England World Cup winner Nobby Stiles died with a brain condition caused by repeatedly heading a football, a coroner has ruled.

Stiles, 78, a former Manchester United footballer and 1966 World Cup winner, died with severe dementia and had headed a football around 140,000 times during the course of his career, Stockport Coroner’s Court heard at the inquest into his death.

Expert analysis of his brain showed his severe dementia was as a result of Alzheimer’s disease but also the condition, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which has been associated with head trauma from heading a ball.

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The summer heat is on, but there is plenty of great fishing to be had throughout Maryland. Make sure your fishing license is up to date!

As a reminder, under new regulations the Chesapeake Bay striped bass fishery is open to harvest through July 31 and then closed the entire month of August, reopening Sept. 1.

This is a great time to pursue the multiple other species in Maryland waters – particularly blue catfish found in almost every tidal river, and the challenging Chesapeake Channa, or northern snakehead, which is very active in warm temperatures.

Read more about the week ahead!

Democratic National Committee leaders were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements before a private meeting on the party’s finances last month, while Chairman Ken Martin continues to face scrutiny over the party’s fundraising and financial position ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Axios, citing two people familiar with the discussions, reported on Thursday that the request marked a departure from past practice for DNC officers and reflected concerns about keeping internal financial discussions confidential.

The June 25 meeting came as Martin has faced criticism from some Democrat donors, strategists and DNC members over the committee’s fundraising efforts while Republicans maintain a significant financial advantage.

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International students previously could stay as long as their program lasted. The Trump administration is ending that 1978 policy.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday scrapped a long-standing policy that allowed international students to stay in the U.S. until they finish their program of study. The new rule will limit their stay in the country to just four years unless they receive an extension, as well as restrict students’ ability to change majors and institutions once they’ve arrived.

International education leaders and experts have argued that four years is not enough time for a significant number of students to complete their degrees; almost all Ph.D. programs are longer than four years, while the average undergraduate takes more than four years to complete their bachelor’s degree. Additionally, students pursuing optional practical training, the work authorization for F-1 students following their graduation, typically stay in the U.S. more than four years.

But the government has argued that the old policy known as duration of status allowed students to stay in the U.S. indefinitely without having to interact with immigration officials, leading to overstays and national security concerns. According to DHS, 2,100 international students who entered the country on an F-1 visa between 2000 and 2010 are still in the country with F-1 status.

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A newly released 799-page report titled “An Attack Upon U.S Critical Infrastructure” details the 2020 election corruption and beyond.

It provides a list of 18 prioritized and recommended election investigations, along with 8 search warrants. Entities named include Runbeck Election Services, Elections Group LLC, The Office of Georgia SOS, Tyler Technologies, Associated Press, and many others.

All assertions in the report are drawn from forensic analyses, sworn legislative testimony, court filings, IG investigations, vendor invoices, open-source intelligence, government communications obtained through litigation and FOIA, and more

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Legally entering and living in the United States, sometimes years at a time, is a privilege, not a right. That’s something that foreigners are learning isn’t taken lightly with President Trump back in the White House since Jan. 2025. And on Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to crack down on those visitors who just refuse to leave.

For decades, foreign students have been admitted into the U.S. for an unspecified period, enabling thousands to abuse the system and become “forever students” by perpetually enrolling in courses to avoid leaving our nation.

By implementing clear, finite limits on these visas, the United States is reclaiming its ability to properly screen, vet, and monitor individuals within our borders.

The new limits on foreign visa holders would not affect only foreign students, though:

The Trump administration moved on Thursday to tighten the duration of visas for foreign students, cultural exchange visitors and journalists.

The new final rule from the Department of Homeland Security creates a fixed time period for F visas for international students, J visas that allow ‌visitors on cultural exchange programs to work in the U.S., and I visas for members of the media. Those visas are currently available for the duration of the program or employment in the U.S.

…

Under the new regulations, the student and exchange visa periods would be no longer than four years. The visa for journalists – which c

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The violent attack comes as Mayor Brandon M Scott announced a reported drop in homicides and violent crime.

Police are searching for a group of suspects accused of beating up an elderly man and attempting to rob him outside a gas station in Baltimore.

Surveillance video shows the group run up to the man outside a 7-Eleven and proceed to attack him and display weapons.

The six unknown suspects wearing hooded sweatshirts appear to have knocked the man to the ground several times while also throwing various objects at him.

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A self-described “witchy woman” filmed herself at work mocking Pam Bondi’s  cancer diagnosis using astrology.

Now she’s the second leftist in four days to lose her job over it.

The left has picked a strange hill – and employers keep burying them on it.

What She Actually Posted

Rosalyn Holt was the business office manager at Helena Square Assisted Living in Port Royal, South Carolina.

She filmed a TikTok at work – surrounded by elderly residents who depended on her – featuring an image of Bondi alongside text suggesting her  thyroid cancer was spiritual payback for working on the Epstein case.

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Taco Bell lettuce supplied by a popular produce company has been identified as a potential source of contamination behind the parasitic illness saddling thousands of Americans with explosive diarrhea, according to a new report.

Shredded iceberg lettuce supplied to the fast food chain by Taylor Farms has been linked to this summer’s outbreak of cyclosporiasis, according to two individuals familiar with the investigation, The Washington Post reported.

“The signal we have gotten is that there is a very high percentage of people who got sick at Taco Bell, and when investigators asked what their menu items were in common, lettuce came up frequently,” said one of the individuals who spoke to the outlet on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation.

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President Trump is expected to reveal during his primetime speech Thursday on election security that at least 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in US federal elections.

The shocking number is part of a forthcoming report by the Department of Homeland Security, a source familiar told The Post.

It is the highest ever publicly reported in US history, but the source said it remains unclear how many of those registrants may have voted illegally and what the administration plans to do about it.

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Helen Comperatore, the wife of slain firefighter and Trump supporter Corey Comperatore sat down with NewsNation recently and gave her thoughts on the Trump Butler Rally shooting.

Former fire chief Corey Comperatore was shot and killed on July 14, 2024 while attending Trump’s Rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Since the shooting, numerous questions have been raised about the Secret Service’s security failures at the rally.

Among the most talked about is why agents did not secure the rooftop from which 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to open fire on President Trump and several rally attendees.

Helen Comperatore, in a sit-down interview, claimed the security lapses were due to the shooting being an “inside job.”

Helen stated, “I don’t believe there was another shooter there, but I believe he (Crooks) was working with somebody. I believe it was an inside job inside the government.”

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Just as a fictional U.S. soldier was brainwashed into becoming an enemy of the U.S., so too has the Democrat party made that transition over the last 25 years.

Richard Condon’s The Manchurian Candidate was published in 1959 during the Cold War. The novel told the story of an American soldier whom the Chinese and North Koreans brainwashed into becoming a political assassin as part of their attempt to overthrow America. Its power came from a simple but frightening idea: the greatest threat to a nation doesn’t necessarily come from outside its borders; sometimes a country can be manipulated into tearing itself apart.

