First, a few questions: Are you a single white woman in America in 2026? Is the only correct take on Lindsay Clancy the one you have adopted after scouring TikTok like the world’s greatest true-crime detective? Do you own one or more items of “Hot Girls For Zohran” flair?
Then this message is for you: This pumpkin spice season, don’t miss out on the must-have accessory of the season — your new jihad-adjacent boyfriend. He’s intense, he’s problematic, and his opinions on 9/11 are sure to anger all the relatives you hate the most over the holidays.
Kathy Hochul showed the way when she rocked that hijab in exchange for a group of very important Muslim men having to suffer the rare experience of listening to a woman talk. It’s a natural progression – you go from hashtagging for Gaza to embracing this inventive new idea called socialism to realizing that sure, Luigi murdered a guy, but have you noticed he’s hot?
The speediest path to Karen-izing Islam in the West is personalizing the narrative, and you have the power to do it. And trust me, the internal satisfaction of this accessory boyfriend will be immense. It comes when you post your orchard-infused Uggs-resurgence Instagram story about taking him apple picking for the first time. (For the record, you’ll be doing all the picking). It comes when you tell your mother no, it’s not that you don’t like Leinenkugel’s anymore; it’s just that it’s haram. It comes when your uncle storms out of Thanksgiving muttering about Ann Coulter (who?) and turning the Middle East into a “sheet of glass,” whatever that means. Probably something racist. Come on. It’s twenty-five years after 9/11, and it’s time people just grow up and let it go.
The best part about this move isn’t just that you’re trendsetting; it’s the emotional rush of getting ahead of where everything is going and gaining the moral authority to pass judgment on all of it. Let the weirdo right-wingers eat each other on X arguing about the cost of burritos and welfare for tradwives and the Latin Mass. You’re staking out ground that will infuse the next iteration of America’s human resources departments as part of a new protected class. And what’s the personal cost for you? Some hijab-prompted dermatitis? Big deal, your hair was shedding from the SSRIs anyway.
Some of your best friends will judge you, but that’s how you know this is so right. Someone posted a beautiful quote you saw the other day – it was from a French author; you haven’t read the book, but it’s a good summary: “the summit of human happiness resides in the most absolute submission.” Don’t you have the right to be happy? They’re just jealous they don’t have a man who believes in anything beyond prediction markets and Patagonia.
So this decorative gourd season, don’t just run things back with all the tired old tropes you embraced the past few years. Head up to a rally in Michigan. Be the first in your friend group to get that new must-have accessory. Sure, sometimes he can seem a little bossy. But what’s the worst that can happen?

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The Hottest Pumpkin Spice Accessory Is Your New Jihadi Boyfriend

