Tuesday’s Final Word

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For tabs she couldn't care less, fastidious and precise ...

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Ed: It's pretty obvious that Talarico and his inspiration don't care much for Christianity. That's why they and others keep inventing their own version of it. David wrote more about this clip earlier, and I wrote about Talarico twice today as well. Democrats made a major miscalculation, but can Talarico pull it out anyway? Color me skeptical, but ...

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Matt Margolis at PJM: Some polls have indeed shown Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico (D-Texas) ahead in Texas, and the party has poured enormous sums of money into his campaign, believing it finally has a shot. It doesn't. A new poll shows Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Texas), the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, leading Talarico by two points, 49% to 47%, making the race his to lose.

The survey, conducted on June 21, 2026, surveyed 800 likely Texas voters for the Red Eagle Politics/SoCal Strategies poll. While Paxton holds the edge, the numbers reveal something Democrats will love, and Republicans should watch closely: Talarico is winning independents by 10 points. SoCal Strategies notes that Texas "still appears to be a red state in party identification," which is likely what's keeping Paxton afloat despite his independent-voter problem.

Here's the part that sounds like it should worry Republicans more than anything else in this poll. The poll claims that Talarico is winning 25% of voters who backed John Cornyn in the Republican primary. How is that possible? How could Talarico get 25% of Cornyn voters and still be behind in the poll? It makes sense when you find that nearly the same share of those Cornyn-to-Talarico voters also supported Kamala Harris in 2024.

Ed: I don't know, man. We have four polls so far in this race, and two are straight ties and the other two are virtual dead heats. Ken Paxton has a 0.8-point lead in the RCP aggregation. Polymarket is leaning Paxton, but only at 58%. The GOP better get its act together and start laying the groundwork in Texas. 

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... Do we want people to be able to stand on the ground, look up at this tower, and read those words? And that was discussed on the client end, and the answer came back, ‘No, it should have the promise of meaning, it should be decipherable, everything should be spelled right and it should make sense.’”

Totally on-brand for Obama … all that is required is the "promise of meaning".

Ed: I wondered if this was true, and the design company – really named Pentagram Design – posted this on Instagram yesterday. For what it's worth, it's a little more decipherable than this picture suggests, but it's also clear that it's just a collection of clichéd phrases Obama likes to use. The really bizarre choice was the word cloud on a ceiling inside the library, which looks like mold growing out from the peaked center. Every single part of this library I've seen is just ugly. Who cares if it's decipherable?

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NY Times: The Senate on Tuesday adopted a resolution instructing President Trump to end the war in Iran or seek congressional authorization to continue it, delivering the most significant bipartisan rebuke yet of the conflict.

The resolution does not have the force of law and is therefore unlikely to compel an immediate change in policy. But the 50-to-48 vote — in which four Republicans joined Democrats in favor — marked a striking break by the G.O.P.-led Congress with a president who has faced little resistance from his party on any topic, particularly matters of war and national security.

It came as Republicans in Congress have expressed skepticism and alarm about the cease-fire agreement Mr. Trump struck with the Iranians, after nearly five months of war. The measure underscored G.O.P. impatience about continuing to defer to the president, who has never sought approval from Congress for the war, as further negotiations over its end appear precarious and Mr. Trump has threatened more military action.

Ed: I have explained this in the past, including this morning, that this is essentially meaningless – even if you think the War Powers Resolution (or Act) is constitutional, which has never been settled. This is a bill that is subject to a presidential veto, and Trump will deliver one ASAP. If you don't believe me, here's the Congressional Research Service paper on the issue. The only real news here is that the MOU has eroded Trump's standing on this issue with Republicans, but not to the extent that it will hamstring him ... for now, anyway. 

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Ed: Well put. 

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Axios: House Democrats' campaign arm and main super PAC are stopping short of saying they will go all-in to hold onto Maine's lone swing district after failing to get their preferred nominee.

Why it matters: This new headache comes as Democratic leaders were already grappling with the never-ending firestorm around Senate nominee Graham Platner.

Driving the news: Maine State Auditor Matt Dunlap, a progressive, defeated centrist state Sen. Joe Baldacci in the Democratic primary for Maine's 2nd Congressional District, election officials announced early Friday.

Dunlap's victory came despite the DCCC adding Baldacci to its coveted "Red to Blue" list and spending $7,500 on a joint ad buy with him.

Ed: There's a real possibility that Democrats could lose Jared Golden's seat in November. Maine's 2nd CD has a Cook index of R+4. Trump won that district by ten points in 2024, seven points in 2020, and ten points again in 2016. Golden won four terms as a centrist, and the DCCC was smart enough to recruit another for this seat, but the Democratic Socialists pushed a hard Left candidate to victory in the primary instead. That could cost the Democrats the House if the midterm prospects shift. 

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Ed: The Democrat Left has become the party of bigotry and hatred.  There is just no other way to describe the phenomenon. As I have said many times since October 7, it's like I fell asleep in America and woke up in the "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" scene in Cabaret. 

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Nigel Farage: The Prime Minister is finished. I have to give Starmer some credit: even I couldn’t have predicted how quickly he would reveal himself as the most incompetent Prime Minister this country has ever had the misfortune of having.

Starmer isn’t the first Prime Minister I’ve deposed, and he won’t be the last. David Cameron. Theresa May. Rishi Sunak. And next up - Andy Burnham. The reason each leader has failed is the same. What the political class fails to understand is that the electorate won’t accept being taken for fools. They cannot continue to take the votes of the people who supported them for granted, only to betray them upon having gained power. Politics is about trust.