In 2026, America may not be facing a single Manchurian Candidate but, instead, something more consequential: the metamorphosis of the Democrat party into a Manchurian Party.

The Democrat party shows no signs of disappearing. Instead, I’m concerned that it is becoming something fundamentally different from the institution Americans have known—and many respect and are loyal to—for generations.

That matters because America’s political system has always depended on constructive competition between parties that, despite deep disagreements, accepted the legitimacy of our constitutional underpinnings and at times even worked collegially with one another. Republicans and Democrats frequently argued over the proper role of government, even as they generally agreed on our constitutional framework.

It’s an open question whether that agreement still exists.

The Democrat party is undergoing a sharp break from its traditional platform. Leadership has stopped acting as the institution’s steward and now chases tactical wins, distorting the party’s long-term identity. Formerly fringe factions have been absorbed, supplying energy, money, and turnout. What started as Big Tent tolerance has morphed into reliance, and that reliance is now allowing those factions to consume the old party.

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A terrifying warning has sent shockwaves through Wall Street as financial experts warn that a stock market crash is looming on the horizon.

At the eye of the hurricane is tech giant Oracle, which veteran financial analyst David Desjardins fears will be the ‘first domino to fall’ in a brutal tech market collapse.

The company’s stock has already taken a massive beating, with shares of Oracle down almost 50 percent since the beginning of June as panicked investors rush for the exits.

In a devastating blow to its reputation, ratings agency S&P Global downgraded Oracle’s credit rating to BBB- on July 9, leaving it just one step above junk bond status.

Desjardins warns that the company’s success is now almost completely tied to the performance of artificial intelligence darling OpenAI.

Oracle has effectively bet the farm on the AI revolution, building colossal data centers to power the technology, but experts warn this high-stakes gamble could backfire spectacularly.

‘OpenAI is entirely dependent on capital markets remaining wide open to meet its financial obligations,’ wrote Desjardins, who warned that if the company had trouble raising money, ‘Oracle would be in the eye of the storm.’

The collapse would not just destroy Oracle, it could take down the rest of the AI market and touch off a massive stock market meltdown.

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We’ve extensively discussed how the Trump coalition is not reliably Republican. They can and will vote for Democrats, just as they did in the 2018 midterms, and a significant part of the base considers themselves economically progressive. These individuals are similar to the old Ross Perot voters, so, to the surprise of the political elite, Republicans need to actively work to retain their votes. Otherwise, they might shift toward interesting alternatives, such as Francesca Hong, who’s running for governor in Wisconsin.

Hong identifies as a democratic socialist, so why is she gaining support from Trump supporters? This is an issue expected to grow in importance in future elections, and we’re already seeing early signs. It’s subtle, but locally, it’s becoming part of the bigger conversation—specifically, data centers. Hong has made campaigning for a statewide moratorium a key focus. The New York Times published an interesting piece on July 3 that discussed Hong’s messaging to those outside her usual voter base. People, she has appeal. It’s not certain she will win the crowded Democratic primary on August 11, but Hong is making every effort to attract support across party lines. She has built bridges with Trump supporters, and love her or hate her, her story resonates with millions: she’s a working American, a chef by trade, her restaurant failed, she sank deep into debt, and got sued over it. It’s a life experience not exactly alien to most (via NYT):

Speaker Mike Johnson Surpasses a Record $135 Million in Fundraising for 2026 Midterms

But the bigger news is that, for this election cycle, Speaker Johnson has raised over $135 million for the 2026 midterms.

Here’s more from Johnson’s office:

Speaker Mike Johnson announced today he raised $19.1 million in the second quarter of 2026, bringing his total hard-dollar fundraising this year to over $53 million and this cycle to over $135 million. This is the most raised in an election year and at this point in a cycle by a Republican Speaker or Leader, and it does not include the hundreds of millions of additional funds raised by the Speaker’s endorsed Super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund.

Speaker Johnson has now surpassed over $200 million raised for House Republicans in just over two and a half years since becoming Speaker.

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Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and journalist Nick Shirley blew the lid open on how fraudsters in Minnesota used taxpayer funds to support a vicious radical terrorist group in Somalia.

Johnson questioned Shirley during a Wednesday Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) hearing on government fraud.

“I mean, $700 million in cash flowing out of the Minneapolis airport back to, you know, countries in Africa,” Johnson said. “Have either of you gentlemen kind of investigated the foreign sourcing or an organization of a lot of this fraud? I mean, we’re opening up to foreign governments to fund their own operations.”

Shirley responded by saying “it’s been proven that a lot of the money in suitcases that left Minnesota went back into the hands of people inside Somalia.”

He further explained that in New York, daycare fraud is so rampant that at many facilities, nobody “actually knows who the owner is.”

When the massive fraud issue in Minnesota was revealed last year, it also became apparent that not all of the fraudsters were perpetrating their schemes for personal reason. Many sent the money they defrauded from government welfare programs to support Al-Shabaab, one of the most notorious radical Islamic terrorist groups on the African continent. In fact, one confidential source said, “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

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The PBS News Hour marked its 50^th anniversary last year (and the show’s first year deprived of taxpayer funding) with a clip package of its coverage of various historical events, while declaring the program had traditionally strove to be “even-handed to a fault.” If that were ever true, the current version of the show, co-anchored by Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz, certainly can’t make that claim.

A new Media Research Center study tracked and labeled every guest that appeared on the News Hour over the first six months of 2026 — January 1 through June 30 — and found that liberal-Democratic leaning guests outnumbered conservative-Republican leaning guests by 234–45, a ratio of 5.2 to 1 (186 guests were rated either neutral or nonpolitical).

That ratio surpasses findings from two previous MRC studies (3.7 to 1 in March 2023 and 4.2 to 1 in May 2025), meaning the bias has gone from bad to worse since PBS lost its government subsidy.

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Former Obama press secretary fired from Minneapolis post amid allegations he stole colleagues’ credit cards to buy kratom

Adam Fetcher, the 42-year-old former deputy national press secretary for the Obama administration, was fired from his role as Minneapolis Chief  Communications Officer on July 1 after city employees accused him of stealing cash and  credit cards from their desks and purses, allegedly to fund purchases of kratom at a nearby smoke shop.

Minneapolis police have submitted a case file to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for potential criminal charges. The case remains under review. No charges had been filed as of this week.

The New York Post reported that Fetcher, who earned close to $190,000 a year, allegedly targeted three city hall employees over a period spanning May and June, just weeks after he returned from a nine-week stint in rehab for an unspecified substance use disorder.

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Former President Joe Biden will publish a memoir this fall, publisher Little, Brown and Company told The Associated Press.