dating and relationships

islam

kathy hochul

opinion

zohran mamdani

There they were, crammed in the close quarters of the filled-to-capacity Capitol Rotunda to shield our aged political leaders from the cold outside, flanking the once-and-future president as he took the oath of office for a second time. The richest and most powerful people in the world rubbing shoulders awkwardly – there were Elon, Jeff, Tim, Sundar Pichai from Google and (ominously) Shou Zi Chew of TikTok shifting in uncomfortable folding chairs designed to put them on display. The most natural thing that happened was Mark Zuckerberg accidentally reminding the world that he’s straight.
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<div id="attachment_1165413" style="width: 1546px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://nypost.com/2025/01/20/us-news/mark-zuckerberg-busted-staring-at-lauren-sanchezs-cleavage-at-trump-inauguration/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1165413" class="size-full wp-image-1165413" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/mark-zuckerberg-get-caught-peeping-97027211.jpg" alt="" width="1536" height="1194" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/mark-zuckerberg-get-caught-peeping-97027211.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/mark-zuckerberg-get-caught-peeping-97027211-300x233.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/mark-zuckerberg-get-caught-peeping-97027211-741x576.jpg 741w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/mark-zuckerberg-get-caught-peeping-97027211-768x597.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px" /></a>Credit: Fox</div>
They were there to give homage to the man who had beaten them, and who now they needed to woo back to their side. Big Tech did a terrible job navigating the Trump years, and they knew it. They let their woke control freak employees go wild after 2016, and were forced to debase themselves as having not done enough to stop Hillary’s collapse. Pronouns and politics became mandatory in an industry that had been all about whatever nerd could build the best company in their dorm room. The media pressure was enormous. Out of nowhere, they were deemed the new pontiffs of the Trumpian era: what their platforms decided was okay was an endorsement. They had an obligation to censor, to silence, to shadowban, to debank, and, above all, to fund dying newspapers. They suddenly had to throw a gigantic pile of money at race problems because a random drug addict died in Minnesota. They caved to the forces of censorship in the 2020 election and indoctrination during the Covid years, becoming synonymous with a leftist authoritarianism totally at odds with the rebellious hacker mentality that birthed their industry. They didn’t care about politics – but it cared about them. So they did what they had to do, or so they thought at the time. And they lost.
Now here they were, sitting and grinning, as just off stage their high-paid consultants and their NGO partners and their Aspen and Sun Valley and DAVOS friends were all losing their minds. But what else were they supposed to do? If the rule they followed brought them to this, of what use was the rule?
It was time to make amends. They would do the work of politicking; they would shake hands and smile and talk about working together. They would survive the return of the president they had tried and failed to ban. Because all this came just as the next stage of technological advancement, long burgeoning and anticipated, was about to skyrocket. And that would reorder not just our economy, but the world.
This moment was more significant for our politics than many grasped at the time. It represented a dramatic shift where, for the first time, Republicans were about to become the party of Big Tech. Where Silicon Valley had been a punching bag for conservatives for years, what with their climate change nattering and San Francisco values, they left California behind for the welcoming arms of pro-business red state leaders. The taxes were low, the regulations more forgiving, and their employees could finally afford a house. They were flush with consumers and data and cash after years of lockdown. And for the GOP’s influential investor class, the A.I. spark made these companies synonymous with skyrocketing market success. The sides had flipped.
Few states were more welcoming to this shift than Texas under Republican Governor Greg Abbott, which became a haven for Big Tech headquarters. The attitude from the state’s Republican leadership wasn’t just advocacy but cheerleading advancement and a Western agreement with moving fast and breaking things. That’s why it should serve as such a stunning warning to these same companies that it’s the same governor who promised to lead the country in A.I. who is warning them now that they’ve gone too far, too fast:
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ABBOTT: One thing is the rapidity that these data centers are coming online, that people didn&#8217;t see coming. The other is the way that the data centers, they didn&#8217;t do their job to get the support of people in local communities. Gaining the support of people in local communities is essential.
