What a trip

Posted on July 21, 2026July 21, 2026 by Mike 1 Comment

Class trip to…erm…Japan?!?

Yep, I promise you it’s for real: my lovely, über-talented, and bona fide genius daughter Madeleine—currently a rising Junior at Bessemer City HS (near Gastonia, NC)—is going on a field trip courtesy of EF Educational Tours to Tokyo, Yokohama, Hiroshima, and Osaka next July 14-22. The link is to the fundraiser her mom and step-dad are holding to foot the cost of this once-in-a-lifetime trip.

The ex-spousal unit and mother of my only child contacted me earlier this afternoon to ask if I’d be on board with helping spread the word about the Send Mike’s Young ‘Un to Jay-pang fundie, so here we all are. The above link will whisk you off to MJ’s donation page, as will this one, from whence those of y’all with a few extra shekels burning holes in your pocketses can toss a few into the kitty and help give a great kid an experience she’s bound to remember for the rest of her life.

I was telling my brother Jeff about this whole deal when he guffawed and choked out past his uncontrollable mirth, “Man alive, when I was in school we were lucky to get to go over to the Schiele Museum in Gastonia every year.” Same here, bro, same here. Loved that joint all to pieces when I was but a wee tyke. I’ll make this sticky so’s it’ll stay up top for a week or two, and not get lost in the shuffle.

The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine things

Posted on July 20, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Welcome to Ye Aulde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. New posts will appear below this one. There will be blood…

Mike @Substack

New Eyrie posts go up every Monday and Friday, although the time of day may (and most likely will) vary. Mike’s latest Eyrie offering is available for perusal here: “Screamin’ meemie Monday!“ Links to archived Golden Oldies are findable down at the bottom of each post.

Please do consider subscribing to The Eyrie, gang; it’s free, unless you’re feeling big-hearted enough to pony up for a paid sub. Either way, paying customer or freeloading looky-loo, an Eyrie subscription is a bargain at any price, a move you won’t ever regret making.

All subscribers receive email notification whenever each new post goes live, although CF management promises not to blow up your inbox with a bunch of junk mail. Latest Eyrie offering is getatable (yes, that’s really a word—trust me!) for one and all to read and enjoy totally free of charge, regardless of subscriber status. However, a paid sub is required to unlock commenting privileges—an almighty incentive to kick loose and chip in if ever there was one. Thanks, everybody!

The journey of a thousand miles…

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Begins with a single step.

Rep. Brandon Gill & Sen. Jim Banks Unveil Legislation To Help Curb Birthright Citizenship
Rep. Brandon Gill introduced a bill which would help curb birthright citizenship by reclassifying illegal alien birth tourists as invaders and amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to exclude their children from birthright citizenship. Called the Citizenship Act of 2026, corresponding legislation has also been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Jim Banks.

“To declare that any person who enters the United States without authorization or for the purpose of engaging in birth tourism is considered an invader and to amend section 301(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to exclude the children of invaders from birthright citizenship,” the bill on the Senate website said.

While the legislation would not fully annul birthright citizenship, it would prevent the practice from being exercised by illegal aliens.

What the hell, you gotta start somewhere, right? Probably too late too late at this late stage of the game, and I have serious doubts about whether the America-hating Commiecrats will ever allow the abolition of the completely fabricated “birthright citizenship” pseudo-right to come to pass. Nonetheless, Congressman Gill has been on fire of late, so good on him for this righteous move.

Not playing

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

And as per usual, Schlichter is having just WAY too much fun here.

You Don’t Have to Be Complicit in a Lie
The other day, they held a debate in Maine, choosing among the potential replacements for Herr Öystërgrüppënführër after his ignominious and cowardly retreat from the Senate nomination, and it was just as horrific as you could imagine. Most of the candidates were just communists, but one was a dude pretending to be a woman. And this wasn’t just any dude. This was a slab of beef, a hulking mook who could’ve been a construction worker if he hadn’t gone off the rails, but is now probably a dungeonmaster in the world’s worst D&D campaign. And you sat there watching this 12th-level ogre, feeling either pity—if he is simply deranged—or contempt if he’s some sort of pervert. Those are your two options. But you also had to wonder what was up with the media and the other candidates. After all, it was a man dressed as a woman, and nobody called out the weirdo in the room.