“Promise Me, America,” which Biden says will touch upon everything from the economy to his decision to drop his bid for reelection, is scheduled to come out Nov. 17.

The timing of the book — two weeks after midterm elections in which Democrats seek to regain control of Congress — could raise concerns within his party. Many Democrats remain divided on Biden’s legacy and his ill-fated determination to seek a second term in the White House, and leaders hope to keep the fall campaign focused on the record of Republican President Donald Trump.

“’Promise Me, America’ is about the challenges we faced as a nation. It’s about the decisions I made and why I made them,” Biden said in a video statement accompanying Wednesday’s announcement. “Most of all, it’s about my faith in the promise of America.”

Reports of Biden’s book have circulated for more than a year, and the former president himself has referred to it during public remarks, appearing to suggest it would be released before November’s election.

Biden, who will turn 84 three days after the publication of “Promise Me, America,” has long presented himself as an upholder of standards and traditions; presidential memoirs are one of them. With a handful of exceptions, modern presidents since Harry Truman in the 1950s have published books about their White House years. Little, Brown declined to release financial details for ”Promise Me, America,” although presidents have usually reached deals worth at least seven figures.

The book’s title echoes a 2017 memoir by Biden, “Promise Me, Dad,” which centered on the death of his son, Beau Biden.

Vowing as a candidate to “restore the soul” of his country, Biden was sworn into office in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, breach on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to stop his certification as president.

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Plus, UCLA and UCSF med schools abandon required DEI courses following Free Beacon investigations

Abdul El-Sayed is campaigning for Senate in Michigan as a populist who rails against the wealthy. “Why do we have a trillionaire when the rest of us can barely afford groceries or healthcare?” he asked earlier this week. He has even bemoaned the “perverse psychological consequences” of Rolex advertisements on the Michigan freeway, asking in his 2020 book, “How many people who drive this road can actually afford one of those”

“As it turns out, El-Sayed, who described himself in an interview with LGBTDetroit in May as a ‘sucker for automatic watches’ and ‘classic watches,’ can afford some pricey wristwear,” our Alana Goodman reports. He’s been photographed on the campaign trail wearing an array of luxury watches worth thousands of dollars, a Free Beacon review found.

El-Sayed even earned a shout-out from a watch podcast for “rocking what looks like the Sinn U-1 SE,” a German diver’s watch that costs roughly $4,000. “Badass stealthy pick, well done Doc!” an Instagram post from the Lan Jam podcast, “a friendly discussion between two blokes on watches, cars, aviation, movies, and everything in between,” declared. El-Sayed has also posted videos in which he appears to be wearing at least two Omega watches, a German nautical watch known as the S.A.R. Rescue-Timer, and a vintage 1950s Elgin “Doctors Watch.” The pieces are worth a total of roughly $20,000.

El-Sayed has “said he has maximalist political views but a minimalist style and has lacerated American ‘oligarchs,’ saying, ‘We finally need to start taxing billionaire wealth,’” Goodman writes. “El-Sayed participated in an Instagram video with a self-described ‘stylist for regular people,’ Sophie Strauss, in which she attempted to dress him in a manner that matches his radical politics. When Strauss suggested he wear ‘something green since you support climate justice,’ El-Sayed responded, ‘Of course, but this feels like money green, and I’m trying to get that out of politics.’”

A campaign spokeswoman, Roxie Richner, confirmed that El-Sayed “regularly wears a SAR Rescue Timer on the campaign trail because he is trying to rescue our politics from corporate corruption” and sometimes “wears a vintage doctor’s watch because he is a doctor,” Richner said. El-Sayed attended medical school at Columbia University but has never been licensed to practice medicine, though he has referred to himself as a “physician” on the campaign trail.

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MSNBC became MS NOW, and while they try to take comfort in routinely spanking CNN, they perennially lose in the ratings to the Fox News Channel. Their strongest stars are Rachel Maddow (only on Monday nights) and Nicolle Wallace in the late afternoon.

Recently, they shook up the lineup with new shows, and these new shows aren’t catching on. New Nielsen numbers show they’re falling off, in some cases with double-digit declines:

— Money, Power & Politics with Stephanie Ruhle airs weekdays from 9 to 11 a.m.) has averaged 710,000 total viewers, a 6 percent decline compared to the 9 a.m.-11 a.m. year-to-date timeslot prior to the lineup change. Among the 25-54 demographic, the program is down 16 percent, averaging 68,000 viewers.

— On the Line with Alicia Menendez (weekdays from noon to 2 p.m.) has averaged 602,000 total viewers, a 5 percent decrease compared to the YTD timeslot prior to the programming remix. Among the 25-54 set, it is down 15 percent, averaging 56,000 viewers.

— The Moment with Katy Tur (weekdays from 2 to 4 p.m.) has averaged 718,000 total viewers, a 5 percent decrease compared to the YTD timeslot prior to the programming changes. Among those aged 25-54, it is down 15 percent, averaging 60,000 viewers.

It isn’t better at night

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While Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, are warning Americans about the dangers of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), it seems few Democrats are making the same statements publicly. But Al Mottur, a former advisor to Hillary Clinton, is warning his fellow Democrats of the socialist takeover.

“These people, they’re not crazy, they’re ideologues. They don’t love America, let me say that,” said Mottur. “A lot of these people do not love America and I’m not team Democrat, I’m team America. And if we have people in our party who are so far Left, that they are saying we don’t want to protect people from crime, well, that’s just absurd. And, by the way, we’re not going to win a national election, let alone an election in Michigan, if that’s our position.”

He’s correct.

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A bull bison hooked a retired grandfather near the hip and hurled him several feet into the air at a Yellowstone National Park campground on a Friday evening, leaving the man with multiple broken bones, but his grandson walked away uninjured. The eyewitness who filmed the attack believes that outcome was no accident.

Carl Isom-McDaniel, a retiree in his mid-60s from Kendall, Washington, was walking with his grandson near Bridge Bay Campground when the animal charged without provocation, Fox News Digital reported. Photographer Mike MacLeod, a Bozeman, Montana, veteran who captured the attack on video, said it looked like the grandfather positioned himself between the bison and the boy.

“It really felt to me like the grandfather kind of saved his grandson,” MacLeod said. “[He’d] taken the brunt of the attack.”

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Senate Democrats shunned a Wednesday hearing called to hear testimony about allegations of fraud.

As noted in a post on X, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing Wednesday without any Democrats attending.

In his prepared testimony, journalist Nick Shirley, who helped expose social services fraud in Minnesota, said fraud is being publicized because it is so pervasive and easy to find.

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No matter how hard they try, Democrats cannot convince the Bidens to go away.

This time, at least, former President Joe Biden will delay reimposing himself on the public until after the midterm elections.

According to the Associated Press, Little, Brown and Company will publish the former president’s memoir, “Promise Me, America,” on Nov. 17, which gives the reading public exactly four months and two days to decide for themselves whether Biden actually wrote part or all of the book.

