I’m living in a strange fever dream, friends. I was told no one from overseas would want to come to America by our media. We’re too extreme, too loud, too—hell, everything’s just wrong with us if you listen for ten minutes to CNN or MSNOW.

And then all of these beautiful European visitors came to America and reminded us all this country is pretty fucking badass.

We’ve had the Scots take over Boston and damn near drink the town dry. This Freddy fella from Germany has renewed my love of the American South and dined with Ron DeSantis. And the Norweigans who try Chik-Fil-A’s “spicy chicken burger” swear they’re never going back. Continue reading →

Not to insult feral cats, but it’s not easy to get more than 100 judges to agree on anything. It’s something of an occupational hazard. Yet, former California Superior Court Judge Brett Alldredge has been part of a group of former judges, the Retired Judges Initiative, standing together to uphold the rule of law and judicial independence. Judge Alldredge was kind enough to send over their efforts. They call it the Wall of Justice.

The accompanying press release fleshes out their goals. Continue reading →

There were only two candidates on the primary ballot on Tuesday, one of whom was Tommy Suozzi, the former Nassau County Supervisor who served in the House until he ran against Kathy Hochul for governor. He lost that primary, while an unknown Republican took his former House seat. That was George Santos, a lying fabulist who was expelled from the House in short order, criminally convicted and then had his sentence commuted by Trump after he expressed his undying devotion.

Suozzi, who is what he calls a pragmatic Democrat, won the primary. He’s a liberal, not a progressive. While I don’t agree with him about everything, I appreciate his refusal to succumb to the progressive ideology, standing his ground rather than going along. It’s probably the most important thing a politician can do, stand for something. It was rare before. It’s exceptionally rare now. Continue reading →

I am not a loyal viewer of The View. Indeed, what little I’ve seen of The View makes me want to watch Pickleball TV or Velocity MotorTrend Turbo. Others, however, disagree and watch five women (nary a man) regularly prove that one can hold strong opinions about politics and law without having any corresponding knowledge of politics or law. This has made Trump angry, which in turn means that Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr mad.

The regulatory filing marked the latest stage in a confrontation between the broadcasting networks and Carr, who has used his tenure atop the nominally independent FCC to wage a series of fights against perceived foes of President Donald Trump.

In this case, the dispute involves Carr’s efforts to wield a decades-old “equal time” rule to demand that broadcast talk shows such as ABC’s “The View” offer equal time to both parties when interviewing political candidates. Such shows had previously relied on the FCC’s exemption for what it calls “bona fide” news interviews — but now, their ability to air those interviews is in doubt, ABC wrote.

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Love him or hate him, it’s undeniable that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is about as likeable and charismatic as it gets. With that behind him, he took the city by storm with his childlike fantasy of free stuff and smiles. After all, who doesn’t want free stuff from a happy guy, right?

But if he gets his way, his endorsed candidates for Congress, comrades Claire Valdez and Darializa Chevalier, Democratic-Socialists both, will fracture the Democrats into the ineffectual party that gave rise to the MAGA delusions. And Mamdani is good with that.

The mayor’s support goes further than mere endorsements. With his popularity never higher, Mr. Mamdani has personally involved himself in everything from candidate recruitment and fund-raising to ad shoots and private strategy sessions. A pair of his top political aides are helping run two of the campaigns. And the mayor attempted to push labor unions into backing at least one of his candidates.

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Within days, the reflecting pool went from blue to light green, then bright green. As it turned out, the color American flag blue might not have been a wise choice, no matter how much it appealed to the president’s aesthetic, as dark colors heat water, and warm water breeds algae. In another time, someone might have brought this up before the decision was made, but this was an emergency as it had to get done before the birthday celebration, too quickly for such reflection or bidding.

Then there were pieces of blue material, sheets of it, floating up from the bottom. It was the very dark blue material that was just painted on the bottom of the drained pool for more than $14 million, up from the original pricetag of $1.8 million, Reporters touched these floaters on air so viewers could see how the paint failed to adhere. This did not please the president. Continue reading →

So let’s get the first thing out of the way. Josh Hokit is a moron who gets hit in the head professionally and shouldn’t be allowed around a microphone for that dumbass Michelle Obama line.

Other than that, I didn’t hate UFC Freedom 250 at all.

America is a place where we take risks. We reward innovation and a never say die spirit. And at times Americans need to do something just because they can. Holding a UFC card on the White House’s South Lawn is one of those thing we do in this country because we can. Continue reading →

When the Supreme Court decided Bruen, holding that the constitutionality of laws restricting the fundamental right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, it was obvious that it would not only wreak havoc with myriad existing gun laws, but that it would present a nearly impossible task of trying to divine how the history and tradition at the time of the founding would apply to laws in the future.

That was the problem facing the Supreme Court in United States v. Hemani, which unanimously held that Second Amendment rights could not be presumptively prohibited because a person was a regular pot user. Continue reading →

It made sense to await the release of the actual terms of the Memorandum of Understanding. After all, media reports can be wrong, and there was always the possibility that the administration was leaking terrible terms so that when the actual document was released with slightly better terms, it wouldn’t come off so bad.

The MoU has now been signed, hard copy and digitally, and its terms are disclosed. Continue reading →

I have no desire to watch two savages beat each other in an octagonal cage. I appreciate that others do. To each his own. But was the “garish spectacle” at the White House, enmeshing government with crass commercialism culminating in a fighter proclaiming Michelle Obama is a man, and ironically putting some sort of necklace around Trump’s neck which he praised as “bling,” what should come from the presidency?

My views are captured fairly well by Will Leitch, that this was an absurdity.

If you found it bizarre, surreal and downright flabbergasting to witness the spectacle of the Ultimate Fighting Championship holding a massive event on the White House lawn, with sweaty men being escorted from the Oval Office to a glowing octagon to go punch each other as the president and his war cabinet cheered them on, you were not alone. You should know that the fighters and many people in the U.F.C. appeared to feel the same way. Maybe even more so.

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