Let’s establish something right at the beginning. You should have compassion for people who suffer from the mental disorder of gender dysphoria—these people are in pain through no fault of their own. But you should have contempt for those who are merely perverted, and plenty are. Sick or sicko: those are your options. You are in no way required, morally, ethically, or otherwise, to cater to their delusion either way. A dude who decides he’s a chick, much like a chick who decides she’s a dude, is not entitled to your obedient and humiliating concurrence with the lie they are living.

If you talk to gay people, most of them have had it with the trans fanatics, too. But sadly, the faculty-lounge communists, sexually dysfunctional wine women, and the other assorted creeps who have taken over the Democrat Party, think differently. They try to force this mutant gender ideology down our throats with social intimidation when we resist. But, of course, we weren’t always resisting. We tried to be nice. Live and let live, you know—right up until the point where they wanted to live in our kids’ schools. The cultural Marxists exploited what was basic courtesy—you don’t go out of your way to cause people pain unless they deserve it—and morph it into complicity.

And the weirdest thing is when libs look you in the eyes and say, “Yes, this man pretending to be a woman is actually a woman.” We saw that with the head of a medical school the other day testifying to Congress that “the vast majority” of the people who have babies are women. Well, that’s technically true, but it’s not exactly specific. If he were specific, he would have said all of the people who have babies are women. And in fact, he didn’t even need to say that because we all know it. But he was making a statement. He was showing allyship. He was allowing himself to be ritually humiliated by saying what he knows is a lie to people who know he’s lying in order to prove he’s willing to defenestrate his own dignity and honor for the sake of solidarity and cocktail party invitations. That’s the thing—if you’re not all-in with the lie, it’s social suicide in the lofty circles. Just look at all the ungrateful actors who made it big in the Harry Potter movies turning on the author of the books that lifted them out of obscurity.

So, how do we fight back?

With strength. Have the strength to be impolite. You don’t need to go out of your way to hassle people, though the left seems intent on normalizing that. You just have to have the strength not to play along. Embrace the power of “No.”

No, that’s obviously a man and not a woman.

No, a man cannot be pregnant.

No, a woman cannot be a father.

No, castrating males and chopping the breasts off of women and doing other unspeakable things with a scalpel and chemicals is not “gender-affirming care.” It’s an atrocity that would make Caligula puke.

I don’t know if they teach kids fairytales and fables anymore, but the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes comes to mind. Except this emperor isn’t butt naked. He’s wearing a cocktail dress and teetering on stilettos while sporting a 5 o’clock shadow.

Be the kid who points at him and shouts, “It’s a man, baby!”

Seconded, wholeheartedly. Yes, there’s a pic at the link of the grotesque Manwoman-thing Kurt lambastes at the top of the article; those with weak stomachs are strongly advised to skip it.

Salisbury steak

Posted on July 23, 2026July 23, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

The fascinating tale of Dr James Salisbury’s renowned brainchild.

alisbury steak — seasoned ground beef patties mixed with breadcrumbs or other ingredients — was invented by James Salisbury, a New York physician who was fascinated by the relationship between diet and health. In the 1850s, he conducted a series of self experiments in which he exclusively ate a single food for a few days or weeks. His first test, a diet of only baked beans, produced disastrous results: “I became very flatulent and constipated, head dizzy, ears ringing, limbs prickly, and was wholly unfitted for mental work,” he wrote in The Relation of Alimentation and Disease (1888). Next came oatmeal and other staples, but it was ground beef, which he called “muscle pulp of beef,” that finally delivered the results he sought.

His prescription was simple: broiled beef patties, served with simple seasonings such as butter, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon. This recipe, he wrote, “affords the maximum of nourishment with the minimum of effort to the digestive organs.” Vegetables, on the other hand, were not only unnecessary but also harmful in his view; Salisbury declared that vegetarians had “less nervous and muscular endurance than meat eaters.”

During the Civil War, Salisbury applied his nutrition theories to Union soldiers, who were fed a diet of beef patties instead of the usual hard biscuits, which tended to cause digestive issues. In the decades following the war, Salisbury’s diet evolved from medical prescription to one of America’s first fad diets, spurred on by the rise of wellness culture and increased public interest in healthy food. (Other notable 19th-century foods believed to promote health included graham crackers, which were originally intended to suppress the libido, and Kellogg’s cornflakes, which were served by their inventor John Harvey Kellogg at his world-famous sanitarium.)