Because they did not do that, that&#8217;s why I am now coming in as governor saying, listen, if you&#8217;re a data center and you want to operate in Texas, you have to first get the approval of those in local communities…
KARL: It was last year that you said that Texas was the epicenter of the A.I. industry. In hindsight, did Texas move too fast?
ABBOTT: It wasn&#8217;t Texas that was moving fast, it was these data centers.
KARL: But they needed approval from, you know, from the government.
ABBOTT: Well, so what data centers we&#8217;re doing, and this is the problem that we are facing here in Texas, but you mentioned what&#8217;s going on nationally. And that is, they pop up in places that nobody ever heard of before, until they started the construction. And so they had not been working in collaboration with the state, they&#8217;d not been in collaboration with local governments, and so they basically dug their own grave for the problem that&#8217;s been caused for them. And that&#8217;s why they got the backlash they deserve.
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“They got the backlash they deserve.” The frustration of Texas communities and voters is what’s driving Abbott’s shift, just as it is across the country for politicians who welcomed a tech boom without thinking about the attendant risks. It’s as if these companies thought that the A.I. race was something they could win with just top-down approval from Washington and the governors – not convincing local voters and communities they wouldn’t raise their costs or wreck their environment.
You can hear the lunacy of this hubris expressed by the leader of one tech company, which is clearly the next in the barrel. The backlash to Flock cameras is growing in parallel to the animosity toward data centers, at an astonishing rate considering how quickly the issue has taken hold. It’s easy to understand why when you hear Flock CEO Garrett Langley talk with obvious irritation about the intransigence of local voters who have the audacity to… go to a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/flock-cameras-are-spreading-across-america-the-backlash-is-growing-just-as-fast-fff74ed2?mod=mhp">council meeting</a>.
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Flock&#8217;s CEO mocks people showing up at council meetings, saying we should &#8220;trust that the system works.&#8221; Meanwhile, his &#8220;huge team whose entire job is going to city council meetings&#8221; went to &#8220;close to 10,000 city council meetings&#8221; just last year. <a href="https://t.co/5XbiFDvBqs">pic.twitter.com/5XbiFDvBqs</a>
— Have I Been Flocked? (@HIBFlocked) <a href="https://x.com/HIBFlocked/status/2092048985993167000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 25, 2026</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
What I’ve come to agree with is the notion of a horseshoe mentality, that it’s just a very very small number of people, incredibly small, that tend to be really loud.
I imagine you’ve never been to a city council meeting.
Interviewer: I never have.
And I imagine you never will, because generally, I hope you vote, you should vote, and then you trust that the system works, that the person you voted for as generally aligned views, and like they’re going to go do the hard work, because that’s what you elect them to do.
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The political problem Big Tech failed to realize still exists: the views of the electorate still matter. It’s not just about gladhanding with the guys at the top. In the wake of the past decade, the American people’s level of trust in these companies is practically nil. It doesn’t matter to the normal voter if we’re in an A.I. race with China. It doesn’t matter that these companies have promised to back off of politics (Elon and Larry Ellison excepted). It doesn’t matter that they stood in that Capitol Rotunda to be publicly shamed. They have no depth of faith among the American people who use their products because they have to, even through a mist of resentment and laziness. We know we said A.I. is going to take all your jobs, but wasn’t it enough to give to the Inauguration Committee? No, it is not.
For Big Tech, the problem is easier to solve: work and spend. They have to make the case for themselves instead of dismissing the valid concerns of Americans. But somewhere there’s always going to be a state and a community to take their money and make a deal, even with the political costs.
For Republicans, though, the potential problem goes deeper. They are unused to navigating a world where being pro-business isn’t necessarily good for their voters. And they may find out they became the party of Big Tech just as much of the country turned against it. Billionaires are fun to play with, until they aren&#8217;t. And then, you find out they can be a real drag.

