Posts on Friday, June 19, 2026

Tuesday, British Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe, the leader of the Restore Britain party (sorry to say, at this point I think it is more accurate to look at Nigel Farage and his Reform Party as controlled opposition rather than a real choice), released a report that probably ensures that British politics won't be quite the same. His 219-page "The Rape Gang Inquiry Report" unmasks the concerted effort by British officials to cover up the systematic rape of British girls in their early teens, if that, intimidate the girls into refusing to press charges, and protect the feral Pakistani gangs who preyed on them.

Donald Trump has been the greatest, most clear-eyed and most transformative foreign policy president of my lifetime. But Trump is also the famed businessman who wrote The Art of the Deal four decades ago. There has therefore always been the risk that the president's novel and often unorthodox approach to foreign policy could be subsumed by a greater dealmaking imperative. Prudent statesmanship on the world stage requires setting clear ends and then working backward to calibrate the appropriate means — diplomatic, economic, military or otherwise — to achieve those ends. Because of his dealmaking background, Trump — despite all his foreign policy successes — was always uniquely vulnerable

The signed preliminary agreement between the United States and Iran has a strong majority approval rating amongst American voters, a national survey from Quantus found. President Donald Trump signed his copy of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to end the hostilities with Iran following the G7 on Wednesday at the Palace of Versailles, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signing his copy remotely. The text of the MOU puts a 60-day ceasefire and negotiation framework into effect, though key details will require complex cooperation

Nearly four in ten Democrats say they are “ashamed” to be American, a new survey found. The survey by The Economist/YouGov found just weeks before America’s 250th anniversary that 26 percent of Democrats say they are “somewhat ashamed” and 12 percent say they are “very ashamed” to be American. Nearly twice as many Democrats reported being somewhat or very ashamed to be American compared to overall poll respondents. Out of all U.S. adult citizens polled, 12 percent say they are “somewhat ashamed” and 8 percent say they are “very ashamed.” Still, some Democrats say they are “very proud” to be American (22 percent) or “somewhat proud” (18 percent).

Even the Wall Street Journal‘s pro-migration editors recognize that the economic harm caused by illegal migration drains the tepid public support for legalized migration. “In recent years, those rules [in immigration policy] haven’t been consistently enforced,” said a June 16 op-ed by James Carter, a deputy undersecretary of labor in the George W. Bush administration, adding: The result is a market distortion [because a bubble of illegal labor] holds down wages for those Americans most exposed to labor competition from unauthorized workers [and] increases demand for housing without a corresponding increase in supply.

We all love us some video of things blowing up. At least I do. I think all guys do, though, and boy, did Ukraine provide us with some spectacular explosions to view. It's not often you get to see a massive lid of an oil storage tank thrown into the sky, looking like a massive UFO on its way to inform the homeworld that the Earth isn't ready for entry into the oh-so-peaceful Federation of Worlds. Stacey Abrams will have to wait to become the President of Earth. Let's see that again, from a couple different angles... The aftermath of the strike on the oil refinery and other industrial sites

I expected this, or at least some variation of it. I wrote about this on Wednesday: Iran demanded the ceasefire in Lebanon to create a steady casus belli they can use to jerk the United States around and drive a wedge between Israel and the United States. Demand a ceasefire, then get Hezbollah to keep poking at Israel with attacks to generate defensive responses. Then use those defensive responses to cancel talks or jerk us around, claiming that Israel violated the ceasefire. This was, at least to me, as predictable as the sun rising in the East. Hell, even I predicted it, and I am not a genius.