Wednesday's Final Word

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I remember there's a tab or two, coming from the screen next door, and the browser lagged the way some windows do ...

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Ed: I made the same argument this morning. I'm not concerned about the video being recorded; that's standard. The problem, which is obvious when you are warned, is that there isn't a video sequence of Biden in this that's longer than three seconds. If Biden could do two minutes uninterrupted in front of a camera, they would have made a much different promo video ... and we'd see a lot more of Biden on the speaking circuit. 

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Cockburn at The Spectator: What stands out in the video is the editing, which highlights Biden’s cognitive challenges and health issues. The quick, obvious cuts point to his struggle to speak coherently. Dramatic music soundtracks clips of Biden reading and being applauded, to highlight his team’s desire to preserve his legacy.

Cockburn can’t help but feel for the elder statesman, dragging himself trembling to the coalface once more. While the video attempts to show an honorable past leader reflecting on America, it instead comes across as a Hail Mary to redeem Biden’s image.

There is reason to be suspicious of such an agenda, at a time when the 46th president is battling metastatic prostate cancer. Biden’s book follows memoirs from his son Hunter, Beautiful Things, and wife Jill, View from the East Wing. Is Sleepy Joe being pushed to publish by his relatives, in order to keep the Biden family gravy train rolling? 

Ed: I assume this is a rhetorical question. 

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Ed: The same people who bought Dr. Jill's book – all of the minions who hoped to get a mention in it. They'd do just as well selling the index by itself. After the first week, sales will crater, and that assumes it lifts off at all in the first place. 

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Semafor: The threat to Trump’s life from Tehran, which dates back to his 2020 authorization of the drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, spilled into public view in Turkey earlier this month. Amid an unraveling ceasefire with Iran, Trump mused that he is its “Number One target” and ultimately ditched his new Air Force One, reportedly due to security concerns about the aircraft’s defensive capabilities.

Behind closed doors, however, Trump shows a different, almost wry side as he considers his safety. More than a half-dozen aides and lawmakers close to him confirmed to Semafor that he doesn’t dwell seriously on assassination risks — but when it does come up, he’s known to “joke about it,” one White House official said.

“He says it privately a lot, too: ‘Nobody told me how dangerous it is to be president, and if they had told me, I probably wouldn’t have run.’ And he makes comments like that in jest, but there’s a reality behind that,” the official told Semafor.

Ed: Those threats are explicit and are themselves acts of war which justify our current military action. And the Iranians are serious about it too, as was made obvious at Ali Khamenei's funeral this past week. However, the threats from domestic terrorists against Trump are just as serious, as seen in the three outright assassination attempts over the last two years, and the most recent plot against the UFC event at the White House. Sad. 

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I’m fine with complaining about the GOP, even Trump. But this “why should we vote for them” approach is suicide-by-killing-the-good-in-pursuit-of-perfect.

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Ed: I have my criticisms of Trump, but John is absolutely correct about his dynamism and effectiveness. As Trump commented after the attempted assassination at the WHCA dinner, that's why his enemies want to kill him. If Trump weren't effective, they wouldn't bother. 

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NY Post: A leftist Canadian woman allegedly slapped a teen who was wearing President Trump-branded clothing on the Jersey Shore over the Fourth of July weekend — before she was arrested and detained by immigration officials.

Kaitlyn E. Tracey, 33, allegedly recorded herself confronting a group of four girls on the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk when she became violent on July 3, according to court documents obtained by NJ.com.

Tracey took issue with two of the beachgoers — who are minors — wearing “patriotic colored” sweatpants with the words “Trump” and “ICE” before she struck one of them across the face and body, police alleged.

Ed: Beege wrote about this earlier in a really fun VIP post, so be sure to read about it there. I included it here just to point out that while we are a nation of immigrants – literally all of my ancestors emigrated here – those immigrants loved America and didn't lecture Americans about the need to adapt to their political tastes. This is almost a reductio ad absurdum of the problems with immigration in recent decades, especially the part where the arrogant immigrant didn't bother to comply with the law in the first place. 

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Ed: Having the Syrians tasked with eliminating Hezbollah sounds good in theory, but I doubt al-Sharaa would do it. Taking on Hezbollah in Lebanon would be too much like allying with Israel to sell to his factional army. Plus, if al-Sharaa did take on that role, he would be FAR more ruthless than the Israelis have been. Trump has been mainly good on Iran, but this is a flight of fancy that is far too risky to pursue. The Iranians would jump at the chance to make a separate peace with al-Sharaa, which is exactly what they would attempt if this policy were put in place. 