The Inauguration Of Donald J. Trump As The 47th President

Did Republicans Embrace Big Tech Billionaires Just As America Turned Against Them?

artificial intelligence

big tech

data center

flock cameras

greg abbott

politics

texas

Election 2026 has multiple storylines, but one of the more interesting is the through line to the Left that rejects the entire vision of modern Western man and embraces something very different.
Democrat Senator Jon Ossoff&#8217;s carefully scripted line attacking cancer survivor Natalie Harp, the president&#8217;s assistant, by intentionally implying an inappropriate relationship between the two is just another example. Before that, we had The New York Times writer Jodi Kantor, one of the most aggressive MeToo advocates, excusing and downplaying the behavior of Maine&#8217;s Graham Platner. And then we had the absurdity of the Abdul El-Sayed pool party surrounded by fashion-obsessed influencers — Hasan Piker included — when his wife can&#8217;t even wear a swimsuit.
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Jon Ossoff attempts to clean up his &#8220;travel with Natalie&#8221; line by claiming it was a commentary about all of President Trump&#8217;s White House aides in general.
Yes, I&#8217;m sure that&#8217;s exactly what he meant by referring to that one specific person in the way that he did <a href="https://t.co/5fZc5emEyd">pic.twitter.com/5fZc5emEyd</a>
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) <a href="https://x.com/greg_price11/status/2089529577970282517?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
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From Platner to El-Sayed to now Ossoff, there is a decidedly Middle Eastern tone to these supposedly masculine lefties: Rape doesn&#8217;t really exist. Your wife can&#8217;t wear a swimsuit to a pool party, but the man of the house can hang with influencers who do. We can now slut shame you for having a high-profile job — how unwomanly.
It&#8217;s a particular kind of misogyny, different from the kind that came before. Instead of offering a perspective on American Democratic men that is of the cheap Nina Burleigh variety — the Time magazine reporter who said of Bill Clinton, “I’d be happy to give him [oral sex] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal,” an offer there is no indication Bill took up — this is an attitude right out of Michel Houellebecq&#8217;s Submission. Sure, at first that Handmaid&#8217;s Tale outfit was a protest — but what if you learned to love it?
Consider it a MeToo aftershock, a corollary to American men who seek to date more foreign-born women. The Left, having embraced the idea that they are the party of the Moral Majority, is now openly advocating for a form of female subjugation that is notably at odds with the Western understanding of what modern manhood and womanhood look like. It&#8217;s as if the lesson they took from their precipitous loss of young male voters in America was to Eat Pray Love their way into a burkini.
This goes beyond the excuse-making, slut shaming, and blatant partisan talking points of the past. Those have been with us always, since the days of James Carville&#8217;s comment about dragging a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park. The Pod Save Bros (ever the willing supplicants to Islam) are happy to take up the legacy in its perverted form today.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Fresh off of defending Graham Platner until they couldn&#8217;t, the PodSaveBros are deciding to accuse a random staffer of banging her boss based on zero evidence. <a href="https://t.co/Q3DVF7aJyP">https://t.co/Q3DVF7aJyP</a> <a href="https://t.co/5OCViE6AlV">pic.twitter.com/5OCViE6AlV</a>
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) <a href="https://x.com/peterjhasson/status/2089429750766883301?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
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This isn&#8217;t just craven politics; it&#8217;s a fundamental break with modern America. It is a direct descendant of the pathologizing of normal relationships, especially of men’s roles in relationships. The Right has veered into tradwives and tradmen with a cross on the wall, so here comes the Left&#8217;s equal and opposite reaction with crescent and star.
From the Left&#8217;s perspective today, if a man forces you to have sex, well, you must understand the needs of his war-weary PTSD. If women are forced to wear the hijab, well, that&#8217;s just their culture, which you must respect. If a woman gets far in her political career, well, they must have slept their way to the top. Meet the new Man of the Left, avatar of this old-made-new red-green alliance. And he can&#8217;t be sexist, mom and dad — he&#8217;s Muslim!
Besides, he&#8217;s down with our vision for the country: a spiral minaret atop a Planned Parenthood, a sign in front welcoming all refugees, all of it paid for by the tech billionaire about to meet the guillotine in the town square.
The Left&#8217;s broken compass is pointing in this direction, leading the Democrats to a space previously unoccupied because it was anti-Western and anti-American. But when the guardrails are removed in a desperate bid for power, self-importance, or influence, this becomes the destructive path.
What a beautiful future, if only they can seize it. If only you will let them.

