The Week In Pictures: Goodbye, Nazi Edition
Posted By: Hazymac, 7/11/2026 6:33:34 AM
The week began with Independence Day, and it featured a lot of World Cup action. If you can call anything that happens in soccer action. Europe sweltered under a non-air conditioned heat wave, and the Iran conflict resumed. But what motivated meme-makers more than anything else was the spectacular implosion of the Graham Platner Senate campaign. I suppose because it was so unexpected: who would have imagined that the campaign of a Nazi-tattooed Communist would come to grief?
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The week began with Independence Day, and it featured a lot of World Cup action. If you can call anything that happens in soccer action. Europe sweltered under a non-air conditioned heat wave, and the Iran conflict resumed. But what motivated meme-makers more than anything else was the spectacular implosion of the Graham Platner Senate campaign. I suppose because it was so unexpected: who would have imagined that the campaign of a Nazi-tattooed Communist would come to grief?
Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. (Snip) Let's enjoy a little World Cup humor before we get to the other stuff. This was floating around social media and cracked me up: England and France are the only two Muslim countries left in the World Cup.
We're going to take a quick look at a couple more reasons to enjoy this time we have with a real president in charge, then head off into that good weekend.
I continue to marvel at not only how much President Donald Trump has on his plate, but also at the vigor with which he deals with it all. Yes, it's true that presidents
California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants the national stage, the party microphone, and the 2028 speculation that comes with both.
He's spent years positioning himself as one of President Donald Trump's loudest Democratic opponents. He's told voters that he'll give a 2028 White House run “serious thought” after the midterms.
So when the California governor claims he just doesn't know enough about the Graham Platner collapse in Maine, the answer should be simple: then why are you asking Democrats to treat you like a leader?
Platner, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, for now anyway, said he would withdraw after being
Welcome, dear readers, to Thursday, July 9, 2026. (Snip) Raise your hand if you still remember the name Andrew Gillum. Don't worry if your hand stayed down. I'm betting the Democrat Party would love for you to forget it, too. Anyway, now your co-workers or your other half would be wondering why your hand was up.
Fasten your seatbelts, kids.
Gillum, the former Mayor of Tallahassee, Fla., ran a genuinely electrifying campaign as the Democratic nominee for Florida governor in 2018, and he pulled off a real upset to win the primary in the first place. Barack Obama endorsed him. High-profile progressives lined up behind him. He came agonizingly close
A suspected illegal immigrant who tried to run down an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Houston on Tuesday morning was shot dead by the agent.
ICE said the incident took place at about 6:50 a.m. Central Time, when ICE agents tried to stop a vehicle “as part of a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an illegal alien,” according to KRIV-TV in Houston.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who was allegedly in the U.S. illegally, was not cooperative, according to ICE.
“From information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE
Strange Planet
5 replies
Last night TCM played the dystopian thriller Soylent Green (1973), starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson. It was Robinson’s last film. He was dying of cancer during the filming and Heston credited him with the success of the film. Robinson played his character’s death scene in the face of his own “true and imminent death,” as Heston subsequently wrote.
Rereading Gulliver’s Travels, I’ve been thinking about Heston’s role as surviving astronaut George Taylor in Planet of the Apes (1968). As Taylor crash lands on a strange planet, the film performs a variation on Part IV of Gulliver’s Travels. In Part IV Gulliver visits the land of the Houyhnhnms.
A family paying the electric bill doesn't care how noble a subsidy sounds in Washington. They care whether the lights stay on, the furnace runs, the air conditioner works, and the bill leaves enough money for groceries.
President Donald Trump's tax law set July 4, 2026, as the deadline ending federal tax credit subsidies for new wind and solar projects not already under construction. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright called the deadline the end of roughly 35 years of federal support for wind and solar, and he noted that in 2025 they comprised about 3% of total U.S. primary energy consumption. From Just the News:
We Should All Sing Louis Armstrong
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Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens began turning 100 last year. An epochal centennial in American music! These 70-plus tracks, laid down between 1925 and 1928, are the source of so much of what was to come and remain a delight to the ear to this day. Woody Allen said that Armstrong’s “Potato Head Blues” was one of the reasons life is worth living. “Melancholy Blues” is included on the Voyager Golden Record launched into space in 1977.