“I’ve written a book about my time as President,” Biden insisted Wednesday on the social media platform X.

A promotional video accompanied the former president’s post.

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No palace intrigue. No political favors. No more Giordano-style politics.

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Jashanpreet Singh, the 21-year-old illegal alien semi-truck driver who killed three people on a Southern California freeway last October was sentenced to under 5 years in prison on Tuesday.

Singh previously pleaded guilty to three counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.

Superior Court Judge Shannon Faherty (D) (she was previously appointed by Governor Newsom to fill a vacancy), sentenced Singh to 4 years and eight months in prison after he killed three people and injured several others in a multi-vehicle pile-up crash.

According to Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, Singh is an Indian illegal alien who was caught and released by border patrol agents at the El Centro, California, sector by the Biden administration in March 2022.

Anthony Fauci’s time has come. He’s heading into the hot seat, and questions about what he did and didn’t do and how much that “autopen pardon” really matters are about to come into the light.

According to Senator Rand Paul, Fauci will testify publicly before his committee, and this time, the questions are going straight to the heart of the COVID scandal, gain-of-function research, the Wuhan lab, and what Fauci allegedly told the American people while sitting at the center of the storm.

This is huge for so many reasons.

Fauci spent years being treated by legacy media like some untouchable medical saint, floating angelically above all the politics in his little white lab coat and halo, while Americans who had legit questions about him were mocked and labeled as conspiracy theorists, anti-science lunatics, and granny killers.

But a lot of those “conspiracy theories” actually aged pretty damn well.

Now, Rand Paul says declassified documents show Fauci didn’t just fund gain-of-function research connected to the Wuhan lab, he also helped shape what the intelligence community told Americans about COVID’s origins.

And yes, like we mentioned, Fauci has that autopen pardon hanging around in the background. But a bizarre, controversial pardon doesn’t erase the truth, and it sure as hell doesn’t erase the American people’s right to know who lied, who covered, who profited, and who helped steer the official story very far away from the truth.

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Veteran Democrat strategist James Carville is warning that socialist insurgents are endangering his party’s chances after a recent wave of far-left primary victories.

Carville, the former Bill Clinton strategist known as “The Ragin’ Cajun,” unloaded on “left-wing idiots” Friday during a “Presidential History Lesson” appearance for Politicon’s YouTube channel.

His comments came after socialist Democrat candidates scored primary wins in New York, Colorado, and Washington, D.C.

The surge has been triggering growing concern among establishment Democrats.

“These people are so f**king stupid, I don’t know what to say about it,” Carville said.

He said the far-left candidates are more focused on attacking Democrats than defeating Republicans.

“So now we have this idea that these insurgent Democrats — and what is their solution?” Carville said.

“Is their solution to beat Republicans, to run against Republicans? No!”

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The recent New York Democratic primary results reveal more than typical political turnover. They expose a dangerous realignment within the American Left. What we’re witnessing is the systematic mobilization of Islamist organizations forging strategic alliances with democratic socialists and far-left activists, creating a powerful coalition that threatens the party’s traditional center.

The deliberate targeting and defeat of Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar exemplifies this troubling trend. As a moderate Democrat and the first South Asian woman elected to the state legislature, Rajkumar embodied the pragmatic wing of her party.

Her loss wasn’t an isolated upset. It represents part of a coordinated effort to purge moderate voices from Democratic politics. Across New York, we’re seeing well-funded insurgent campaign machines systematically target and eliminate centrist Democrats, replacing them with candidates who embrace increasingly radical positions.

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Now we are going to get to see what really happens to the global economy when the Strait of Hormuz is completely closed for an extended period of time. Before the war, approximately 45 percent of all Asian oil imports traveled through the Strait of Hormuz. The Chinese normally get more oil from the Middle East than anyone else, and the amount of crude oil that they have been importing has collapsed. That is not sustainable for the Chinese, and they are getting very angry. At the same time, relentless drone attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure have forced the Russians to buy gasoline from India. If the Strait of Hormuz remains completely closed for months, global energy supplies will get extremely tight and the price of oil will go into unprecedented territory.

On Monday, the world was shocked when two oil tankers from the United Arab Emirates were struck by Iranian cruise missiles…

Iranian cruise missiles hit two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one crew member and injuring eight, the United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Defense said Monday.

The attacks took place when the tankers — Mombasa and Al Bahiyah — were sailing through the strait’s southern shipping lane, which hugs the coast of Oman, the defense ministry said. Iran has insisted that commercial ships use a separate lane near the Iranian coastline and seek permission from Iranian authorities. Iran has not publicly commented on the apparent attacks.

The deceased crew member and six injured crew members were Indian nationals, and two of those injured were from Ukraine, according to the United Arab Emirates.

The Iranians have warned that any commercial vessels that attempt to travel through the Strait of Hormuz without their permission are subject to attack, and they were not bluffing.

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Minneapolis sheriff has triggered an uncomfortable conversation by saying out loud what you are not supposed to talk about in Minnesota. “Out of control” gangs of Somali youths are terrorizing the city, and the mayhem is poised to get worse.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher released a livestream video on July 6 decrying widespread violence by Somali gang members over the Fourth of July weekend. He also took the opportunity to criticize media outlets in the Twin Cities and the state for refusing to cover the problem.

Fletcher “stated that the Somali gangs are responsible for at least 14 murders in the last two years as well as over 100 shootings – many of them at high-profile events like graduations and the State Fair. Fletcher also said in his promo video that he heard from a Minneapolis police officer who said that 20 percent of their homicides are now Somalis,” local news site Alpha News reports.

The situation is blowing up right in front of the public eye.

‘It’s All About Ego for 99% of It’

“Investigators say Somali gang violence is growing quickly and now spans the metro [area], with 12 Somali gangs tracked from Minneapolis and St. Paul to St. Cloud, Apple Valley and Burnsville. Most of the violence involves guns, according to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office,” Fox-9 TV in Minneapolis reports. “Authorities say the gangs are still young and growing, with about 300 people involved right now.”

Ramsey County Deputy Ben Seidel said the Somali youth gangs don’t operate like traditional inner-city gangs in the sense of being motivated by money. “From what I’ve seen… it’s all about showboating. It’s all about ego for 99% of it. They aren’t selling narcotics. It’s all about just gloating,” Seidel states in the video.

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Liberals love to dignify their biases by dressing them up in something quantifiable and thereby making them look objective. After all, they have no interest in persuading you. They simply want to place themselves and their opinions above reproach.

For instance, if you want to make your political adversaries’ home states look like the unlivable hellholes of your imagination, take the things you hate about them, assign those things a numerical score, and — voila! — you have an anti-conservative screed masquerading as objective analysis.

