July 12, 2026

LINDSEY GRAHAM’S FINEST MOMENT:

The sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham at the age of 71 on Sunday morning prompted many reflections on his long and immensely influential career in public life.

Among them, Graham’s impassioned support for Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings:

Tweet concludes, “‘To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.’ Rest in peace.”

As Noah Rothman writes, “Yes, it was a fiery exchange that summoned a lot of theatrics. But Graham channeled a sentiment that both animated and united Republicans at a time when the bitter debates over Donald Trump’s ascension to the top of the GOP’s ranks were still quite raw. It’s easy to forget the strength of the cultural currents against which Graham bravely struggled in this clip. Democrats probably hope that you’ve forgotten. The casual bigotry they promulgated, the sordid and baseless allegations they made, not just against Kavanaugh but anyone who shared his accidents of birth, would become features of the ‘woke’ discourse that was soon to consume the country. At no point, even today, could any of Kavanaugh’s accusers place him in a room with his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, much less establish the claim that he had participated in ‘gang rape.’ Nevertheless, his guilt was assumed. Even Kavanaugh’s efforts to defend himself against what he claimed were false allegations were held up as further evidence of his guilt.”

Posted at 10:54 am by Ed Driscoll

IT CERTAINLY FEELS THAT WAY LATELY:

Posted at 10:13 am by Stephen Green

GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT: A $20M Ridley Scott-Style Epic Just Beat James Gunn’s Superhero Movie at the Box Office. “Telling the story of George Washington as he tests his honor, loyalty and courage by fighting in the French and Indian War long before he became the first President of the United States, Young Washington had a reported budget of just $20 million and is distributed by Angel Studios, which historically debuts films within strategic release windows.”

They also know their audience and do that old-timey Hollywood thing of actually catering to it.

I don’t know what James Gunn’s DC Comics movies are supposed to be, and I’m not sure he does, either.

Posted at 9:40 am by Stephen Green

THAT’S A BAD 24 HOURS:

A friend in the industry can barely mention Sam Altman without adding “snake-oil salesman.”

Posted at 9:09 am by Stephen Green

R.I.P. LINDSEY GRAHAM:

He has his fans and detractors, but for me his best moment was his insouciant response to being followed by shrieking harridans during the Kavanaugh confirmation.

Screenshot
Posted at 8:15 am by Glenn Reynolds

THE HISTORY PROFESSION IS QUESTIONABLE: A Decorated Historian’s Research Comes Under Fire.

A major publisher appeared to pull a prizewinning history book about a prominent South Carolina slaveholding family and its role in the abolitionist movement, after several scholars accused the author of misleading readers about details that were central to what reviewers had described as a groundbreaking narrative.

The book, “The Grimkes,” and its author, the historian Kerri K. Greenidge, received widespread acclaim when the book was released in 2022 by Liveright Publishing.

Glowing write-ups came pouring in, including from The New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly, which named “The Grimkes” one of the 10 best books of 2022. In 2023, the American Historical Association awarded Greenidge with the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize, which recognizes scholars in women’s history and feminist theory. . . .

In the review, Glenn noted that the book quoted letters exchanged between the Grimke sisters, Angelina and Sarah, “antebellum radicals who renounced their family heritage to campaign for abolitionism, racial equality, and women’s rights,” while the siblings discussed their biracial nephews.

But Glenn asserted in her review that the University of Michigan did not possess the letters in its archive, despite the book’s claims that they were kept there.

Glenn also disputed Greenidge’s account of an 1838 attack on Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia by an anti-abolitionist mob, which indicated that the Grimke sisters “led thousands of antislavery women through prayer” and helped them escape the “flaming building.”

“But as numerous sources have documented, no one was in the building when it was torched since antislavery activists cancelled a scheduled meeting, fearing impending violence,” Glenn wrote.

Shades of Michael Bellesiles, whose Arming America, which had the astonishing thesis that guns in colonial America were rare and usually held by the government in armories, won a lot of awards but was ultimately found to be full of lies, including references to nonexistent archival sources.

But as a white male, Bellesiles didn’t have access to this tactic: “In an interview on Friday, Greenidge, who is Black, said that her life’s work had been torn down by white scholars who disagreed with her conclusions about racism, slavery and white supremacy.”

Plus, this doesn’t inspire confidence: “She criticized the university’s peer review panel, which she said included two senior historians whom she described as hostile toward Black women in academia. She did not name them. She said that the university’s review was prompted by the complaints from a white woman scholar, whom she also declined to name. She said that she had sought a restraining order against that scholar.”

Puhleez. Race doesn’t excuse fraud, plagiarism, or even sloppy scholarship. And people who think it does have no business in academia.

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds