Posts on Tuesday, July 1, 2025

The Senate has done it—barely. After a marathon vote-a-rama session that stretched into the early morning hours, Republicans squeaked through their version of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill by the thinnest possible margin: 51-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the deciding vote.[snip] here's what Washington doesn't want you to understand: this razor-thin victory is where the real fight begins.[snip] House conservatives have already said that they are not happy with the Senate version and they will be raising some serious objections. 

On July 4th, the movie “Sinners” will become the first show to be interpreted into “Black American Sign Language (BASL),” per a press release from Warner Bros. The entertainment company described it as “a major step forward in accessibility, representation, and visibility in streaming.” “BASL is a distinct dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) with its own dynamic history and unique grammar, signing space, rhythm, facial expressions, and cultural nuances,” the release stated. “For the first time, the Black Deaf community will have streaming access to a more

The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from participating in its women's sports programs, resolving a federal civil rights investigation centered on swimmer Lia Thomas. The U.S. Department of Education announced the agreement Tuesday, saying the university violated Title IX by allowing Thomas to compete in women's events. The case marks a significant moment in the Trump administration's broader push to restrict transgender athletes from competing in girls' and women's sports. As part of the resolution, Penn will reinstate Division I swimming records and titles to female athletes displaced by Thomas's victories and issue personalized apology letters to each of them.

Pity poor Jaguar. The British-based luxury and performance carmaker has had a rough go of it this century, but nothing could prepare anyone for the most bone-headed move in corporate history — and I don't mean Jaguar's woke "Reimagine" ad from late last year. Let me bring you up to speed. As recently as 2018, Jaguar sold 180,833 cars annually. Last year, they sold fewer than 33,000. In April — the most current sales figures available — Jag sold just 49 cars in the massive UK/Europe market. U.S. sales figures aren't available yet, but they aren't any better. Jaguar went from selling 1,961 cars a month to 49 in just six years.

The White House is looking into possible criminal charges against CNN after it published a report about an app allowing users to track Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in their area. President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem discussed the matter with reporters at the grand opening of a Florida detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” A reporter brought up border czar Tom Homan’s assertion that CNN should be prosecuted for essentially promoting the app to its readers. “We're working with the Department of Justice to see if we can prosecute them for that, because

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani appeared to easily secure victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary Tuesday, defeating Andrew Cuomo 56 percent to 44 percent after ranked choice voting results were released by the New York City Board of Elections. Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist assemblymember, was already all but certain to win the primary after preliminary election night results on June 24 showed him with a 7 point lead over Cuomo, the former governor. Tuesday’s returns put him well over the 50 percent threshold needed to win with only a fraction of ballots left to count. “Last Tuesday

Zohran Mamdani says he is not a Communist. We'll come back to that claim in a moment, but first, let me remind you that he also says he's not a supporter of defunding the police. He calls that allegation a fear tactic and a right-wing smear from MAGA billionaires. But he's called for NYPD to be defunded many, many times. In other words, he sees the reading of his own quotes aloud as something of a sinister lie, or whatever. Look at his assertion in a recent mayoral debate below, then compare that to what he's said. Repeatedly. And publicly.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to the United States next week to meet with President Donald Trump and key members of his Cabinet, his office announced Tuesday. “These (meetings) come in the wake of the great victory that we achieved in Operation Rising Lion,” Netanyahu said at the start of a government meeting. Netanyahu said Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are also included in the talks. Netanyahu to travel to US for meetings with Trump, Vance

The first to say that was Julius Caesar. After his crushing win over a Persian/Greek king in what is now Turkey, Caesar reported to the Roman Senate with characteristic immodesty and uncharacteristic brevity: “Veni, vidi, vici.” I came, I saw, I conquered. Caesar had a flair for drama. He similarly came, saw and conquered most of Gaul – what is now France – in an era well before the invention of B2 stealth bombers. Travelling from Rome to Gaul was an arduous multi-month sea and land adventure. Conquering the barbarians there was a crazy idea for anyone but Caesar.