CNBC used this exact approach when compiling “America’s 10 worst states to live in for 2026.”

Liberals love to dignify their biases by dressing them up in something quantifiable and thereby making them look objective. After all, they have no interest in persuading you. They simply want to place themselves and their opinions above reproach.

Giant jellyfish with tentacles up to 120 feet long are swarming US beaches, with officials warning that even dead creatures can sting.

Swarms of lion’s mane jellyfish have turned up along the New England coast, apparently by the thousands.

The creatures have been spotted from Massachusetts’ North Shore to Cape Cod and Nantucket, with some drifting as far north as Maine.

Great Marsh Kayak Tours in Eastham, Massachusetts, said on X: ‘Right now, Cape Cod is inundated with lion’s mane jellyfish! Multiple thousands of them have gotten swept into the marsh with the tides.’

The creature’s tentacles carry a large amount of neurotoxins that cause a sharp, burning sensation. The pain can quickly escalate over an hour and is accompanied by red welts, itching, and potential muscle cramps, headaches or nausea.

The beach town of Beverly in Massachusetts said last week: ‘Keep children and pets away from stranded jellyfish. … Do not touch jellyfish or detached tentacles, even if they appear dead.’

The jellyfish is known to sting even 25 days after they have died.

Experts say the surge in lion’s mane jellyfish is being driven by warming ocean temperatures, wind and tidal currents, abundant food sources, and sheltered coastal waters that allow the creatures to thrive before washing ashore.

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Family members revealed the relationship between the teenager and the elderly couple he’s accused of killing

A teenager in Mississippi knew the elderly couple he’s accused of killing before sparking a standoff with law enforcement, according to new testimony in court.

Cordarius Hobbs, 17, is charged with killing 74-year-old Billy Blair and his 71-year-old wife Virginia Carol Blair during a home break-in on June 3 in Mendenhall, Mississippi. Family members of Hobbs testified during the Thursday preliminary hearing that he knew the couple.

Family members testified that Hobbs did work for the Blairs for things like cleaning around the house before the alleged shooting, according to WAPT. Billy Newsome, Hobbs’ grandfather, said he believes his grandson was called to work on the day of the alleged shooting but believes he’s innocent.

“My grandson used to work for the man, why you gone rob a man that you work for,” Newsome said. “Why you gone stay there that long and you know the police out there, and then you gone wait until everybody gets there to run, it just ain’t adding up, something just ain’t right here.”

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The largest US power grid failed for a third straight year to secure enough future supply commitments to ensure reliability for the future amid a historic boom in data center demand.

PJM Interconnection, the largest US power grid (Regional Transmission Organization), which serves 67 million customers in 13 states and Washington, DC, said its auction to procure power for the year starting June 2028 fell 6.8 gigawatts short of what it will need to guarantee system reliability during demand spikes, in a statement released Tuesday. The shortfall is equivalent to almost seven traditional nuclear reactors.

The result ramps up pressure on a grid that’s home to Virginia’s Data Center Alley, the biggest concentration of data centers in the US, and has borne the brunt of criticism for the struggle to manage the AI boom and sufficiently protect customers from soaring costs. Attention now shifts to an emergency procurement mechanism later this year that aims to shift the burden of ramping up power generation to hyperscalers.

6.831 Megawatt Shortfall

PJM Interconnection today announced the results of its 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction (BRA), which secured 138,318 MW of unforced capacity generation (UCAP) and demand response to meet projected electricity needs for the more than 67 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia, which fall under the RTO’s umbrella.

Regions under the Fixed Resource Requirement (FRR) acquired an additional 10,864 MW in UCAP, for a total of 149,182 MW in UCAP available to serve forecasted peak electricity demand, plus a reserve margin. UCAP represents a generation resource’s maximum output adjusted for its estimated ability to reliably perform at times of highest system risk. The capacity of the resources procured in the auction, plus FRR resources, is short of PJM’s reliability requirement by 6,831 MW, meaning that the committed supply is less than what would be required to meet the one-event-in-10-year reliability standard (and with electricity-guzzling data centers popping up almost daily these days, the one-event-in-10-year has become a daily occurrence).

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From 1926 through 2025, just 27.6% of stocks beat the broader market. Nearly 60% actually destroyed shareholder wealth, and the median stock delivered a lifetime return of -6.9%. Yet despite those sobering odds, U.S. stocks collectively created roughly $91 trillion in wealth over the last century, with just 46 companies responsible for half of it.

Those are some of the headline findings from a new study by Hendrik Bessembinder of Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, who examined the performance of nearly 30,000 U.S. stocks over the last century. The research paints a striking picture of how wealth is actually created in the stock market: while broad market indexes have generated exceptional long-term returns, the vast majority of individual stocks have failed to keep pace.

Bessembinder analyzed 29,754 publicly traded U.S. stocks between 1926 and 2025. Over that period, the overall stock market produced an annualized return of about 10.1%, turning every dollar invested into more than $15,000, according to the study, detailed in this white paper.

But those impressive aggregate returns mask an uncomfortable reality. The typical stock fared far worse. In fact, the median stock lost 6.9% over its lifetime, fewer than half of all stocks generated a positive lifetime return, only about 41% outperformed Treasury bills during the time they were publicly traded, and just 27.6% managed to outperform the market itself.

The reason is simple: stock market returns are incredibly uneven. While any stock can fall to zero, there is effectively no limit to how much a winner can rise. Over long periods, a tiny number of extraordinary companies generate gains so large that they more than offset the thousands of stocks that stagnate, disappoint, or disappear altogether. Those rare winners account for an outsized share of the market’s overall success.

Perhaps the most surprising finding is that this concentration has become even more extreme. In Bessembinder’s original research covering 1926 through 2016, 89 companies accounted for half of all shareholder wealth created by the U.S. stock market. After adding the last nine years of data, total wealth creation more than doubled to roughly $91 trillion, yet the number of companies responsible for half of it fell to just 46.

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IRGC: Iran to ‘Control Entire Strait in Wartime’

Amid ongoing cross-Gulf attacks today between Iranian and US forces, the IRGC says they targeted enemy weapons and parts storages in Bahrain and Kuwait. This after the US appeared to attack some critical Iranian infrastructure on coastal islands.

The IRGC has issued a fresh statement via state media on Tuesday, saying that “as long as the US evil stays in the region, not a drop of oil and gas will be exported from the region.” It said further, per the press release:

• US aggression will have no result other than delaying the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
• Targeted drone ramp in Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem air base; today’s attacks in response to US attacks on Iran.

ABC is meanwhile reporting during the mid-afternoon (US time) that American airstrikes on Iran have been underway for the last couple of course. And yet still, Iran’s IRIB has said that the Islamic Republic “must control the entire Hormuz Strait in wartime”.

The region is being plunged back into full-fledged war, also as fighting between the Saudis and Houthis in Yemen appears to be breaking out.