World War I was a further boon for the Salisbury steak, as the name became preferred to the German-sounding “hamburger.” By the mid-20th century, the dish had become a blue-collar classic. Hearty, inexpensive, and easy to prepare in large batches, it appeared on diner menus and Navy cookbooks across America.

Then came the postwar boom — and with it, the rise of television. In 1953, the Swanson company introduced the TV dinner, a frozen meal packaged in a compartmentalized aluminum tray. Within its first year of production, more than 10 million trays were sold in the U.S., and the Salisbury steak was one of the TV dinner’s most enduring offerings. For a generation of midcentury families, Salisbury steak was the taste of modern life: a hot meal ready in minutes, eaten in front of the television.

The same forces that made Salisbury steak famous would later make it unfashionable. In the 2000s, Americans began to fall out of love with processed foods, in part due to growing awareness of their negative health effects. In 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a ban on large sodas in the city, and First Lady Michelle Obama encouraged children to “Move!” The Salisbury steak, which was by then synonymous with microwaved TV dinners, fell victim to its association with cheap, unhealthy meals.

That said, not all processed foods suffered this fate, and another reason for Salisbury steak’s decline may be that it was outcompeted by its more convenient cousin, the burger, which rose to prominence as one of America’s most popular and iconic meals during the latter half of the 20th century. With the spread of fast-food chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King, many customers opted for the Salisbury steak’s handheld cousin when in the mood for a beef patty.

Though Salisbury steak has faded from the cultural spotlight in recent years, it is viewed with nostalgia by many who grew up with it and can still be found in home kitchens across America.

I ate a gracious plenty of those Swanson dinners featuring Salisbury steak when I was a kid, and it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm. Not that I know of, at any rate.

Via Insty, who quips, “Dr. Salisbury had your best interests at heart.” In stark today’s crop of Goosesteppin’ Left dietary/health/lifestyle scolds, who assuredly do not.

Import the 3rd world, become the 3rd world

Posted on July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

We got rats on the West Side, MANPADS Uptown…

So, you’re flying into LaGuardia, on final…and you get a MANPAD alert? I mean, I’ve had them in the Middle East and Bosnia but…New York? WTF are we doing? pic.twitter.com/Omfei20qsN

— Buzz Patterson (@BuzzPatterson) July 22, 2026

Via Divemedic, who throws in a complete rundown of the FAA instructions regarding MANPAD alerts.

Boy, that MommaCommie sure is improving the hell outta the place, ain’t he?

Our crooked, cooked-up “elections”

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Meanwhile, the D卐M☭CRAT scum just keeps on lying and spinning, spinning and lying. Happily, Scott Jennings ain’t having any of that shite.

Scott Jennings Torches CNN Host for Downplaying Non-Citizen Voter Scandal
Sherrill said a software error dating back to June 2023, three years before she took office, improperly registered roughly 6,600 people to vote in New Jersey.

About 400 of those people cast ballots, according to Sherrill. I said before that Sherrill’s admission was theater, a calculated release designed to make 6,600 bogus registrations and 400 illegal votes look like the whole story instead of the tip of it. The company she tried to pin the blame on isn’t cooperating with that script, either. The vendor pushed back on Sherrill’s version of events, arguing that verifying citizenship was ultimately the state’s job, not the software’s.

But, the left, which originally claimed things like this never happen, is now pushing the idea narrative that it’s such a small amount of fraud that it doesn’t matter anyway. That is exactly what CNN’s Abby Phillip claimed Tuesday night, and Scott Jennings let her have it.

Phillip spent much of the segment trying to convince her own panel that thousands of non-citizens voting in New Jersey didn’t amount to a widespread problem, sparring first with Manhattan Institute pollster Jesse Arm before enduring the wrath of Scott Jennings

“What’s your tolerance for this?” Jennings asked her.

Phillip pressed him on whether he considered the situation widespread rather than answering the question. Jennings didn’t blink.

“My bar is, I want no tolerance,” he said. “I have zero tolerance for this.”