image_88dab388

Democrats Want America To Eat Pray Love Her Way Into A Burkini

2026 midterm election

abdul el-sayed

graham platner

jon ossoff

natalie harp

Punch-Kroenig

Is The American War Machine Dead?

defense industrial base

donald trump

henry kissinger

national defense budget

nato

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had just about enough of these pompous establishment Democrats defending their party severing the last vestiges of its rationality and patriotism to trans itself into Commie ISIS.
We’ve seen all this before. The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tom-cotton-marxist-democrats-are-a-warning-sign-for-the-country">union of Marxists and Islamists</a> has a long history, a high-low combo of academics with a surplus of graduate degrees and guilt entertained by the youthful passions of the proletariat into supporting the vilest anti-human agenda devised in modern times.
This way to the gulag, comrade – walk faster, you know you deserve it.
The Abdul El-Sayed victory in Michigan, even if it came more narrowly than expected and was rebuffed by rural and black voters, is just the confirmation of what was already clear. Today the organizing energy of the Democratic Party – the party that less than a generation ago stood shoulder to shoulder with fellow Republicans and Independents against the Reds and the terror-supporters alike – is driven by a group of craven, manipulative liars and a bevy of followers whose understanding of history doesn’t start til iPhone 6. 
These wannabe red diaper babies want to run back the losing side in the Nixon-Khrushchev kitchen debate and repackage it for morons on TikTok, and they do it well. Pick your reasoning for why they do it. Is it all to ease the horror of their meaningless existence by creating a community of followers who hang on their words of hate for people who are more successful than they are?
Whatever is wrong in your life, you can blame it on a corporation, a billionaire, or a Jew. Sometimes you hit the jackpot with all three at once.
This isn’t crazy. This isn’t radical. It’s the Democratic mainstream now. And after the results of the major primary elections across the country, it’s a genuine wave that will swamp a once truly American party that held Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners every spring until Donald Trump came along and liked them both.
The man who helped usher in that era of post-American politician, David Axelrod, took to the CNN airwaves last night to lecture the country on why it’s so bad that American Jews are spending money defending their interests. Keeping in mind that the overwhelming majority of AIPAC dollars (again, in the case of last night’s primaries) have always gone to Democratic politicians, Axelrod’s smear that this represents “foreign influence” found a fitting rebuttal from Van Jones.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
David Axelrod and Van Jones debate AIPAC re: <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/MISen?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MISen</a> ⬇️
Axelrod: “It&#8217;s a legitimate question. Should essentially an agent of any foreign government, whether it&#8217;s Israel or any other, be able to spend.. $30 million in a race like this to influence the outcome of that race?”
Van… <a href="https://t.co/iwPwT9slYj">pic.twitter.com/iwPwT9slYj</a>
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) <a href="https://x.com/jacobkornbluh/status/2084798524722475330?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
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David Axelrod is showing where the Democratic Party is drifting. In a bid to stay relevant, he’s trafficking in conspiracy theories and calumnies against patriotic American Jews. It falls to Van Jones, a non-Jewish Black American, to call him out and set the record straight and… <a href="https://t.co/96l1vHjjFf">https://t.co/96l1vHjjFf</a>
— Mark Dubowitz (@mdubowitz) <a href="https://x.com/mdubowitz/status/2084954694124704216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Whether you care about Israel or not, the point for Americans is the weaponization that anti-Semites have achieved within the Democratic and, with less success, attempted to achieve within the Republican coalitions. Michigan proved once again that the AIPAC approach to American politics is a loser. Their highest-backed candidate just lost to an army of Democratic Socialist influencers, for whom FOMO is the most powerful motivation, who anointed a dog-electrocuting 9/11-supporting double-breasted nepo baby as their activist champion. What was October 7th but just some bros on Blue Chew flying Mario Karts into a festival? What’s so wrong with that? The streams did numbers after all.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hasan Piker acknowledged his role in reshaping Michigan&#8217;s Dem Senate primary but tells our <a href="https://x.com/adamwren?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@adamwren</a>: &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t say I&#8217;m a powerbroker.&#8221;
&#8220;People call me a kingmaker. I&#8217;m not. I&#8217;m just fortunate enough to be a part of a much broader movement.&#8221;
Follow our live election night… <a href="https://t.co/0dYaVzEbTP">pic.twitter.com/0dYaVzEbTP</a>
— POLITICO (@politico) <a href="https://x.com/politico/status/2084829402983252281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Michigan’s outcome was actually good for Democratic hopes in the fall, though, because it will likely force Abdul El-Sayed to do something he wouldn’t have done otherwise: moderate his tone. In the past few weeks, ebullient with the aura of inevitability (thanks in part to what now looks like a bunch of juiced internal polls), El-Sayed was taking on an attitude of “I don’t need you any more” toward the party.
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This is classic dumb savior complex politician stuff, complete with the Beto “born to be in it” energy. But this <a href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/what-to-make-of-michigan">outcome</a> will likely temper that heat and push him back towards the Democratic politicians he needs to get him over the finish line — to give him the veneer of normalcy he needs to win Michigan. And they’ll be there for him.
For the rest of us, we should recognize what a danger it is to have a major party just become Commie ISIS, a coalition that joins all the people who want to seize your property, eliminate the nuclear family, re-educate your children, and also sometimes slaughter a goat in their backyard.
As an independent, I&#8217;ve voted for Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and The Rock.
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The ol&#8217; trust write in. Thank you sir for the vote of confidence. This strangely makes me hungry for carbs. 🇺🇸🍗 <a href="https://t.co/R94b4VAL7E">https://t.co/R94b4VAL7E</a>
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) <a href="https://x.com/TheRock/status/788939489280274432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 20, 2016</a></blockquote>
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My question going into a voting booth is always what a good friend calls &#8220;the beach test&#8221;: &#8220;Can you imagine this person on the beach with a machine gun fighting back against the Chinese invasion?&#8221; It obviously applied to the likes of Jim Webb. But do any of these Democrats pass that test today? Forget it – they&#8217;d be turning those guns around.
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Al Sharpton used to warn Democrats about the Republican Party hijacking the Bible and the Flag. Today’s Democrats just don’t care. They have other flags to follow.