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A Florida judge sentenced a young man to 45 years behind bars for his role in the fatal tire iron beating of a man in 2022 while he was on probation.

Judge Elizabeth Jack threw the book at Savonne Morrison, 21, for his part in the heinous killing of Jeffrey Chapman, 49, in Clearwater.

Morrison was just 18 at the time of Chapman’s killing and was four months into probation for a carjacking when the murder took place.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Morrison was slapped with the large sentence in court on Monday after a lengthy hearing.

Morrison’s mother and father addressed the court via letters during the hearing, WFLAreported, with his father saying that his son was misunderstood.

‘Throughout this case, it has been heartbreaking to watch my son be portrayed as someone that he is not’, his father said.

Chapman was killed after Morrison was contacted by his friend Jermaine Bennett, who asked Morrison to help him beat up his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.

Morrison and Bennett failed to track their intended victim down, then binged on booze and cocaine as they drove around St. Petersburg.

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Whenever big data center developers roll into town, their pitch ends up sounding something like this: hand over your land and your resources, throw in a decade of government subsidies, and we’ll give your ailing little burg some jobs, tax revenue, and a shiny new facility to boost the local economy.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Not so fast, cowboy.

In theory, more tax revenue means money for schools, roads, and first responders. In practice, states and counties are waving those taxes in order to entice tech companies to set up shop — while existing campuses put major strain on local communities. One analysis found that Georgia, Virginia, and Texas each lose over $1 billion a year to state data center incentives, while at least fourteen states don’t even disclose data center tax breaks in the first place.

The down-stream impacts don’t really materialize either. Researchers at Georgia Tech found that in rural areas, data centers typically employ fewer than 100 permanent workers and are likely to import specialized services from outside the community.

While this can temporarily boost unemployment numbers, any broader, long-term impacts are not guaranteed and are highly dependent on local conditions. As the Georgia Tech researchers explain, “the sweeping job and wage growth often promised during local recruitment efforts is unlikely to arrive on its own.”

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No palace intrigue. No political favors. No more Giordano-style politics.

I just brought on hundreds of mint condition rock albums, (this is just a small sample) to the Route 346 Emporium 32993 Old Ocean City Road Parsonsburg, MD. 21849.

We have over 50,000 rock albums in stock. WE BUY ALBUMS EVERY DAY. 410-430-5349

Open Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10 to 4 and Sunday 12 to 3.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster announced Monday that he will appoint the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to temporarily represent the state in the United States Senate.

The announcement came shortly after President Donald Trump publicly called on McMaster to select Nordone as a tribute to Graham, who passed away unexpectedly over the weekend at the age of 71.

“I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!”

McMaster accepted the president’s recommendation and selected Nordone to serve through the conclusion of Graham’s current term in January.

Nordone is expected to be sworn into office Wednesday. The appointment carries enormous personal significance.

After Graham’s mother and father died within approximately 15 months of one another, the future senator assumed responsibility for raising his younger sister. Graham became Nordone’s legal guardian while she was still a teenager, and the siblings remained exceptionally close throughout his life.

Free-market competition is, and always has been, the great driver of optimal outcomes for consumers. Judge Robert Bork argued for a consumer welfare standard to examine business behavior in his book “The Antitrust Paradox.” Bork argues that antitrust regulators should focus on the impact that corporate behavior is having on consumers rather than protecting obsolete business models.

Recently, Rep. Ben Cline urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate online real estate platforms for alleged misconduct that harms homebuyers. His letter outlines the kind of action that consumers and conservatives should rally around.

Cline asks regulators to consider two areas of concern in the online real estate market: First, deceptive referral tools that direct buyers to affiliated agents, and, second, financing options that steer buyers toward lenders that pay the platforms a kickback. I agree with Cline that we should be wary of companies becoming so dominant that consumer welfare is harmed.

Without naming names, Cline’s letter draws attention to Zillow, the largest online real estate broker. The platform’s “contact agent” feature, the letter notes, connects users with agents who pay Zillow, rather than the selling agent, for priority status. This online feature increases commission fees for buyers.

Likewise, the site allegedly encourages agents to push buyers to its mortgage lending division, in return for a steady stream of leads. Zillow does not charge agents for the leads but does take a cut of commissions that result from them — as much as 40%, according to another lawsuit filed against the real estate leader late last year.

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Decades of broken promises prove diplomacy cannot succeed while the current regime remains in power.

One has to wonder why President Trump is still negotiating with Iran. Mr. Trump has said that the cease-fire is over because Iran is still launching missiles and drones against our bases in Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan and shooting at ships in the Strait of Hormuz. We have undertaken several nights of air raids against Iran, hitting dozens of military targets. But he has agreed with the Iranians that negotiations toward a peace deal will continue.

Why?

The regime in Tehran has threatened to assassinate Mr. Trump which is the rough equivalent of a declaration of war. Wars throughout history — including World War One — were started (or widened) by such assassinations.

We cannot take those threats lightly as evidenced by the fact that the president returned from the recent NATO meeting not aboard the fancy new Air Force One that the Qataris gave him but an older aircraft which had better missile defenses aboard. Mr. Trump’s aircraft should never go anywhere without fighter escorts.

The Tehran regime is expert at stalling negotiations and then ignoring the result. They want to drag out negotiations as long as they can, then agree to some deal that they have no intention of abiding by. It’s what they do as the past 47 years have proved beyond doubt.

Many famous people are misquoted regularly. In the case of Albert Einstein, perhaps the most famous misquote that’s attributed to him is his definition of insanity.

Mr. Einstein purportedly said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” There’s no evidence that he actually said or wrote that, but it’s still called his theory of insanity.

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I watched the New York Pride Parade on livestream. The parade is a major event in NYC, attended by well over a million people. Today, 11 years after Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage, the movement that once celebrated equality alongside most Democrats looks very different. The near-complete embrace of trans rights as seen in the parade, especially as it affects children, is likely to harm the Democratic Party in coming elections. (FYI, I’ll use the word “gay” as shorthand here for the various constructions, the most complete of which is the unhandy LGBTQQIP2SAA+.)

One of the most noticeable changes in the Pride Parade was the replacement of the once-ubiquitous rainbow flag with the “trans flag,” adding pink, brown, white, and black. Trans people were present in large numbers, had their own floats, and were noticeably name-checked by most of the speakers and signs I saw.

As in years before, Democratic politicians were also quite visible. But this year the senior pol, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), was booed. Some in the crowd turned their backs on him, and when the parade paused, they shouted out about how he did not support trans rights. Chuck yelled back he was the first major politician to ever attend a Pride Parade, back in the ’90s. Meanwhile, the all-in, modern trans-supporter Mayor Zohran Mamdani got some of the biggest applause of the day.