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That is why I am calling for a General Election at the soonest possible date. You know as well as I do that the country cannot afford to waste another week drifting from crisis to crisis. That’s why millions of you turned out in the local elections to vote for Reform councillors, and it’s why we have led in more than 300 opinion polls for well over a year.

The British public have made their voices clear in May this year and last: Britain is broken and they want a radical reforming government that will fundamentally fix our country. But instead, Westminster wants to crown Andy Burnham off the back of a single by-election.

Ed: Both Labour and the Tories want to avoid an election because one of them may end up being reduced to a minor party. Reform may well end up with the majority in the next election, especially if Burnham tries to be yet another flavor (flavour?) of Establishment Progressive. 

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Ed: Truss means CPAC GB, which should be a barnburner with the release of the Rupert Lowe report and the collapse of Keir Starmer's premiership. Nigel Farage will certainly want to use it as a platform to demand new elections. I don't do conferences these days, but this is one I'd have wanted to attend and write about. 

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Douglas Murray at The Free Press: Yet the moment Starmer really lost the country came during the summer after he was elected. Axel Rudakubana, a child of Rwandan immigrants, entered a Taylor Swift–themed dance class in the Labour constituency of Southport and started stabbing young girls, killing three of them and maiming eight others, along with two adults. Conscious of how febrile the atmosphere in the country would be after such an attack, the Starmer government tried to cover up the identity of the attacker along with his potential motives. At the same time, the administration came down as hard as possible not just on rioters but also on social-media users who made incendiary statements.

Starmer badly misjudged the mood of the country. Out of touch with public anger, he seemed, in fact, to have a sort of suspicion of the British public. For the rest of his time in office, the term “two-tier Kier” stuck. People claimed that there was a two-tier justice system: On the one hand, illegal immigrants were landing on the beaches of the south of England most days, and the public was told that it couldn’t object to these illegals being housed in hotels at taxpayers’ expense. On the other hand, anyone who objected too forcefully to this was seen as the actual problem, and one that needed squashing.

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The government’s response to the killing of Henry Nowak in December compounded the damage. An 18-year-old student, Nowak was stabbed by a Sikh man of immigrant background only to be handcuffed by police in his dying moments. The officers instantly believed the killer’s lie that Nowak had targeted him with a racist attack. ...

Labour backbenchers will rejoice. But there is little in Burnham’s record or plans to suggest he’ll beat a different path from Starmer, or make voters feel that Labour is for the British interest. The country will get yet another unelected prime minister, who may soon recall May and Sunak by calling an election his party is destined to lose.

Ed: That's why I suspect Burnham will resist calls for an election as long as possible. Read all of this; as usual, Murray nails it. Like Truss, he sees the problem clearly as systemic rather than personal. The British people have been promised what can't be delivered, and in some ways, contradictory promises. 

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Ed: Indeed. Let's see more of this. Antifa is a domestic terror organization and it needs to be dismantled, but the fastest way to do that is to apply heavy disincentives. 

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Andy Ngo: Seven co-defendants pleaded guilty ahead of trial, and five agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against their comrades. As part of their plea deals, they admitted in signed stipulated facts to the court that they organized behind an antifa ideology.

One of those co-defendants, Lynette Sharp, told jurors that members trained together with firearms and coordinated through encrypted Signal chats. Evidence introduced at trial showed that members operated under aliases and carefully planned the direct action.

Jurors viewed video evidence showing the cell arriving dressed in black bloc and equipped with firearms, body armor, medical supplies and explosive devices.

According to testimony, Song acquired 11 firearms and distributed them among members of the group before the operation.

The group used explosive fireworks to lure federal agents and facility personnel from the detention center before opening fire.

Ed: The group's supporters claim this operation was only a "noise demo," whatever that means. The court record makes clear that this was a planned attack on federal agents. 

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Ed: If the people behind this film are already making it political and/or looking for cheap cultural cred, I'd bet that the movie stinks and everyone knows it. This is a pre-emptive PR strategy to make any legit criticism look like sexism, racism, homophobia, etc etc etc. 

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Justice Clarence Thomas:  Respondent Muk Choi Lau, a Chinese citizen, became a lawful permanent resident in 2007. New Jersey charged him with a crime in 2012. He then temporarily left the United States. Ordinarily, a lawful permanent resident who arrives in the United States after a temporary absence does not have to apply for admission because he is regarded as already admitted. 8 U. S. C. §1101(a)(13)(C). If he has committed certain crimes, however, the Government may regard him as not yet admitted. §1101(a)(13)(C)(v). Because of Lau’s pending charge for a crime, a border officer declined to regard Lau as admitted upon his return and did not admit him at the border. Instead, the officer paroled him pending the resolution of his criminal case, meaning that he was allowed to physically enter the country without being formally admitted. After Lau pleaded guilty to the New Jersey charge, the Government initiated removal proceedings and secured a removal order based on his conviction. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated the removal order. It concluded that Lau should have been regarded as already admitted upon arrival unless the border officer had “clear and convincing” evidence that Lau had committed the crime, which it held that the officer lacked. Muk Choi Lau v. Bondi, 130 F. 4th 42, 46 (2025). Because the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) does not impose that requirement, we vacate the Second Circuit’s judgment. 

Ed: The Supreme Court handed down five decisions today, and will issue more on Thursday morning. Thomas' decision in Blanche v Lau was the most interesting of the five; it allows immigration agents and judges to discern properly about entry into the US. No one is owed entry to the US, which is what the 2nd Circuit ruling implied. It's a 6-3 decision along the usual lines, but I mention it here because ...

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Ed: Happy birthday, Justice Thomas – and to my friend Larry as well!

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Last night’s lyric: “I Melt With You” by Modern English.