based on an extensive review of government records, reports, and legislation, as well as interviews with leading legal scholars—reveals that during the past 15 years of one-party rule, California Democrats have worked tirelessly to import South Africa’s post-apartheid playbook to the Golden State.
Ed: South Africa really went downhill after Nelson Mandela passed away. He was no Milton Friedman acolyte, but he understood the necessity of avoiding the use of redistribution to run away into revenge. And at least South Africa had legitimate and recent grievances to address, unlike California, where these policies are both ideological and faddish. Be sure to read it all.
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Mamdani housing event features a lady in a mask ranting about her landlord, declaring "eviction = violence" pic.twitter.com/el709Zzf88
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 16, 2026
Ed: There is no such thing as the "violence of evictions." There is such a thing as "theft of services," which is what happens when tenants don't pay rent or violate their lease agreements. Landlords are not "stewards of a public trust either; they own private property and rent it to people on the basis of payment. The fact that these grinning idiots applaud this nonsense should tell New Yorkers everything they need to know about their city's governance.
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NY Post: Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, engaged in sexual relationships with at least two House staffers and his “very flirtatious” habits with others may come back to haunt him, The Post has learned.
The 46-year-old lawmaker admitted to the two relationships — both with aides to Texas Democrats — to one source while a second person said they had recently learned of the romantic entanglements.
A third source confirmed one of the dalliances, both of which are said to have been consensual and occurred during Gallego’s decade representing Phoenix in the House.
The relationships are part of a broader “pattern of mistakes and missteps and judgment calls,” one source said, noting the imbalanced power dynamics of an elected official dating staffers. One of the women was in her 20s and much younger than Gallego at the time.
Ed: I'm old enough to remember when Democrats pretended to care about these exploitative sexual relationships. They stopped in 1997, when Bill Clinton exploited a starry-eyed intern for sexual gratification. Suddenly, that became (D)ifferent. Don't expect them to start caring again now with Gallego, but at least we can note their hypocrisy.
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Remember when I told you Gallego was going to be exposed the same as Swalwell?
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) July 16, 2026
The rumors were out there. https://t.co/jV44G3fucJ
Ed: In fairness, this was a pretty safe prediction even then.
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Punchbowl: Jeffries acknowledged at Tuesday’s caucus meeting that members would “land in different places” and urged them to be respectful of their colleagues’ choices, per a source in the room.
“Leadership did not whip on this vote, and while Democratic Members made individual decisions on their amendment vote, they are united in their commitment to a lasting peace for the Israeli and Palestinian people,” Joy Lee, Clark’s spokesperson, said in a statement.
The crisis over Israel — and it is one for Democrats — isn’t going away anytime soon. Positions on the war in Gaza, whether Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians and Israel’s right to security in a post-Oct. 7 world are all seminal questions for Democrats. This is especially true for younger Democrats who reject backing a Benjamin Netanyahu-led Israel.
If Democrats take the majority next year, they’ll control the House’s legislative agenda and will be under tremendous pressure to develop a coherent, unified position on the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Ed: I know one solution for that – don't elect Democrats to the House and Senate. Problem solved!
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Yes, Rebecca from 2026, please tell us all how you plan to correct Laura Ingalls Wilder's mistakes and faults https://t.co/TUjH0F47Z5
— Peachy Keenan (@KeenanPeachy) July 16, 2026
“It’s 2026 — it’s time to reckon with some of the things that are in the books that have been problematic for people. I don’t want people to throw away these books … They’re amazing books. It’s OK to reckon with them a little bit and also tell a really good story about people being able to change … changing your mind is a good thing.”
Why do these people feel the need to lecture audiences like this?
Ed: Because it allows them to feel superior to dead people who had to overcome actual adversity, instead of the contrived grievances they use to make themselves into the Most Put-Upon People In History. Anyway, I can't wait for this to come out so that I can ignore it with as much enthusiasm as possible.
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Just the News: Hochul imposed a one-year moratorium on new data centers this month as national backlash to their explosive growth has increased in recent months. Trump, for his part, expressed support for data centers and encouraged states to embrace them.
"One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers. They are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built. Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all Data Centers being built, or to be built, in New York State," Trump posted on Truth Social.
"These Companies are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and many other States. Both the Taxes and the Jobs amount to LIQUID GOLD!" he added. "New York State has made a terrible decision. All of this Income, and other Benefits, will be going to Red States, and some Blue, where Data Centers are sought as Cash Cows, with Lower Taxes and Record Setting Jobs."
"They must pay for their own Water and Power, and any leftover goes back to the State and local Community. Data Centers are tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them," he added. "New York should change its Policy, IMMEDIATELY. The Radical Left Dumocrats must not be allowed to cause us to lose Data Centers, AI, and all of this incredible new Technology, to China, and other countries!"
Ed: I have yet to hear a coherent issue with data centers except in potential water and power use. The water issue seems overblown to me, and the power use is easily addressed by building more and scalable power-generating sources – coal, natural gas, and nuclear. What it looks like is Luddites attempting to kneecap AI via back doors, when all it will do is push these operations to jurisdictions with far less oversight. There's a "no data centers" movement in Texas too, but fortunately, it's very limited for now.
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WORST AIR IN NATION, per U.S. Air Quality Index:
— Jason Calvi (@JasonCalvi) July 16, 2026
🌫️Duluth Area, MN
🌫️Minnesota Arrowhead, MN
🌫️North Central Minnesota, MN
🌫️Kettle Moraine South, WI
🌫️Northwestern Minnesota, MN
🌫️Toledo, OH
🌫️Milwaukee-Ozaukee, WI
🌫️Kenosha-Racine Lakeside, WI
🌫️Southwest, MI
Milwaukee today: pic.twitter.com/tXuZfxcVgO
Ed: Happy to be in Texas!
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Last night's lyric: "Late In the Evening" by Paul Simon.
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