Armstrong spanned the 20th century with his trumpet playing, his singing, and his warm and welcoming personality. No other jazz musician had more radio hits than Armstrong, hits heard during
The Week in Pictures: Sophia and the 4th
4 replies
Move over Sydney Sweeney: America has a new heroine perfectly fitted to the July 4 semiquincentennial today: She is Sophie Cunningham, Sophie being an adaptation of sophia, the ancient Greek word for wisdom. And sort of like Helen of Troy, our Sophie has launched a thousand memes. So as we celebrate today the sophia of our founding, let Sophie help point the way!
I’m sure you don’t, but I’ll give you one anyway.
Michelle Obama has spent years selling herself as America's warm, approachable former first lady. Remember the whole “when they go low, we go high” thing? We knew then it was just an empty slogan, because whenever she had a chance to prove she’s the bigger person, she just proved the opposite.
According to a Daily Mail report, Barack Obama’s wife personally torpedoed Cheryl Hines' return to the small screen when Larry David's new HBO series, Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America, began casting. The show premiered last week. Higher Ground, the production company
Unprecedented Heat Wave?
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More ignorance from the New York Times: “Without Climate Change, U.S. Heat Wave Called ‘Virtually Impossible.”
Heat and humidity as severe, prolonged and far-reaching as this week’s would have been “virtually impossible” in the Northeast and eastern Canada before humans began warming the planet, a team of scientists said on Friday.
***
To estimate how much climate change increased the likelihood of this week’s sweltering conditions, the scientists analyzed records of a measurement of heat stress called “wet bulb globe temperature,” a figure that accounts for humidity, wind and direct sunlight. Given that the heat wave is still unfolding, the researchers combined weather observations and forecast data.
Of course they did.
Can Europe Be Saved?
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As a result of third-world migration–some say, invasion–much of Western Europe is no longer recognizable. Mass third-world immigration is unpopular nearly everywhere, but European elites, being unhappy with their populaces, seem determined to replace them.
Campaigners including Eva Vlaardingerbroek and Martin Sellner have proposed the Save Europe Act, which you can read about here. The proposal strikes me as entirely reasonable. It petitions the European Union to exercise its right of initiative to propose legislation that would declare a moratorium on non-European, non-Western immigration; fundamentally reform EU migration and asylum systems; ensure and accelerate the return of illegal migrants; establish an EU-wide framework to incentivize voluntary remigration; and remove
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Federal immigration officers working weigh
stations to arrest illegal immigrant CDL drivers 17 replies
stations to arrest illegal immigrant CDL drivers 17 replies
Federal immigration officers have been dispatched to truck weigh stations at select locations nationwide as part of the Trump administration’s effort to find, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants who were given commercial driver’s licenses, according to a senior Trump administration official.
White House border czar Tom Homan said federal law enforcement is on-site to identify and intercept the nearly 200,000 non-U.S. citizens who received CDLs from states despite their having illegally entered the United States.
President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing for what could become a prolonged military campaign against Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, with the White House weighing additional military options as Tehran continues threatening commercial shipping through the strategic waterway, according to reports Thursday.
The latest deliberations come after two consecutive nights of U.S. strikes against Iranian military targets following Trump’s declaration Wednesday that the U.S.-brokered ceasefire and memorandum of understanding with Tehran were “over” after Iran attacked commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Speaking aboard Air Force One Wednesday night while returning from the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump said Iran wanted to negotiate but
Iran Failed Trump's Test
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Trump... gave the remnants of the regime a final chance: step back, accept restraint, and choose coexistence over confrontation. Iran failed that test.
The regime did not moderate. It returned to its usual methods: missiles, drones, threats, blackmail, and violence. Trump did not abandon diplomacy. Iran destroyed it.
The United States must send a clear message to every dictatorship watching: America may negotiate
That has now become a matter of American national security.
A dictatorial regime that publicly tolerates calls for the assassination of the president of the United States cannot be treated as just another difficult adversary. A red line has been crossed.
Graham Platner said that he's suspending his Senate campaign. Fine. Except that if you actually listened to his announcement video, it came loaded with conditions and a few not-so-subtle threats. And the more you look at how this is actually playing out, the less it looks like the clean exit Democrats were hoping for.