The Democrats are now implacably self-destructive. They resemble nothing so much as a slowly capsizing ship, but show by their frenzied skullduggery that America is not in decline -- the opposition is rotten and hopeless but it still fights savagely. I hope readers will pardon a recitation of the party's gradual floundering. They pushed the nation into Vietnam, mismanaged the war, and deserted their own president (Lyndon Johnson), and when President Nixon saved their war, they crucified him on what can now be seen as the utterly absurd Watergate nonsense.

For decades, the United States stood as the embodiment of capitalism’s promise—an open market economy where innovation, investment, and individual enterprise fueled not just prosperity, but unprecedented global power. Throughout the 20th century, the U.S. leveraged its financial systems, corporate reach, technological leadership, and cultural influence to build an international order shaped largely in its image. China studied that success story—and decided to rewrite it.

A man suspected of gathering information on Jewish locations and individuals in Berlin for Iranian intelligence, possibly with a view to attacks, has been arrested in Denmark, German prosecutors said Tuesday. The Danish national, identified only as Ali S. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested on Thursday in the Danish city of Aarhus, federal prosecutors said in a statement. The man was tasked by an Iranian intelligence service early this year with gathering information on “Jewish localities and specific Jewish individuals” in Berlin, prosecutors said. They didn’t elaborate. He spied on three properties in June, “presumably in preparation of further intelligence activities in Germany,

Zohran Mamdani is the latest sign establishment Democrats don’t know how to handle a populist challenge. They haven’t learned anything from the defeats right-wing populism inflicted on them with President Donald Trump. Now they’re knocked on their backsides by a new generation of left-wing populism in their own party. Making Mamdani mayor of New York is like electing Bernie Sanders president — maybe even worse. But in an era when populism keeps gaining momentum, Democratic insiders habitually turn to political has-beens to rescue the party.

Jewish students at Harvard were spat on for wearing yarmulkes, stalked and subjected to chants of “Heil Hitler” — and the Ivy League university was either “deliberately indifferent” or even a “willful participant” in the antisemitic abuse, according to a shocking report released by the Trump administration on Monday. More than a quarter of the students reported feeling physically unsafe, and nearly 60% said they experienced “discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias on campus” in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel, according to meetings with more than 500 Jewish students conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services.

It was a surprising statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi as the Trump administration promises to release more files from its sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein: The FBI, she said, was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of the wealthy financier “with children or child porn.” The comment, made to reporters at the White House days after a similar remark to a stranger with a hidden camera, raised the stakes for President Donald Trump’s administration to prove it has in its possession previously unseen compelling evidence.

After weeks of negotiations, the Senate has passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—a ten-year fiscal package which would serve as the vehicle for fulfilling President Donald Trump’s campaign promises on tax cuts and border security. Despite intra-party debates on overall deficit levels, healthcare reform and how to undo President Joe Biden’s environmental policies, Republicans were ultimately able to find a consensus under the leadership of newly-minted Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. The bill, which has passed by a margin of 51-50 in the Senate with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, will now go to the House of Representatives,

Not long ago, I ran into a long-lost acquaintance who always assumed — always incorrectly — that I was simpatico with her leftist leanings. Maybe it was my long hair or dangling earrings or that I liked to listen to Joe Cocker. I remembered that she always appeared distressed — not because of a cancer diagnosis or trouble with her two children or a problem in her marriage or with her job as private secretary to a malpractice lawyer, but because of one or another of the endless planet-killing problems that occupy the daily bad thoughts and the nightmares of liberals.

