Well, I tabbed up quick and I tabbed up mean, my mouse got hard and my links got keen ...
World No. 1 tennis player Aryna Sabalenka isn't holding back on the debate around biological men in women's sports, calling the physical difference an issue of fairness.
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) August 5, 2026
“It's obvious that biologically, right, the men are way stronger than women, so I feel like it would be not… pic.twitter.com/rdIBhuHkh4
... so I feel like it would be not really fair for the woman to compete against biological men.”
Ed: It's good to see top-flight female athletes standing up to make this point. They have the most to lose if males encroach on their leagues, and they should realize that. So should the entire WNBA, but they're too woke for their own good, quite literally. It takes courage to stand up for what's right, though, because that comes with costs, especially in progressive circles ...
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Jonathan Turley: Geno Segers was a widely acclaimed actor who starred in the Broadway production Hadestown. That came to an end this month when Segers expressed the view of the vast majority of Americans: women’s sports should be confined to biological women. He has now been fired, even after an attempt to apologize for expressing his own views on the subject. Other actors have expressed support for transgender players without any response other than praise in the latest example of the rising McCarthyism on the left. ...
Segers posted statements critical of transgender athletes playing in women’s sports as well as the posting of preferred pronouns. The comments were certainly mocking and insulting at points: “If you asked me what my preferred pronouns are and it’s not obvious to you that I’m a he/him, that I’m good with he/him — Surely you don’t need any help. I’m not wearing a dress.”
One can understand why transgender advocates would be upset with the content and tenor of these comments, including “I don’t see transgender people becoming oppressed or being oppressed … life is unfair.”
However, Segers also wrote: “I’m not against anyone living out their lives the way they want, but I am against their rights superseding the rights of other people. That’s a little bit foul.”
Ed: Prof. Turley notes that Segers attempted to walk back his comments, but got fired anyway. McCarthyism is alive and well on Broadway as well as Hollywood.
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Children as "hostages" of their parents.
— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) August 5, 2026
Ok. (I guess that makes everyone alive a hostage or former hostage. Except orphans. Those free and lucky folks.)
Is the sheer multiplication of digital broadcasts creating a vaccum that's ineluctably being filled with troubling (and not… https://t.co/ihX7STw8Xe
Is the sheer multiplication of digital broadcasts creating a vaccum that's ineluctably being filled with troubling (and not very new) nonsense?
We have too much time on our hands. And on our screens.
Ed: This is a pretty good question from Kirn. However, this particular nonsense has been part of the socialist and progressive movements for decades. Marxist systems seek to replace the nuclear family with the state, and all such systems claim "ownership" of children. Douthat had a response prepared that utterly pierced the arrogance of such assertions because Douthat knows and understands the history of this agenda.
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Jim Geraghty at NRO: Dear Customer,
Thank you for purchasing the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar! Please note that in honor of its subject, the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar does not include several holidays that appear on our company’s other calendars. ...
Christmas is not marked on the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar, because Hong said, “IT bro who was working on ‘our’ computer remotely changed the background theme to snow and Christmas trees. I feel slightly attacked . . .”
Kwanzaa, however, is still marked on the calendar, because Hong said, “The principles of collective responsibility, economic care, and unity are a model of community we should all strive to emulate.”
Please note that, in lieu of the traditional American holidays of Valentine’s Day, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, the Francesca Hong 2027 Calendar marks May Day.
Ed: There's a very big difference between being elite-clique president and running for governor. Democrats will find that out the hard way if Wong wins next Tuesday. This is the kind of performative crap that plays well on the quad, but alienates everyone who hasn't marinated in Academia paranoia.
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The Jason Arday story is becoming a national scandal. What began as a vaguely amusing parable of our times, a schadenfreude-filled exposé of the left's remarkable gullibility, has now morphed into something far more sinister.
— The Spectator (@spectator) August 5, 2026
For now we learn that Scotland Yard attempted to… pic.twitter.com/u5tx577T8n
For now we learn that Scotland Yard attempted to silence a journalist who tried to expose Arday's claims. In fact, they spent four months investigating him.
Ed: It didn't take long for this fabulist to collapse, once the police stopped trying to cover it up. See below. It's amazing how far the British establishment will go to silence dissent to the progressive-elite agenda. And the same is true in the US.
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Free Beacon: Celebrity Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who resigned suddenly on Wednesday after the university announced it had opened an investigation into his academic credentials, has a history of claiming he was the victim of violent, criminal threats that are not supported by law enforcement or any other available records, the Free Beacon has found.
Arday —in a speech given a year ago—made a series of lurid and macabre claims about threats made to him and his family, including "pigs' heads in my parents' door." But a year later, with Arday now fighting accusations of rampant plagiarism and lies about his life story, there's no evidence police investigated these threats or that the threats even existed, based on records searches, recent news reporting, and a document obtained via a freedom-of-information request and viewed by the Free Beacon.
The freedom-of-information request, submitted to the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, the police force for the medieval college town, inquired about any reports to the authorities that matched Arday's descriptions of threats and stalking. A search produced no matching reports.
The University of Cambridge, after previously declining to investigate Arday for plagiarism, announced on Wednesday it has "begun an investigation following new information about Professor Arday's academic qualifications and honorary appointments."
Ed: Cambridge would have saved themselves a lot of embarrassment had they vetted Arday up front. In fact, that's the entire purpose of vetting. They didn't want to add educational value with his hire; they wanted to add virtue-signaling power. And now it's all blown up in their faces, along with the police's initial attempts to intimidate a reporter who dug into Arday's claims.