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Jim Geraghty at NRO: It might surprise you to learn that former Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner was not, technically, a Democratic Socialists of America party candidate. (Easy joke: Platner was more of a National Socialist type.) DSA members may have been rooting hard for Platner, but he was never formally a member of their cadre.

No, the candidate who’s really thrilling DSA hearts, and who they’re really pulling for, is Abdul El-Sayed, one of two leading Democrats competing for the nomination to succeed retiring Senator Gary Peters in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race, with the primary set for August 4, 2026.

His rival is Democratic Representative Haley Stevens, who has a lifetime 1 percent out of a 100 rating from Heritage Action. Needless to say, Stevens is described as a “centrist” and “moderate.” (A Democratic lawmaker’s reputation for “moderation” in mainstream media coverage is entirely reflective of his or her persona and tone of voice and has nothing to do with their positions or voting record.)

Still, El-Sayed is indeed the more radical of the two remaining options for Democrats in this primary.

Ed: The difference here is Israel, and it's clear that it's also the passion behind the DSA uprising in the Democrat primaries. The party establishment finally got smart and started playing hardball by pushing Mallory McMorrow out of the way to set Stevens up for a binary contest against the DemSoc & CAIR darling. It seems to have paid off in the Detroit News/Glengariff poll that David wrote about earlier, which puts Stevens up by 7 with just three weeks to go. I'm not so sure that the socialist moment is over, because – like Jim – I'm skeptical about Stevens' commitment to "moderate" policy. 

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Ed: This should put American lamentations of an "oil shock" in perspective. Russia is a massive exporter of oil and of refined product. The scope of shortages this demonstrates is potentially destabilizing for the Putin regime, and both Putin and Zelensky know it. The war is coming home to Russians now in a way it hasn't in four years. 

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Crimson Hub: [Troy] Jackson launched a bid for governor in 2025, and his campaign featured a large swath of ideas and issues that have become common on the Democratic left, especially on the issue of taxation. So Jackson had a plan. Naturally, he called it his "fair share" plan because one of the more humorous aspects of Democratic tax plans is the accusation that wealthy taxpayers don't pay their "fair share," when it fact, they pay more taxes than all other income groups combined.

The plan included all the usual delights, such as a higher top state income tax rate, a surcharge on millionaires, higher corporate taxes, and the repeal of a 2011 tax cut package.

This would be all well and good except that it took a state lien to get Jackson to pay his fair share of taxes. In August of 2025, the state hit Jackson with a lien related to unpaid state income taxes from 2020.

Ed: All the little Platner wanna-bes are looking problematic. The same site has a report on another contender for the nomination in Maine, but let's go to Caleb Howe for that one ...

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Caleb Howe: [Nirav] Shah announced his run with typical Trump-based stumping last week, one of several Democrats with long government job histories moving into the gap left by the Nazi-tattooed sideshow who paraded as an everyman. But resume aside, failed gubernatorial candidate Shah still tried playing the “outsider” card in his opening play for position in the race.

Outsider indeed.

On March 24, 2026, Shah cut a $3,500 check to a congressional candidate in Illinois. The address he put on that federal filing: 2232 W Oakdale Ave, Chicago, Illinois. Not Brunswick. Not anywhere with a lobster on the sign. Chicago. He also used a Brunswick address for donations in Maine ahead of his failed run for governor and now soon-to-be-failed run for Senate. And in the same time period, too. So he’s Maine Shah for the Maine causes and Chicago Shah for the Chicago causes. Neat!

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Ed: Actually ... messy. Very messy. Shah still has a license to practice law in Chicago, and clearly used his Illinois residence for political donation purposes. That's weird, because Shah could have donated from his Maine address. Plus, there's this ... 

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Ed: Ooooooooo-kay then. 

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Finally, I and the rest of the Salem lineup have supported Israel for decades, well before Mr. Parscale had any affiliation with the company. We have years of shows, podcasts and columns to prove it.  

The really disconcerting foreign influence may lie with those podcasters and hosts who supported Israel for those same decades and then suddenly turned on a dime and changed their positions. Perhaps that deserves a little more scrutiny.

Ed : Ditto. I have never even had a position on this hinted to me. I have supported Israel my entire life, and you can go back to the Captain's Quarters archives (before I worked for Salem) to confirm it. I am finding Vance to be an increasingly worrisome figure within the administration. 

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Ed: Flashdance! Also, the pole didn't come loose from the ceiling; it was never anchored to it. If nothing else, this is a very good demonstration of the power of water-sprinkler fire suppression. 

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Last night's lyric: "Spooky" by The Classics IV. Also: The Atlantic Rhythm Section did a great cover of it. 

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