MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Rep. Hank Johnson Drops a New Epstein Protest Song, and I’m Murdered.
Archive for 2025
July 15, 2025
READER FAVORITE: Amazon Basics Emergency Seat Belt Cutter and Window Hammer Tool, Car Accessories, 2 Pack. #CommissionEarned
ABOUT DAMN TIME: Ted Cruz Unveils Bill To Designate Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Organization, Anticipates Bipartisan Support. “While past legislative efforts focused on the organization’s nebulous global operation, the new bill employs a ‘bottom-up’ approach that systematically sanctions the Muslim Brotherhood’s violent branches around the world. The bill centers on active terrorist organizations, creating a legal framework to designate the Muslim Brotherhood writ large as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).”
HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS: Harvard ethics professor fired for dishonesty maintains her innocence.
WE HAVE THE LOVELIEST FIRST LADY IN THE WORLD, INSIDE AND OUT: Melania’s Bracelet. “She mentioned that she received a special bracelet, which she was wearing, and held her arm up for the cameras. You could tell that the gesture touched her. As it turns out, the charm bracelet was a gift from a local family, given to her in honor of the girls who died at Camp Mystic. She posted a little more about it on social media over the weekend, saying that it will ‘forever hold a sacred place in my heart— a quiet, shining thread to the young souls who now watch over us from heaven.'”
SCRATCH THE SURFACE AND I BET YOU’LL FIND THIS ISN’T UNCOMMON:
Yesterday: "Trump fired me from the state department"
4 years ago: "Last week I did literally nothing of value" pic.twitter.com/rICIB7HFI8— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) July 15, 2025
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Space Force is training for ‘orbital warfare’ in its largest exercise yet.
According to Space Force Col. Jay Steingold, the exercise’s director, Resolute Space 2025 involves “live, synthetic, and virtual space warfighting.” In practice, several of the military’s space-based satellites will be involved, both for real-time operations and in simulated conditions.
However “orbital warfare” remains less defined by the service. This does not appear to involve deploying laser-armed troops like in ‘Moonraker’ or staging orbital kinetic drops. Space Force operates an array of satellites and a space plane famous for its long missions in orbit, but the service has not disclosed any kind of space-based battleship or fighter. Space Force did not give details to its specific space-based or space-capable weapons. However in recent months Saltzman and other leaders have talked about boosting Space Force’s offensive capabilities, both in electromagnetic warfare and in more direct warfare, specifying the need to get kinetic and non-kinetic weapons for the latter category.
Yesterday: It’s hunting season in orbit as Russia’s killer satellites mystify skywatchers.
SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Must Article III Courts Issue Explanations for their Orders?
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Let’s Give Blue Cities Enough Commie Rope to Hang Themselves. “I’m just tired of seeing wealthy people who can afford to be fetish socialists and young people who are too dumb to know better blathering on about what they think Utopia looks like. Give ’em a glimpse.”
BLUE STATE BLUES: Washington state government spending surges 116% since 2015.
Washington state faces deficit spending by 2028 as lawmakers just hit taxpayers with the state’s largest combined tax increase – all driven by massive state spending increases over the past decade, an investigation of state budgets by The Center Square found.
Washington state spent about $80 billion in the 2013-15 budget but is set to spend more than $173 billion in 2025-27, a more than 116% increase over that time. U.S. inflation since 2015 has risen just 35.63%.
The surge in spending of taxpayer dollars prompted some policy analysts and lawmakers to say the increases must end sooner or later.
What would we do without experts?
I’d just add that the population has grown only about 15% since 2015, so even taking inflation into account, state spending has grown dramatically per capita — just under 40%.
By comparison, real GDP growth in Washington since 2015 is about 30%. So it doesn’t matter how much harder residents work or save, Olympia will eat all that up and more.
HE’S NOT WRONG:
You are unworthy of self governance https://t.co/y6AuESL9la
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) July 14, 2025
ICYMI: White House Touts Huge MAHA Wins on Food Dyes — and It’s Being Done the RIGHT Way. “And that’s how it should be done — getting manufacturers to make changes voluntarily rather than siccing jackbooted federal bureaucrats on them.”