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lol this guy neglected to notice that the Jussie Smollett act didn’t work out too well the last time pic.twitter.com/H6Y61zRvG2
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) August 5, 2026
Ed: We won't have Arday to kick around any more! (Bonus points for those who get the joke.) Seriously, though; only on the Left can an exposed fabulist play the victim, and yes, Smollett demonstrated that too.
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Semafor: Abdul El-Sayed’s win in Michigan marks the second primary defeat of a candidate backed by Chuck Schumer — and adds to the Senate minority leader’s potential detractors next year.
El-Sayed wants to replace Schumer atop the caucus with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. Including him, the list of viable Democratic hopefuls who are threatening to oppose Schumer as leader has reached a half-dozen. Three have already won their nominations: El-Sayed, Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, and Maine candidate Troy Jackson.
Two more are still in primary fights: Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is facing Rep. Angie Craig next week, and Rep. Seth Moulton, who is taking on Sen. Ed Markey in Massachusetts; Flanagan and Moulton both said they want to replace Schumer.
Dan Osborn, an independent in Nebraska, said recently he would “probably not” support Schumer as leader if Democrats win back the majority.
Ed: I'm not sure why anyone would vote to keep Schumer in charge. He's been utterly useless at preventing DSA radicals from hijacking winnable Senate contests in Maine and Michigan, at least. Hakeem Jeffries has been similarly incompetent at protecting incumbent Democrats in the House. The last real leader for Dems on Capitol Hill was Nancy Pelosi, who shut down the socialist poaching in 2018 by threatening Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' career if Justice Democrats did what the DSA is doing now.
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Tom Smith, the candidate who dropped out of the #MI08 Republican primary but is still poised to defeat Trump-endorsed Amir Hassan, sent this handwritten note to the FEC less than a month ago: pic.twitter.com/xllPk5ZwTH
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) August 5, 2026
Ed: I'm not sure who Smith is, but he speaks for us all in relation to the byzantine bureaucracies, I like the cut of his jib.
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Missouri Independent: Conservative talk radio host Chris Stigall triumphed in a five-way Republican primary for Missouri’s 6th Congressional district on Tuesday.
Stigall received 44% of the vote, besting his nearest rival, Kanas City Council member Nathan Willett, by 12 percentage points.
“I’m incredibly grateful to the people of North Missouri for placing their trust in me. Tonight’s victory is both an incredible honor and a responsibility I do not take lightly,” Stigall posted on social media Tuesday evening. “I’m ready to fight for North Missouri, defend our way of life and be a strong voice for our communities in Washington.”
The four-and-a-half month campaign to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Sam Graves has brought Stigall throughout Missouri’s largest congressional district, traveling over 14,000 miles to meet voters in the district’s 33 counties, his campaign told The Independent. During this time, he has spoken at five candidate forums and attended 256 events, from casual meet-and-greets to handing out candy at small-town parades.
Ed: Congratulations to my friend and Salem colleague Chris, who stepped away from a national morning-drive show he loved to run for the US House. I mentioned this in last night's live-results post, but to repeat, Missouri's 6th CD has a Cook index rating of R+19, so Chris is all but assured of joining the next session of Congress. And that's great news.
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NYC strongly prefers bidders who commit to all 5 stores. But 3 of the 5 sites haven’t been identified. Bidders are supposed to price unknown stores in unknown neighborhoods by assuming they’re “about 15,000 sq ft.” Absurd.
— nick kokonas (@nickkokonas) August 3, 2026
Ed: This is a fascinating thread; read it all, and also Kokonas' replies to comments in the thread. The idea of a government grocery store is incompetent enough, as efforts in Kansas City and Chicago have proven most recently. The entire approach to this project is inept even apart from that. Kokonas wonders why Mamdani didn't just create a 30% discount card that applies subsidies at existing groceries, which would save tens of millions of dollars in capital costs and more than that in operational costs. The answer, as I see it: You can't take a picture in front of a discount card.
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Seth Mandel at Commentary: “Noun-verb-AIPAC” worked well in younger, whiter, wealthier areas of the state—essentially the tentifada coalition. Stevens did better among black and working-class areas of Michigan. Yet these voting demographics tend not to be Israel’s biggest fans either. Which means “noun-verb-AIPAC” works mostly as a negative ploy: voters who seek a scapegoat will eat it up, but voters who are also critical of Israel but who see the world with more honesty and nuance will be looking for more substance.
They won’t get it.
Instead, partisanship looks like it’ll come to El-Sayed’s rescue. Stevens has already said she’ll do what she can to help her erstwhile foe. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who had endorsed Stevens in the primary, did the same. Other critics of El-Sayed’s anti-Semitism during the primary woke up this morning ready to bend the knee and tell others to do so as well.
In an age of spinelessness, all you have to do is get through the primary.
And that, in the end, was the real secret to El-Sayed’s success.
Ed: I wonder just how true that is, though. Trump won Michigan two years ago despite having low approval ratings against a candidate significantly less radical. All of this nonsense with Hasan Piker is on the record, and it will make it very easy to define El-Sayed as a radical terror sympathizer, if Republicans choose to use that strategy. And ...
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I spent my life hunting terrorists. I never in a million years thought I’d hear the words, “America deserved 9/11,” but here we are.
— Mike Rogers (@MikeRogersForMI) August 5, 2026
Michigan — we’ve got a state to save. pic.twitter.com/ZwRx3AnWFA
Ed: Rogers was ready for this outcome. I wonder if Democrats were.
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Last night's lyric: "Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp. Here's an excellent live version.
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