HO7bKaXW4AAd8i5

Democrats Are Officially The Party Of Commie ISIS

aipac

democratic party

michigan senate race

President Trump In The Situation Room During Strike on Iran

Ending The War In Iran Means Winning, Nothing Less

iran

islamic revolutionary guard corps

israel

strait of hormuz

Punch-Fauci

The Data That Shows How Fauci Broke Bad

anthony fauci

covid19 origins

covid19 pandemic

lockdown

public health

The state and mood of Washington, D.C. this week are a combination of dire and surreal. The surreal came in the form of the funeral for Lindsey Graham, a rare politician of actual note in this day and age of politicos who are good at winning elections, toeing the line, and remaining consistently unrecognizable as having any effect on national policy. (Did you know that Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) has been in office since Princess Diana was still alive? Wild.)
The event was, as is typical for the nation&#8217;s capital city, reduced to a pathetic networking session of smiles and handshakes between journos and politicians, lawyers and lobbyists, with the additional Kremlinology of who got to sit where and why. Everyone was on their phones between songs of generic holiness, stuck to the uncomfortable confines of worn brown National Cathedral chairs in the purportedly religious house that has the acoustics of a Wawa and whose respect for holiness is embodied by the head of <a href="https://cathedral.org/discover/fun-facts/">Darth Vader</a> perched atop its Northwest Tower, as predicted by the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Luke%2019:40">Gospel of Luke</a>. For this, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) wore a suit?
What was remarkable about the Graham funeral was how little resemblance it bore to the man it claimed to honor. Instead, it was a tribute isolated to a single relationship confined to the last seven years of Graham’s 31-year career in Washington: his political friendship with President Donald Trump. It was a connection built on Graham’s belief that, in the absence of his longtime foreign policy allies John McCain and Joe Lieberman, he had to make the best of things — becoming a quarterback whisperer in an offensive scheme he never thought he’d have to run. The decision reaped benefits, for Graham and for Trump — the former an old hand at driving policy in the Republican conference, the latter a political neophyte who didn’t know whom to trust or how to move legislation beyond a Truth Social post.
The tributes from the front of the Cathedral focused on an appeal to the Commander-in-Chief in the front row and left his longtime friends unmentioned. The program wasn’t marked by any of his longtime political allies from his home in South Carolina. Take the world leaders out of the equation in the attending crowd, and it could’ve been a funeral for any Republican senator. The oddity of it all is that, unlike so many others, Graham’s absence is likely to be immediately felt, and felt the most by Trump’s White House, whose relationship with Capitol Hill, already strained with contention and resentment, is only going to get worse.
The following day brought another insult to holiness with the circus of the Anthony Fauci hearing. The fish in the barrel claimed the Fifth the entire time, and senators expressed their undying love and affection (on the Democratic side) and their utter contempt for his lying, self-dealing, and pompous assumption of the seat of the Pope of Science. Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) blond gum-chewing staffer went viral. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) channeled the fury of millions of Americans. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) said a swear word. None of this will be of any consequence.
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This is where Republicans find themselves: looking back in anger, without delivering anything of substance. They’re still fighting the last war. Democrats are crazy socialists who haven’t stopped being crazy; in fact, they’ve gotten even crazier. But that’s not good enough to win, despite the insistence of too-online right-wingers that they can run that play back one more time to buck decades of historical midterm trends. Four in 10 voters say they want “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-voters-want-major-change-amid-economic-political-discontent">revolutionary</a>” change from this election. Do you think they care about people movers at Washington Dulles Airport? Do you think they give a sh*t if James Talarico rents a truck?
That brings us to the dire mood in the capital city. House Republicans had already been planning their exit strategy and shopping for their next homes and jobs. Senate Republicans have only just noticed that they are headed in the same direction: off a cliff, at rapid speed. President Trump’s approval rating is 33% in the latest AP poll. Democratic Senate candidates currently lead in North Carolina and Georgia — where Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has promised to spend an enormous amount of cash — and are within the margin of error in Ohio and Texas, which were supposed to be red states the last time we checked. Every bout at the White House’s UFC sideshow ended in a knockout. This may not even be that close.
The realization on the eve of August that the blue tidal wave could hit the Senate, too, has come too late to do much about the outcome except bitch about the damn war. And what comes after? We all know what it looks like for D.C.: committee circuses, impeachment of Cabinet figures, and lawfare targeting the president’s family and allies to a degree that will make the Joe Biden years look sleepy and innocuous. For the Left? A dramatically emboldened socialist wing, with the force multiplier of eager and willing new entrants from safe seats, all looking to make a national name for themselves. And for the Right? Two years of vindictive bloodletting and horror, blame and revisionism, and a level of factional strife that will have the city turning back to all the old &#8220;Game of Thrones&#8221; episodes, lacking as we are in newer references in the post-peak TV era.
The Republican Party was emboldened by Donald Trump’s victory in 2024. But from election night on, it made the mistake of thinking that victory for the Right was fundamental. It may turn out to be the exception before the Left&#8217;s new and dangerous rule. Buckle up.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-GOVERNMENT-SHUTDOWN

D.C. Republicans Think They’re Going To Lose. They’re Probably Right.