According to a report from Axios, Platner privately told his campaign staff Wednesday night that he plans to file paperwork Monday to formally withdraw from Maine's Democratic Senate primary. That's the same deadline the state requires for Democrats to name a replacement nominee. He made those comments shortly before publicly announcing he was suspending his campaign.
For generations, California represented the American dream—a place where families moved in search of opportunity, good-paying jobs, and a better life. Today, the Golden State is earning a very different reputation.
For 2026, California has been ranked the third-worst state to move to, according to Consumer Affairs’ annual state rankings, placing behind only Louisiana and New Mexico. The report evaluates states based on affordability, safety, economic strength, health care, education, and quality of life.
California’s ranking was driven largely by poor scores in affordability, safety, and economic strength.
While the state ranked 23rd in health care and education, and 14th in quality of life,
The New York mother beaten to death in her new home in Ireland shared a tragic, final post celebrating July 4th — lovingly posing with the asylum-seeking boyfriend who is the suspect in her murder, according to police sources.
Westchester County native Jamey Carney, 43, posted a pic seemingly wishing she was back in the Big Apple, beaming alongside Ahmad Alsaqer, the 28-year-old now identified as the person of interest in the brutal crime.
“Happy 4th y’all,” she wrote alongside the photo of them cuddling up in front of an AI-generated backdrop of Times Square, with the mom in Knicks T-shirt and Alsaqer in a Giants one.
The Trump administration moved forward Friday with the deportation of Laotian national Thu Ly Vang, a convicted child rapist, despite a last-minute pardon from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and other officials. [Tweets]
Vang had been ordered removed following a 2006 conviction for first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a minor, which stripped him of his legal status. Just days before his scheduled deportation, Minnesota’s Board of Pardons, composed of Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, granted him a pardon.
President Donald Trump’s remarks on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, may represent one of the most consequential shifts in America’s strategic language toward the Islamic Republic of Iran since the 1979 revolution.
By warning that any new Iranian attack would trigger a far more devastating response — and by describing the regime as a "cancer" that must be removed — Trump signaled something that goes beyond conventional political rhetoric. In the language of national security, such terminology often reflects a fundamental change in how a threat is defined.
Charlie Kirk’s accused killer Tyler Robinson confessed three times to murdering the conservative leading light, according to a bombshell video from Robinson’s trans lover — including after he sneaked back to their Utah love nest.
Lance Twiggs, who was seen speaking publicly for the first time Thursday in a pre-recorded deposition, told investigators he awoke the day after the Sept. 10 assassination to Robinson walking around their apartment, before he broke down and declared he “wishes he hadn’t done it” and that he was about to turn himself in.
Robinson’s confessions, in a letter to Twiggs, text messages and in person — all shown in court during a preliminary hearing —
The rate at which Islam is growing in the United States is alarming because of the totalitarian nature of the political, social, economic, and religious doctrines of Islam. Mosques are appearing everywhere, even in the reddest of red states. They have increased by over 30% since 2010.
Islamic communities that support Sharia law are popping up in numerous states, and most shockingly, in Arkansas under Governor Sanders. The Islamic Center of Little Rock states on its website that its movement began in 1979 with just a couple of dozen Muslim families in the area. They started out by converting an old theater into their first mosque. They also met
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) sparked alarm on the left this week when it was reported that he and fellow Pennsylvania Sen. David McCormick (R-PA) set up a joint fundraising committee. (Snip) Fetterman’s battle against the rising Democratic Socialists in his party and fierce support for Israel have left him at odds with progressives and many in the Democratic Party, leading to speculation he may switch to the GOP amid the tight battle for control of the Senate. Fox News’s liberal host Jessica Tarlov highlighted Fetterman’s recent teaming up with McCormick and replied, “So so bad.” Rick Wilson, the longtime political
President Trump on Friday told The Post he has “left instructions” should Iran succeed in their plots to assassinate him — and there’ll be hell to pay.
“I’ve been on their list for a long time. That’s what we’re dealing with,” he said. “… The only thing is, I’ve left instructions — if anything happens, to just literally bomb them at levels that they’ve never seen before.”
Asked about recent reports that Israel this week flagged intel of a plot to take out the US president, Trump indicated there was no fresh plan from Iran — but said Tehran has wanted him dead for years.