R E

My Independence Day reflections from the summer of Floyd & BLM riots still ring true. Last night we stopped in dusty Ft. Stockton, Texas en route to Big Bend for Independence Day. By coincidence, some of the black troopers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, aka the Buffalo Soldiers, were posted at this old fort for a decade from 1875. My grandfather served in the segregated 10th Cav in 1942, training for direct combat on halftracks before transitioning to an engineer unit that built & repaired runways in the Pacific. He had to fight at least one of the Japanese holdouts who emerged from the caves on Guam after the invasion force moved to the next island. Also serendipitously, "Grant" was on History Channel last night. On this day, in these times, I find these coincidences auspicious and welcome reminders that Ohio men & women keep faith with the Republic always. My grandfather's example that this country is worth fighting for, even under far worse conditions for men like us back when he chose to do so, is an enduring lesson in both the price and the value of our first principles. Those principles were unprecedented as Jefferson elucidated them so well in our Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July 244 years ago, and equally so as Frederick Douglass assessed them anew in his speech "What To The Slave Is The Fourth of July" delivered on that day in 1852. "Grant" reminded me that it was two of our fellow Ohioans and my fellow West Point alumni who finally conquered the Confederacy and ended slavery: Ulysses S Grant (b. Point Pleasant, Ohio; USMA Class of 1843), and William Tecumseh Sherman (b. Lancaster, Ohio; USMA Class of 1840). They both had humble beginnings to their West Point and Army careers but became gods among men when it mattered most. These examplars remind me that even under dire circumstances our Republic and its first principles are worth great sacrifice and endurance, and that the rewards of actually living those principles are tremendous for all men and women who keep the faith. We should not abide the destructive radicals who riot & clamor to "burn it all down." Nor should we abide the haughty, naïve "allies" who amplify the mendacious propaganda, spawned in the fetid utopian fantasies those radicals entertain, about rampant white supremacy and systemic racism in this country today. We are far from perfect, but those accusations are deliberately divisive, dangerous libels against what we have become through much hard work. Those libels and others like them also impugn the principles that must be the foundation of any improvements in our future together. I am forever blessed by, and forever devoted & sworn to Ohio, the Republic, and our principles. "For how can man die better than facing fearful odds for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?" Happy birthday to the United States of America. PFC Edwards, 10th US Cav "Ready And Forward", Ft. Riley, KS, 1942

I'm an Iranian living in North America. My entire family, friends, and relatives live in Iran. I also have lots of Iranian friends whose families still live in Iran. I can confirm that every Iranian I know opposes this regime. We all want actual regime change. The 92% figure seems inaccurate to me. I think the percentage of Iranians who oppose this terrorist regime is even higher. The only "Iranians" who would support this regime are the IRGC thugs and their families who have blood on their hands and can't afford to be prosecuted when Iran is free. Also, all the terrorist groups in the region—Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, etc.—who are directly funded by and benefit from the Islamic Republic. Not to mention democrats, leftists, and liberals who think they have such moral high ground that makes them more knowledgeable about living under this barbaric regime than actual Iranians who live in Iran. #DigitalBlackOutIran #KingRezaPahlaviForIran

The fertility rate of US liberal White women aged 25–35 is 0.51 children. White liberalism is now a death cult whose value proposition is: “Amuse yourself to death.” Optimize for harm reduction long enough, and you end up optimizing for nonexistence—the only state without pain

“Optimize for harm reduction long enough, and you end up optimizing for nonexistence—the only state without pain”

On the Strait of Hormuz: I said it before and I will say it again: Iran’s move to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz ranks among its most strategically reckless decisions. They cannot sustain control over it. Their military position does not allow for prolonged enforcement against determined opposition. More importantly, it was never a credible bargaining chip. Once escalated, it has to be relinquished without meaningful concessions. The only asset that has ever carried real negotiating weight is the nuclear program. The logic behind the move is also flawed. The expectation was to trigger a global economic shock large enough to force a halt in U.S. operations. That outcome has not materialized. Instead, it has accelerated the opposite dynamic. Regional and global actors are now investing in routes and infrastructure designed to bypass the Strait altogether. In trying to turn Hormuz into leverage, Iran is diminishing its long-term strategic value. Very stupid of IRGC.