You know, I know, Margolis knows, and Scott Jennings knows as well that the above numbers are but the tip of a VERY large iceberg; like fleas on a ol’ blue-tick hound, when you see one you automatically know that there are at least a hundred more you AIN’T seeing. Kudos to Jennings for once again refusing to just lie down like a good Vichy GOPer and let the shitlib “journalist” steamroll right over him.

Update! More on Amerika v2.0’s fake, phony, fraudulent “elections” from JF Cotto.

When China hit British voter data, the Biden-Harris team slapped on sanctions and charges. When Iran stole files on a mere 100,000 Americans, indictments followed. But 220 million American records in Chinese hands? Silence and stonewalling. That selective blindness tells you everything about priorities in Democrat circles.

In his remarks, Trump never claimed these breaches flipped election results. He exposed live vulnerabilities that enemies have both the desire and ability to use. That matters more than rehashing 2020 fights. Our systems remain exposed today, and pretending otherwise endangers every future vote.

Non-citizen voting gets waved away as tiny. Wrong. A Homeland Security check found roughly 278,000 non-citizens registered in just four cooperating states. Democrat-run states blocked access to their rolls, so the real total runs far higher. Every illegal ballot cancels a legal one. That is illegal disenfranchisement of American citizens.

Evidence of fraud gets buried too.

In Michigan, Democrat-linked canvassers forged registrations for fake people and earned gift cards for volume. The Biden-Harris Justice Department dragged its feet for years.

Mail-in voting? Decades of studies flag it as risky. A bipartisan commission called absentee ballots the biggest source of potential fraud. Massachusetts Institute of Technology data shows fraud hits harder through mail than in person. Polls captured voters admitting to illegalities. The Heritage Foundation catalogs case after case of stolen, forged, or coerced ballots.

This pattern of manipulation did not start yesterday. Democrats have urinated on democracy for more than a century to cling to power. Sometimes with horrific results.

Like all too many others, Dr Cotto’s damp-eyed prescription for taking care of all this sick D卐M☭CRAT hoodoo is to VOAT HARDERER!© at them, rather than the shooting, hanging, throwing off of tall buildings, running over with a Killdozer, and general lynch-all-liberals approach I prefer. His closing question, however, is perfectly apt and on-point.

Hellaciously good story gets better and better

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

And the denouement will knock your socks off.

A Chicago Cubs fan who smacked another spectator who did not stand for The Star-Spangled Banner is speaking out after a video of the incident went viral.

The video drew strong and divided reactions on social media, with public opinion split on the older man’s actions.

Now, he has spoken out on the incident, which happened during the 10-1 win against the Minnesota Twins at Wrigley Field on Sunday, in various interviews.

Robert Chavez claimed that an important element of the story is missing.

In the video, he is seen yelling at the younger man – who was not identified – for his refusal to rise out of his seat.

Chavez told TMZ that he informed the young man of his status as a veteran of the Vietnam War and even rattled him with some stories from the conflict – all to no avail.

But looking back on the incident, Chavez admitted that he shouldn’t have resorted to physical violence.

‘Oh yes, definitely. I wish I could,’ he told Inside Edition when asked if he wanted to take back the slap.

‘Because, you know, even though I fought in Vietnam and I had buddies killed, you know, I mean, we fight for the rights of the people, and that’s one of his rights.’

Chavez then added: ‘Later on, during the game, next thing you know, he’s buying me a beer. We talked, we shook hands.’

A spokesman for the Cubs told TMZ, ‘The National Anthem is an important tradition at Chicago Cubs games. While we respect the rights of individuals to decide for themselves, we encourage every fan to stand, if they are able, and to remove their caps while the anthem is being played.’

The statement continued: ‘At the same time, the safety and security of our fans is our top priority. Our security team spoke with the fan who had been struck.

‘He indicated that the matter had been resolved, he did not want to have anyone ejected from the ballpark or any further action taken, and we respected his wishes.’

Pretty good stuff, no? Mr Chavez is a class act for sure, bless his heart. Like I said, the denouement is a real stunner: the Cubs not only won by a solid trouncing, but also hold 2nd place in the NL Central standings.

Memezapoppin’!

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny-pitcher lovers.