2026 Midterms

dave chappelle

DW Opinion

House Republicans

john fetterman

lindsey graham

President Trump

Senate Republicans

Punch-Odyssey-2

Is ‘The Odyssey’ A Sign America Is Post-Woke?

christopher nolan

hollywood

Homer

shane gillis

Spencer Klavan

the odyssey

Weekend Punch

woke culture

When you are a young father, you have to make a choice at some point about what is, to my mind, an important thing: what will be the first movie your children will ever see? It matters even if they don’t remember it. If they love it, it matters more. So you have to spend more than a moment of thinking about it, particularly if, as many of us are, the idea that you would put a barely cognizant child before a flickering screen begets responsibility for what comes from it.
For this reason, my three children have all had the same movie play before them before their first birthday, intentionally and without hesitation: “Isle of Dogs,” Wes Anderson’s stop motion journey through the Japanese archipelago of the future. My daughters have memorized it fully — they quote the jokes and even the Japanese lines with readiness. There is, in the early days, a confusion that not all dogs sound like Bryan Cranston or Liev Schreiber. But they understand that there is a language gap. They know the label of man’s best friend. And they know what it means to say: I’ve gone to find my dog.
Amidst the overheated discourse surrounding Christopher Nolan’s “Odyssey” — the summer flick which launched ten thousand takes — there was one thread which stuck out to me, even as someone who lacks the linguistic and antiquarian knowledge to fully analyze what that vest-wearing troublesome child of Westminster threw into our discourse. That was the rejection by the supposed poorly-tattooed muse for the screenplay, Emily Wilson, of key aspects of Nolan’s creation: she found it too modern, too wrought, too different from both the original and her own interpretation. Fine. But this was the line that stuck out to me: an irritation at an iconic scene of Odysseus’ reunion with his long-serving pup, Argos. Her dismissal was that it was too modern, too mawkish: &#8220;everybody&#8217;s a sucker for a dog&#8221;.
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Emily Wilson after watching the Odyssey:
‘The film presents an Odysseus who feels very bad about things that he&#8217;s done in war, and is struggling to process them in a very modern, psychiatrised way – and needs drugs to do so! He seems to feel bad about being a warrior, and we… <a href="https://t.co/m0rfyHd7Ux">pic.twitter.com/m0rfyHd7Ux</a>
— Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi) <a href="https://x.com/OptimoPrincipi/status/2079887117618946245?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 22, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Ms. Wilson is entitled to her opinion, but the role of Argos in “The Odyssey” is an emotional connection she seems unfamiliar with. Perhaps she is, as her appearance suggests, a cat lady. But even so, she should understand the unique nature of man’s relationship with dog, which the Greco-Roman era highlights throughout our discovery of their unique and heartfelt tributes. The ancients buried their dogs with markers; they wept and mourned them; they wrote verses for them; and they knew them as loyal friends, fellow hunters, and protectors of home and hearth. To dismiss Argos as if he is some inserted bit of sappy emotion — the sort of lazy, emotionally manipulative, unearthly thing that appears, CGI hair ubiquitous, in the films of James Gunn, brought to you by James Gunn — is to dramatically underestimate his importance.
Am I saying Odysseus might have left Calypso just to find his dog, to say goodbye?
Yes, I am.
“Surely, even as you lie dead in this tomb, I deem the wild beasts yet fear your white bones, huntress Lycas; and your valor great Pelion knows, and splendid Ossa and the lonely peaks of Cithaeron.”
This is the memory etched in the tomb of a Thessalian hunting hound, and it is of a piece with the memories that Greeks and Romans alike left behind for their companions. There is the dog of Eumelus of Malta — whose name was Bull, or Tauros — “This stone holds the white dog from Melita, the most faithful guardian of Eumelus; Bull they called him while he was yet alive, but now his voice is imprisoned in the silent pathways of night.” Or for the woman Rhodope, who buried her devoted protector beside her eventual grave. Or for Tauron, who protected his master to the end:
<blockquote>
A dog is interred beneath this marker — Tauron who was not undone when faced with a killer. For he encountered a boar in direct combat… But the dog struck two feet into its back and grabbed the bristling beast in the middle of its chest and drove it down into the ground — he made a gift of the beast to Hades and died himself … He saved the life of Zenon, the hunter he followed. So he is buried here beneath this light dust.
</blockquote>
The encounter with Argos is a particularly poignant one: he recognizes Odysseus after 20 years of absence, wags his tail in greeting, and dies an honorable death having stayed alive to welcome his master home. The story is so iconic that it is echoed across media for centuries, and it’s not like it’s gone now. Is there any question that the one episode anyone who ever watched “Futurama” remembers is Jurassic Bark, where Fry’s dog remains steadfast in wait of his master? Sam&#8217;s sacrifice in “I Am Legend” is the heart of a relatively forgettable movie. Or what about John Wick, a series which is entirely based on the premise of what a retired expert assassin would do if you kill his dog?
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As a former speechwriter, the notion that this love of dogs is some modern tendency is at odds with the understanding that the greatest single speech in American history isn’t the Gettysburg address; it’s a random speech in defense of a lonely dog, delivered by future Senator George Graham Vest in a courthouse in Missouri in 1870. The case was decidedly against the now deceased canine — but Vest won based on his eulogy, which is unmatched in American rhetoric:
<blockquote>
Gentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son and daughter that he has reared with loving care may become ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him when he may need it most. Man&#8217;s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees and do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend a man may have in this world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is the dog.
A man&#8217;s dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master&#8217;s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.
When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast into the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws and his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfullness, faithful and true even to death.
</blockquote>
A statue is erected in Johnson County in honor of <a href="https://historicmissouri.org/items/show/2">Old Drum</a>, who was, despite his faults, a very good dog. Let Emily Wilson have her vagaries about “The Odyssey,” about masculinity and PTSD, modernity and its insufficient feminism — but do not, for one moment, let her take from us the friendship of a man and his dog.