In Gallup polls from 1996 only about a third of Americans supported same-sex marriage. But by the mid-2010s, the figure had flipped and remained about two-thirds into the 2020s. This change culminated in the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. In 2024 the Republican Party even removed opposition to marriage equality from its platform. Importantly, the Court ruling followed—not preceded—the broader cultural shift.

The emphasis that led to acceptance of gay rights was driven by several factors, key among which was the emphasis on marriage involving consenting adults, many of whom were already cohabitating in various statuses. Advocacy focused on the universal human rights already part of American law and society, such as the right to work, to own property jointly, and so on—nothing more than asking people to accept someone else’s private life. It did not include sexual “rights” for children.

Then something happened concurrent with the first election of Donald Trump. While it once was sufficient to support basic rights, the Pride Parade started to include overt anti-Trump messages. Signs started to read “Trans rights are human rights,” and the new flag was debuted. Far from “celebrating victory, defending the gains, and staying vigilant while winding down as a movement that had achieved its core objectives,” many gay groups did the opposite. They radicalized.

Democrats increasingly viewed gay activism as an important component of their electoral coalition. The letter Q and the term “queer” came to symbolize the idea that one’s sexuality was a political act. In the 2016 presidential election, gay voters embraced Hillary Clinton, promoting irrational fears as bizarre as Trump endorsing imprisoning gays in concentration camps. This voting pattern reflected a broader social shift, where identity-based politics became increasingly central to how one voted. The Democrats took full advantage of this, fanning the flames further in the next election cycle with careful allotments by gender identity (as well as race, disability, etc.) throughout the Biden administration, especially in the military.

The move from basic rights to gender identity made things much more complex as Trump took office a second time.

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emocrats have many problems, not the least of which is an inability to understand, and for some the refusal to accept, basic economics. If they did, there wouldn’t be proposals to raise the federal minimum wage to a preposterous $25 an hour.

House Resolution 8555 would “place the federal minimum wage on a durable path toward a living wage,” requiring “large, highly profitable corporations to lead the transition.” Under its yoke, large employers would have to raise their lowest wage from the current $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour on Jan. 1, 2027, a more-than-double spike that would shock the market.

Large companies, defined as those with annual gross revenues in excess of $1 billion (there are more than 6,000 of them) or with 500 or more employees nationwide, will have to ramp up their minimum wage every Jan. 1 thereafter until the minimum hits $25 an hour on Jan. 1, 2031. Smaller companies will have to boost their hourly minimum to $14 next New Year’s Day and will have to meet the $25-an-hour standard by 2038.

“We can afford it,” declares Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who late last month introduced a similar bill in the Senate. “It’s not like we can’t pay a $25 minimum wage, we just choose not to because we’ve become okay with dozens and dozens of people in this country making hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Who is “we,” Senator? Which company do you own? Which business did you start that will fall under the government’s wage boot? When was the last time you had to meet a company payroll? Anyone who would say “we” in this context is definitionally low-minded.

Minimum-wage hikes are a combination of economic tyranny (there is no moral authority for lawmakers to tell private businesses how much they have to pay their workers, so they simply delegated the power to themselves) and economic lunacy.

Raising the cost of anything, including labor, will lower demand, and in the case of a government-mandated minimum wage, that would be the demand for workers in the private sector.

In late 2023, the Congressional Budget Office said if the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 were passed and the federal minimum wage were increased in yearly increments to $17 per hour by July 2029 — just 18 months before the $25-an-hour wage floor of HR 8555 would kick in — there would be blood.

“Employment would be reduced because employers would respond by reducing their workforces,” says the CBO. “As a result, 0.7 million additional workers (or 0.4% of the overall workforce) would be jobless.”

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If states are responsible for running SNAP, they should be responsible for getting it right. Accountability isn’t a cut—it’s common sense.

or sixty years, the food stamp program has operated under an arrangement no family and no business would ever accept: one level of government runs the program, and another level of government pays for it. States sign people up, calculate benefits, and process the paperwork while federal taxpayers cover the bill. When the people writing the checks and the people doing the work are in different buildings, nobody watches the register.

The results are exactly what you’d expect. In fiscal year 2024, the federal government spent roughly $100 billion on SNAP, and at least $10.5 billion of it was lost to improper payments, according to the Government Accountability Office. That’s at least one dollar out of every nine going out the door in the wrong amount, to the wrong people, or both. Year after year, the error rates barely move because for the states responsible for them, errors are free.

This lack of accountability is what feeds the fraud we’ve seen in states like Minnesota, where fraudsters stole as much as $9 billion in taxpayer money while state officials either neglected to do their job or turned a blind eye. Some of the money may have even ended up in the pockets of terrorist groups like al-Shabaab. As the inspector general responsible for investigating the SNAP program recently testified to Congress, “Proceeds of SNAP fraud have gone to individuals linked to terrorist groups, foreign adversary nations, and transnational criminal organizations.”

President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act finally fixed the incentive by requiring states with payment error rates of 6 percent or higher to pay 5 to 15 percent of benefit costs, and every state will cover a larger share of administrative expenses. For the first time since the program was introduced, a state that tolerates sloppy rolls will feel it in its own budget. Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman, describing why the provision exists, put it plainly: “It is clear that improvements were needed to ensure SNAP is administered as intended to support those truly in need while protecting taxpayer dollars.”

And here is the remarkable part: the reform is working before a single dollar changes hands. Because the 2028 cost share is calculated from each state’s error rate in fiscal year 2025 or 2026, the measurement window is open right now. States that spent decades shrugging at their error rates are suddenly tightening income verification, cleaning ineligible recipients off their rolls, and investigating why errors happen. That is the mechanism doing exactly what it was designed to do.

So naturally, Washington wants to kill it.

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One of the most enduring creations of the English language is the Declaration of Independence, posted on July 4, 1776.  It is a polemic masterpiece justifying revolution.  “A candid world”  is informed that the “political bands” uniting America and England are “dissolved” due to a “history of repeated injuries and usurpations” that were evidence of “an absolute tyranny.”  The great legacy of the American Revolution is the recognition of rights: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Protection of these rights is the essence and purpose of American government.  At least it should be.

Liberty is embodied in the First Amendment of the Constitution which ensures freedom of religion, speech, and the press, peaceful assembly, and the right of the people to petition their government to voice their grievances.  Americans are free to acquire and disseminate knowledge, establish facts, and develop ideas so they may freely pursue the life they choose.

This stands in contrast to the socialist movement, which can trace its roots to the French Revolution.  The motto of France, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity), exhibits a similar sentiment, but the concept of fraternity, or brotherhood, doesn’t exist in the Declaration.  There is significant tension between the competing ideas.  American government was established to protect individual liberty, not the brotherhood of man.