Continue reading “Memezapoppin’!“ →

“That’s just common sense”

Posted on July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Indeed it is. No wonder the shitlibs are so violently, viciously opposed to it.

They taped maps in our hallways telling girls where else to go. We were expected to perform humiliation rituals so the adults wouldn’t have to make a decision. Then they hired lawyers to make our case disappear.

Yesterday, I decided to once again confront my school board. pic.twitter.com/s6v2HlYcvb

— Ella Frei (@EllaFrei17) July 21, 2026

Fake news

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

One day, two Instapundit posts by my old bud Steve Green. First up:

Next we have:

Okay, Stephen, which is it, then? Because they both can’t be true, I shouldn’t think.

Update! Ace excerpts a Rick Moran PJM post which in turn links to a Politico post that would seem to put the argument to bed once and for all in the Repugs’ favor, in just a cpl-three short sentences.

The Republican National Committee has $129 million in cash on hand. The Democrats are still $2 million in debt. That bespeaks an organization that’s floundering, unable to raise money to pay what it owes.

A-yup, makes sense to me. In debt; floundering; irresponsible, hopelessly impractical—sounds completely in-character for the Dims, don’t it?

Siddown and shaddup, little man

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

The esteemed Miranda Devine lets ‘er rip.

Mamdani and his DSA comrades have one goal — a communist revolution in America
Our preening mayor, Zohran Mamdani, says his administration’s legal department is examining how best to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli prime minister visits New York for UN week in September.

“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” Mamdani told The New York Times in an interview published over the weekend.

Well, Marco Rubio has thoughts on that and much more.

The formidable secretary of state last week announced a campaign to “dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary.”

“The ICC’s interfering with American military and law enforcement operations…would mean the death of the US as a sovereign and independent nation,” he said.

“But this is America…Independence is our birthright. We don’t intend to trade it for rule by a self-appointed priesthood of ‘international law.’ ”

Mamdani’s belief that, as a minor municipal functionary, he wields some imaginary international power to subvert American sovereignty just shows the delusions of his ideology.

His authority extends to fixing potholes and collecting garbage, neither of which he does competently.

But his delusions of grandeur are shared by the misfits, ignoramuses, and foreign interlopers who make up his rancid branch of the Democratic Party — the DSA.

The Democratic Socialists of America know nothing, have built nothing and don’t understand the country they live in, yet they imagine they have the moral authority to tear it down.

Yeee-owtch! I felt that righteous smack all the way over here. Read it all, you’ll love it. But does it get even more hilarious, you ask? Why, yes. Yes, it does.

President Trump on Monday delivered a decisive verbal smackdown to New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, shutting down any notion of detaining Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on American soil.

The president squashed Mamdani’s persistent fantasy of using the NYPD to cuff the Israeli leader over a non-binding ICC (International Criminal Court) warrant that the United States doesn’t even recognize.

“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform.

“He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others,” he added. “The only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION.”

A great big ol’ “Heh” and an “Indeed” for the Bad Orange Man, an it please you. Ahh, but does it get even more hilarious still? Why, YES. Yes, it cert’ly does.

Epic Fail: Mamdani Finally Makes Humiliating Admission About His Threat to Arrest Netanyahu
His little theatre kid performance for his anti-Israel base was smacked down with reality from the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump, and even CNN legal analyst Elie Honig. Mamdani was told he had no legal ability to do any such thing and that, in the words of Trump, “no way, no how” was it happening.

Mamdani was finally forced to concede that he didn’t have the power, which had to be embarrassing to him. He’s been acting like he has all this power – only to find out how limited he truly is.

He attacks Netanyahu in this clip posted Tuesday night, accusing him of being a “war criminal,” calling him the “architect of a horrific genocide.” But Mamdani is really fuming that this incident has exposed his empty promise on this and his impotence.

Better get used to the feeling, Mammyjammy. You’re gonna be experiencing a whoooooole lot more of it as your term as NYC “mayor” drags on.

Gawdhelpus!

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

“Other ways of being.” RIIIIIIGHHHHT.

According to Dr Donna Riley, academic rigour and the expectation of competence are “exclusionary” and tools of “privilege,” and are unfair to women and minorities, for whom rigour and competence are presumably impossible.