Old engraved illustration of Diogenes of Sinope sitting in his tub

From Ancient Times To Today, We Love Good Dogs

Emily Wilson

Futurama

George Graham Vest

Isle of Dogs

John Wick

Old Drum

Wes Anderson

Punch-Graham-4

The Last Amigo

Bob Heckman

interview

John McCain

Vice President JD Vance&#8217;s decision to spend nearly three hours chatting with Joe Rogan on his podcast is the type of choice that drives consultants to drink more heavily than they do on a normal Wednesday. Devoting that amount of time to open questioning and long-winded theorizing about politics, culture, and conspiracy theories is a minefield for any elected politician, and one where it&#8217;s easy to create clips that will be edited and used to make half-baked arguments or warp what&#8217;s said into an unintended context.
Unfortunately for Vance, despite his well-known and much-admired communication prowess, that&#8217;s exactly what happened. On Iran, Israel, Jeffrey Epstein, and more, the vice president came across as far more interested in defending his own personal opinions than fulfilling the task of representing the Trump administration. Taken as a whole, the interview reads as if he&#8217;s already the 2028 nominee, speaking for the Republican Party he wants to manifest, not the one that currently exists under President Trump.
Time and again, the knock on this VP has been simple: He&#8217;s too online. He pays far too much attention to random social media accounts criticizing his tireless advocacy for a bad deal with Iran than he does to the possibility that the deal is, well, bad. He complained vociferously to Rogan that Israel is apparently funding some of the same people who are criticizing his deal online. But given that polls show the deal is unpopular with a significant portion of Republicans, and that only a small minority of voters think it&#8217;s a better deal for America than it is for Iran, Vance seems to be investing a gargantuan belief in the effectiveness of pro-Israel propaganda to move the needle.
Conservative Fox viewers and Daily Wire readers have never been sold on this deal, and now that it&#8217;s fallen apart, it&#8217;s something he should be eager to put in the rearview mirror — a collapse he should understand is the fault of Iran doing what Iran always does, not something he should blame on foreign manipulators. The sooner voters forget about Vance&#8217;s cheerleading for a doomed plan as his first major foray into foreign policy, the better it is for him.
For a vice president who seems to view the world more through the lens of podcasters than real life, the prescription is clear. The biggest viral trend over the past few months for American parents is in favor of giving kids a &#8220;nineties summer&#8221; — minimal screen time, maximum outdoor time, a throwback to the America where the rare moment of connecting to the internet came with the crackling sound of AOL dial-up and people focused on the real world of their neighbors and friends, long before the word &#8220;podcast&#8221; even existed. Perhaps that&#8217;s the recipe the vice president needs to reset, and get back to being the effective voice for this administration he was in its first year. Let the podcasts roll on. Everybody needs a break sometimes.

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Ben Domenech