This is Shahid Butt. Shahid is running for political office in Birmingham, in a seat that is 91% non-white and 70% Muslim. He is set to win. Shahid also claims to be a war veteran who fought in Bosnia and Afghanistan. He wasn’t in the military. He was an ISIS terrorist.

If you have to go back 600 years to find a ‘gotcha’… …you’re just proving that Islam is centuries behind the Western world.

20 people were invited to see a video that exposes Palestinian propaganda. Every single one had the same response: “I feel like a moron.”

Home, again! Mission complete. I hope we glorified God, humanity, our families and our terrific teams a @NASA and @csa_asc. Time to share the good news!

It's really beautiful to see someone in the government, in the military, and most definitely in the public eye giving glory to God for a mighty achievement. Our society needs so much more of this.

Klein's declaration that Piker—an antisemite who also is a racist, defends terrorism, and shocks a dog so that it remains as a prop during his streams—is "not the enemy" was so outrageous that even the Times felt the need to change the title of the op-ed to hide the ball.

Elon Musk was right. The federal government was just writing checks to anyone who asked for years on end. ZERO Verification Requirements. Today, I confirmed a pattern: Dissolved business entities billing Medicaid at scale. In just one small batch, I’ve verified over $15MM. One was dissolved in 2011, yet between 2020-2024 it billed medicaid over $1.8MM. Our tax dollars are paying businesses dissolved over a decade ago. They don’t even check. They just send them money. It’s infuriating.

@trahana @pskinny00 @newrepublic x.com/i/status/20434…

@pskinny00 @ryguy9296 @newrepublic It seems Iran blocks the vast majority of traffic and let a few tankers go through for their revenue. Now the US will block that revenue stream. So tell us, who controls the Strait?

Iran has learned what’s now finally dawning on Americans, including even some Republicans in Congress: Trump’s will never matches his bluster, and his attempts at intimidation are merely the hallmarks of a weak, insecure, and overcompensating coward. trib.al/F3aToK1

Iran: We control the Strait of Hormuz! USA: No, you don't. The USA just announced a blockade against Iran. "vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas" It is also reported that following the war, Saudi Arabia will lead a coalition to ensure the security of the SoH.

Again… the press and the entire Democrat Party knew he was a rapist and a sexual predator and kept it a secret until he was in the way and needed removed.

Exactly 💯 The reason I have never been concerned about president Trump's negotiations with them (every negotiation by this administration turned out exactly as I had anticipated: no deal), although I think he should send some low level appointee to negotiate with the losers. Trump doesn't really negotiate with them, he dictates them the terms because unlike cowardly Democrats he understands that the US shouldn't take shit from those lowlife savages, either accept the terms of the surrender or get obliterated. The formality of the negotiations only give POTUS more freedom of movement to deploy what he is preparing to deploy against them! Enjoy the next episode of the Trump show

🚨 The negotiations in Islamabad were never meant to succeed, they were meant to prove that they couldn’t. From the start, intelligence from the CIA and Mossad showed the divide with the Islamic Republic of Iran was not negotiable. This was not a gap to close, but a clash of fundamentals tied to the regime’s survival. The 21-hour talks only confirmed it. Long sessions, shifting positions, and no movement on core issues. The gap became clearer, not smaller. Sending JD Vance was part of the strategy. As someone skeptical of war, sitting across the table and seeing it firsthand removes the argument that better diplomacy could have worked. He said it plainly afterward. There were real discussions, but no agreement, and that is worse for Iran than for the United States. This was not a failed negotiation. It was confirmation that no real deal was ever possible.

Perfect example of why Ezra Klein is tailor made for today’s left wing media complex…a completely unthinking, unintelligent pseudo intellectual

The Arab Word is Watching a Different War: Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position: The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks. What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought. Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies. The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. When Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world. The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does. This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice. The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with. The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence. open.substack.com/pub/zinebribou…

There used to be a rumor floating around among Iranians: that as part of the Nuclear Deal, Obama quietly handed out 3,500 green cards to regime officials and their families. At the time I thought it sounded crazy. But now with so many children of top regime figures, professors, researchers, lobbyists, comfortably living in the U.S. on green cards, it doesn’t sound like a rumor anymore. It actually feels real. I came to America on a student visa. I had to go through an entire month of security clearances, background checks, interviews, the whole process. There’s zero chance these people got here through normal channels. No way. Something smells off.