Dr Riley goes on to denounce engineering’s “cultures of whiteness and masculinity,” and informs us that, “scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonising.”

Says she, “This is about doing away with the concept [of rigour] altogether so we can welcome other ways of knowing. Other ways of being. It is about criticality and reflexivity.”

Yes, the design and construction of fighter jets, oil rigs and 1000-tonne tunnelling machines will one day be informed not by careful calculation, a knowledge of materials and thoroughly tested principles, but by criticality, reflexivity and “other ways of being.”

Dr Riley is the author of the little-read tome Engineering and Social Justice, which she describes as “an attempt to explain the lack of emphasis on social justice in engineering.”

The term “social justice” is, we’re told, “difficult to define” and “resists a concise and permanent definition,” a problem illustrated by the author’s own struggle to arrive at a convincing definition, despite deploying the term on every other page.

But apparently, engineers need to spend less time doing load-bearing calculations and more time pondering “radical protest” and “Marxist traditions.”

Engineering and Social Justice, is it? At the risk of sounding didactic and overly brusque, I’d like to submit that one of these things is most definitely NOT like the other, in a great many meaningful, indeed quite critical, ways.

Simple good sense from an unexpected place

Posted on July 22, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike 4 Comments

Second look at…uhhh, JOURNEY, ferchrissakes?!?

Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain blasts Bruce Springsteen as an “annoying, bitter old man” who should “shut up” when it comes to politics.

“I’m a diehard conservative… And guys like Bruce Springsteen should shut up. You know, really, honestly, shut up, Bruce, you know? Him… pic.twitter.com/3LLbyErl6N

— Variety (@Variety)

July 20, 2026

Also note that Mick Jagger, of all people, feels likewise.

Mick Jagger says fans don’t want political lectures at concerts after Bruce Springsteen’s anti-Trump speeches
Mick Jagger says fans don’t come to concerts to hear a political lecture in the wake of Bruce Springsteen’s on-stage speeches targeting President Trump.

The Rolling Stones frontman weighed in during an interview on The New York Times’ podcast Saturday after host David Marchese questioned him about Springsteen, who has repeatedly criticized President Trump during his latest tour.

Marchese said Springsteen “clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth” with fans before asking Jagger, “What does your relationship to the audience mean to you? What do they represent, all those people out there?”

“The bottom line of my thing really is that my job in the live music world is [for] those people that come is to have the best time they possibly can,” Jagger said.

“For two hours or whatever it is, to forget all their problems and the problems of the world and their mortgages and whatever, just to give them the best time they can have.”

Provides me with a perfect excuse to run what I consider to be the absolute GOAT Stones song.

That one, Last Time, and Paint It Black are just about the only Stones tunes I ever much cared about, to be perfectly honest. Always dug Keef, always dug Charlie, but all in all? Yeah, no. I got dragged against my will (by my dear departed MiL, bless her heart) to see them live at the Meadowlands back in 2006, and it was a truly incredible show, I do admit. But still.

Alliance of convenience

Posted on July 21, 2026July 22, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

Gotta be the most unlikely one of all time, methinks.

Socialism and Islamic Supremacism: Two Strange Bedfellows Aiming to Destroy Our Republic
Both want to change our system of law. Both hate the United States and Western civilization. And both detest Christianity. They also, by forming an alliance, become the strangest of bedfellows. They are socialism and Islamic supremacism in America — and both forces are growing.

Socialism, under the name “Democratic Socialists of America” (DSA), is quickly dropping its mask. Its new platform, released last week, calls for eliminating the Senate and having a wholly empowered Congress choose the president and Supreme Court. The DSA also wants to convene a second constitutional convention to make the preceding possible. The idea is to draft new founding documents guaranteeing a “socialist democracy.”

Political activist and Islamic supremacist Linda Sarsour is a bit less ambitious — at least in her overt pronouncements. She at this moment just wants to replace the Declaration of Independence with a document reflecting “our [read: their] values.” Whether this would be a Declaration of Dependence or a Declaration of Dependence on Allah, she didn’t say.

Then there’s a development Sarsour would surely endorse. Right from the Pressing 1 for English file, commentator J.B. Shurk reported Monday:

On social media platforms last week, videos spread of a Home Depot shopping experience in Dearborn, Michigan. Signs throughout the store were in Arabic.