I appreciate even more now what Trump meant when he said that Elon is wearing thin. After a brief truce, the pluto-crat who wants to go to Mars is at it again. He is threatening to primary members of Congress who vote for the BBB. He’s also teasing a new America Party as an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty. Some may consider that a good idea — in theory. In practice, under the influence of mercurial Musk, it could create more problems than it solves, for, while Trump is a stable genius, Musk is an unstable one. Unlike the forgiving, magnanimous, and sagacious Trump (who’ll meet with

From the U.K. Daily Mail, More than 14 million people could die as a result of Donald Trump’s foreign aid cuts, a new study has found. The US President’s administration announced it had slashed 83 per cent of programmes run by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) shortly after he returned to the White House for a second term. And now research published in the leading medical journal, Lancet, has predicted that 14 million people – 4.5 million of whom are children under the age of five – could die by 2030 as a result. There are something like 195 independent nations on the planet, and not a single one, other than America,

SAN DIEGO — Gas prices in California are expected to increase starting July 1 as two state policies go into effect. A 1.6-cent per gallon excise tax increase and stricter low-carbon fuel standards will impact fuel costs across the state. The gas tax will rise from 59 cents to about 61 cents per gallon to keep pace with inflation. Additionally, new low-carbon fuel standards will be implemented, though the exact impact on prices remains uncertain. (Snip) While the precise increase is unknown, estimates range from under 10 cents to 65 cents or more per gallon. Governor Gavin Newsom's office has released

It has been amusing to watch Democrats struggle to cope with the success of 33-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani’s decisive win in the New York mayoral primaries. Why all the handwringing? Mamdani is now the mainstream of the once great Democratic Party. The only difference is that Mamdani isn’t afraid to say what other Democratic politicians try to hide. Think about what Mamdani has proposed or supported: • A yearlong freeze on rent • A $30 minimum wage • Free bus service • City-owned grocery stores • Defunding the police • Calling Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. “Mainstream” Democrats support every one of these positions

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said the quiet part out loud about his Democratic Party when he admitted that Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani's communist views are the future of his party. CNN's Kasie Hunt asked Murphy about last week's shocking upset in the Democratic New York mayoral primary when the self-described socialist who wants government-owned grocery stores, rent freezes, and refuses to condemn the antisemitic phrase "Globalize the intifada!" emerged as the victor over disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Hunt asked Murphy if Mamdani "is the future of the Democratic Party." (X) The senator replied that, "I think his message, his economic message, is the future of the [Democratic] Party."

There is civil war taking place within the Sinaloa drug cartel and the body count is piling up. This story was published today. Twenty bodies, several of them decapitated, were found on a highway bridge in a part of Mexico where factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel are fighting each other, authorities said Monday. Four headless corpses were found by the roadside while 16 bodies were discovered inside an abandoned vehicle, the Sinaloa state prosecutor's office said. Five human heads were found inside a bag at the scene. The killers left a note identifying themselves as one of the factions in the ongoing war but authorities didn't say which side it was.

It’s a grim sign of the times that Old Joe Biden’s regime can open the door to millions upon millions of illegal migrants without a peep from the courts, but as soon as President Donald Trump tries to remove them, our self-anointed moral superiors in the judiciary burn the midnight oil to come up with pretexts to stop him. Trump has been trying to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act as the legal foundation to remove Venezuelan gang members, but several courts, including the Supreme Court, have stymied him. Now, the final showdown has begun in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

New Yorkers faced the choice of a miscreant former governor and a radical Democrat socialist for the position of mayor in the Democrat primary. Prior to Zohran Mamdani’s election in the primary, his absurd and speculative plans to provide all kinds of freebies to the citizenry were the talk of the town: Mamdani’s platform focused on a number of issues that have animated socialists in the Democratic Party, including raising the minimum wage, hiking taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans, cracking down on delivery apps, as well as investing in affordable housing and creating city-owned grocery stores. His campaign proposes a new minimum wage law that would raise the wage floor for

President Donald Trump revoked sanctions on Syria Monday in an executive order, a month after he met with Syria’s interim President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia. Trump’s order lifts sanctions on Syria, although sanctions on former dictator “Bashar al-Assad, his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS or its affiliates, and Iranian proxies” are still in effect, according to a fact sheet from the White House. The White House notes in its fact sheet that the move is to support Syria’s “path to stability and peace.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio is tasked with evaluating “suspending sanctions, either in whole or in part