Socialism is a complex construct.  Karl Marx and a litany of disciples and acolytes devoted countless hours to propagate millions of pages of confusing propositions, instructions, manifestos, plans, and propaganda to support a theory that has meant many things to many people.  The foundation, which is to say the shifting sand, of Marxism is the theories of dialectical materialism and historical materialism.  The simplified premise is that human history is the result of the struggles of people obtaining and consuming material.  History is an evolutionary progression of primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, all culminating in utopian communism.  Marx predicted that humanity’s struggles would cease when society operated according to his communist credo: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

From time to time, there is confusion regarding the words socialism and communism.  Communism is associated with the dictators of Soviet Russia or China, whereas socialism is perceived as a kinder socioeconomic scheme.  Don’t be fooled.  Socialism and communism are different sides of the same coin.  According to Marx, communism is the utopian conclusion of the human struggle for material.  It has never been achieved.  Nations that branded themselves as communist, like the Soviet Union, China, and numerous other socialist experiments, are examples of the failures of socialism.

For those who consider China a successful communist state, consider for a moment its sordid history.  Chairman Mao envisioned China as an agrarian society.  China, like Soviet Russia, collectivized agriculture, with the predictable result of famine and the starvation of at least forty-five million people.  Mao, like Stalin, insisted on purity of thought and unleashed the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) to ensure that his policies were accepted.  Anyone who objected was “rehabilitated” or murdered.  The path to communism is stained with blood, imprisonment, and misery.

China changed direction in 1982 under Deng Xiaoping.  China had emerged from its revolution as a feudal state determined to make the “great leap forward” to communist utopia, only to achieve failure and the death of millions of its citizens.  To alleviate these failures, Deng injected capitalism into China’s economy by offering cheap labor for Western capital.  Private property was allowed, huge apartment buildings were constructed, factories were assembled, and modern industrial process were delivered to the country by Western manufacturers.  The result has been the success that only capitalism can provide, masked with the purity of thought that socialism demands.  The Chinese people are better off financially but are denied the blessings of liberty.

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CNN issued an on-air correction Thursday morning after featuring a satirical quote from a parody social media account the day before.“CNN This Morning” host Audie Cornish admitted to the mistake about 24 hours after her show’s previous episode showed part of a Tuesday X post from Jack Kimble, an account on the platform parodying a U.S. congressman. The quote was shown alongside statements from spokespersons for top Senate Republicans and conservative commentator Scott Jennings.

“Yesterday on the show, we displayed quotes from some Republicans about [Republican Kentucky] Senator Mitch McConnell’s stay in the Hospital,” Cornish said. “One of them was mistakenly taken from a parody account on Twitter.”

“Obviously, we should not have done that, and we regret the error,” she said.

The parody post aired on-screen Wednesday during a segment about 84-year-old McConnell’s current health situation.

“I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior Senator from Kentucky. He’s still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 45 minutes,” read Jack Kimble’s parody post featured on the Wednesday morning segment.

The stunning transformation of Great Britain in recent years – from a beacon of decorum and stiff upper lips to a cautionary tale of wokeness run amok – has been blamed on everything from socialism to satanism.

However, Rupert Lowe, a member of the British Parliament and founder of the organization Restore Britain, said the reality may be even more sinister.

In a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, he said a shadowy group of elites known as the Fabian Society was deliberately trying to wreck the country.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Fabian Society, but if you go and have a look at it, it was basically most of the Labour Party for many, many years,” Lowe said, referring to England’s leading left-wing party, the equivalent of U.S. Democrats.

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President Trump is expected to announce foreign interference in the 2020 election during Thursday night’s speech.

Earlier Monday, President Trump said he will be delivering a speech this Thursday at 9 pm ET.

According to MS NOW, Trump will speak about the newly declassified intelligence.

The Democrat Party spent four years calling voter fraud a myth.

Now the Justice Department just told every single secretary of state in America they can go to prison for ignoring it.

Harmeet Dhillon dropped the hammer this week – and Democrats suddenly have a lot to explain.

Criminal Charges on the Table

Trump’s top civil rights enforcer, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, sent identical letters to all 50 states and Washington, D.C. on July 7.

The message was simple: clean up your voter rolls or face criminal prosecution.

“Any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s [voter registration list] or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability,” Dhillon wrote to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

States got five days to explain exactly how they plan to comply with federal voter eligibility laws.

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The city of Sarasota, Florida, has around 55,000 people in it. Sarasota County, though, has about 480,000 people. That’s a lot of folks, but even in Sarasota itself, it’s not exactly Tiny Town, USA. And, as it’s in Florida, there are probably a whole lot of guns floating around town, both legal and not so legal.

But never fear, Sarasota just had a gun “buyback,” where they bought back things the government never owned in the first place. The goal of such events, as always, is to reduce the number of guns that criminals might gain access to.

And did this one make a dent? Not in the least.

 The Sarasota Police Department hosted its annual “Done with the Gun” firearm turn-in event Saturday, providing an anonymous way to safely dispose of unwanted firearms.

…

Police said that 12 firearms were turned in this year.

Police accepted a variety of items, including non-working firearms, antique firearms, replica firearms, pellet guns and BB guns.

What they got was a double-barrel shotgun, a break-action shotgun, a bolt-action .22 rifle, an air rifle, five revolvers–including one that didn’t even seem to have a grip on it–and three semi-auto handguns.

Of these firearms, the semi-autos and a couple of the revolvers, which were snub-noses, might be useful to a modern criminal.

That’s it. That’s the potential impact, and since I’m pretty sure these were all from lawful owners who just didn’t want them anymore for whatever reason, there will be zero impact on crime.

Then again, that’s true of buybacks as a whole. The research, which routinely seems to find a convoluted way to advance the anti-gun narrative, has come right out and proven time and time again that buybacks don’t reduce crime. The only example that a study has ever suggested otherwise was one where the buyback was held in conjunction with other efforts, but the researchers made no effort to see if it was the buyback itself or the other efforts that made a difference.

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Donald Trump has reinstated his naval blockade of Iran, barring ships from entering or leaving their ports, days after Tehran attacked another commercial vessel and declared the Strait of Hormuz closed.

The President also claimed the US would be paid a 20 percent tariff for securing safe passage for commercial vessels through the Persian Gulf. The details of Trump’s demand were not immediately clear.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US ‘will be, from this point forward, known as “The Guardian of the Hormuz Strait.”‘

‘The process and formation will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’

The blockade will not take effect immediately: shipowners must be given 24 hours’ notice under maritime law.

Oil prices spiked by 5 percent, with Brent crude, the global benchmark, hitting $79.93 – its highest price since June 19.

Saudi Arabia launched strikes on Iran’s Houthi proxy terror group in Yemen, opening a new front in the war after Iran launched strikes against five US allies in the region.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels say Saudi warplanes bombarded Sanaa International Airport in Yemen. The group’s spokesman declared an ‘end to the de-escalation phase’ and warned that the ‘aggression will not go unanswered or unpunished.’

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