A TRUE CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS LOOKS LIKE THIS:
For all the talk of a “constitutional crisis” or threats to “our democracy” having the executive branch systematically run by unknown subordinates of a mentally incompetent president is the biggest constitutional scandal in US history—it’s called into question the legality of… https://t.co/VZtQWHq4tQ
— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) July 14, 2025
UM…
“Mr. Biden himself has hired a new personal lawyer, Amy Jeffress of Hecker Fink.”
Jeffress is married to DC District Court Judge Chris Cooper. He is presiding over a few lawsuits against the president. https://t.co/IAHU7CKKAj
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) July 14, 2025
HIS PATIENCE HAS WORN OUT: Trump vows ‘billions of dollars’ in weapons for Ukraine, 100% ‘secondary tariffs’ on Russia if no peace in 50 days.
The weapons will include “everything,” Trump said during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office — though the president did not immediately reveal specifics.
The White House also did not provide additional information on the specific weapons sent over to Europe.
When asked whether “Patriot missiles” — officially known as Guided Mulitple Launch Rocket Systems — or “Patriot batteries” would be sent to Ukraine, the president responded: “It is all of them. It is a full complement.”
“We will have some within days,” Trump continued. “A couple of countries that have Patriots will swap over, or replace the Patriots with the ones they have.”
…
Secondary sanctions are meant to punish individuals or entities who do business with a country. Should they take effect on Sept. 2, 50 days from Monday, they are meant to put more pressure on Moscow — which has already been hit with direct sanctions — by deterring further business and isolating Russia’s economy.
Yesterday: Trump Finally Had It Up to HERE With Putin.
They had a friendly, businesslike relationship — which Putin seems to have misread as being able to treat Trump like a mark.
MICHAEL WALSH: Et tu, Brute?
Given that John Roberts has spent much of his tenure as Chief Justice (a gift of the George W. Bush administration) fighting to preserve the court’s reputation, all he has managed to accomplish is to raise these issues again and cast disrepute on the entire federal judicial system — much as Bush did to conservatism and the presidency. Indeed, on his watch, the heavily feminized court has latterly descended into open catfighting; in almost every 6-3 vote of importance, one is almost certain to find the three liberal women on the short side of every issue. Meanwhile more than one justice has publicly criticized Joe Biden’s DEI/Broadway hopeful pick, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and her lack of intellectual rigor and apparent disregard of the law if it violates her feelings.
There’s one other possible remedy that should be on the table as well. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the Chief Justice position is irrevocable: demoting the hopeless Roberts and replacing him with Justice Clarence Thomas would go a long way toward solving some of the problems “Brutus” identified two centuries ago, along with saving the Court from itself, and helping to heal the nation’s divide. A continuation of this farce should no longer be countenanced.
Read the whole thing.
JUDGE HIM BY THE PEOPLE HE RUNS INTERFERENCE FOR: Meet Newsom’s Best Friends: Convicts, Trafficked Kids, and the Pot Farm That Hired Them.
A NATION WOULD BE INSANE TO ELECT SUCH A PERSON CHIEF EXECUTIVE! (BARRY WHO?): Exclusive: ‘Keir Starmer is anti-British’ – Ben Habib on what Advance UK stands for.
GIVEN THE BUREAU’S RECENT HISTORY THE AIDE CAN’T HAVE BEEN DOING MUCH OF A JOB: Pam Bondi Fires Senior DOJ Ethics Official.
NOT TAX PEOPLE ON PRODUCTIVE INVESTMENT? THAT’S CRAZY TALK! Trump Floats Eliminating Capital Gains Tax.
IT ISN’T AS IF DEFENSE IS A PRIORITY OF THE ATTENDEES: Defense Officials Ditch Liberal Elite Aspen Summit Just Hours Before Kickoff.
THOSE AREN’T FETAL POSITIONS, RECTO CRANIAL INSERTIONS: Obama Tells Dems to Get Out of Their ‘Fetal Positions’.