Shurk further mentions that other Dearborn retailers — such as Walmart, Costco, Kroger, and Albertsons — also post Arabic signs.

As to the Islamic supremism-socialism nexus, the DSA has a “Muslim Caucus” (but no Christian Caucus, do note). Prominent Muslim members include Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-N.Y.C.). Another Muslim representative, Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), is DSA-endorsed.

One may think there’d be friction between devout Muslims and devoted leftists. There has been, too. In 2023, Hamtramck, Michigan — the first American city with an all-Muslim government — banned the “Pride” flag from public property. The old-line Democrats that had been ousted by the Muslim Democrats weren’t happy about it, either. But Hamtramck’s new overlords didn’t care. Oddly, too, the legacy media didn’t feel compelled to combat this anti-“LGBTQ+” “bigotry.” They imitated crickets.

And this may be a portent of things to come.

Oh, I’d say that’s a safe enough bet, yeah.

Update! Kunstler posts a fresh, intriguing take on the latest flavor-of-the-day-of-the-week sub-branch of the D卐M☭CRAT Party.

In the meantime, there is plenty else to concern those of us who care about our country, and Western Civ more generally, on the home front. Here comes the Insane Clown Posse of the Democratic Socialists. Their platform: abolish the police; no more jail for criminals; open borders; amnesty for all border-jumpers; abolish the Senate; Abolish the electoral college (House of Representatives to elect the president); defund the War Department; voting rights for all non-citizens; “wealth” taxes; free housing, food, medical care for all; green new deal laws; free Palestine (which is more important than any place else on Earth)!

Oh, and they are quite out-front about merely using the Democratic Party as a means to acquire power. Yeah, you noticed that already? Nobody actually had to read the quiet part out-loud. (Well, it wasn’t all that quiet.) Question is: how is all this going to work in practice (or in the praxis, as the Gramscian Marxists like to say — because it sounds like some occult power), as they roll over every institution in the land.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are our own jihadistas. They aim to make their program work by jamming it down America’s throat, starting with the throats of the plain old Democratic Party, the party of FDR, JFK, and HRC, currently fronted by Hakeem Jeffries (the House) and Chuck Schumer (the soon-to-be-abolished Senate). These two appear to be totally buffaloed by the DSA’s Insane Clown Posse. It’s their own Frankenstein monster, stitched together in their laboratory from the tatters of the 20th century. And like in the original by Mary Shelley, this monster is fixing to abolish its maker. Hakeem and Chuck are just standing by like a couple of credulous clucks waiting to see how things develop as the calendar marches implacably toward the catastrophic midterm election.

And it carries on from there, in most awesomely brilliant fashion.

Q: “Election Integrity: Is Representative Democracy A Foolish Fantasy?”

Posted on July 21, 2026 by Mike Leave a comment

A: Yes. Yes, it is.

The US Constitution is perhaps the most significant historical and governmental document in a millennia. It established the modern conception of the western Republic, along with true representative government designed to answer to the people rather than rule over the people.

The Bill of Rights outlined clear restrictions on federal and state powers to legislate away the inherent and God given freedoms of the citizenry; an accomplishment which had been attempted in the past but was never truly realized until the war for independence and the creation of the United States. Until that moment, the idea that common men answer to authority and authority answers to no one was the accepted norm.

It’s a document and an ideal that gave birth to an epoch.

However, our constitutional republic was created based on conditions that, frankly, no longer exist. The American population was 95% Christian. The implementation of “patriarchy” was widespread and embraced as the most solid foundation for society. Meritocracy was absolute. Cultural identity was rooted in western civilization without any deviation or distraction.

Marxism did not exist. Atheism was rare. Degeneracy was shunned or punished. Shame was an effective social tool. Psychopathy was easy to identify and remove from within the smaller population. Women were expected to raise families and care for the home. Men were expected to feed and protect those families; perhaps even die for them.

Voting was for land owners and people with an actual stake in the success or failure of government policies. Women did not vote until a hundred years later in 1920 (many commentators have offered compelling arguments that the country quickly went downhill from there).

In 2026, many Americans still treat the notion of representative democracy as sacrosanct and untouchable, even though they don’t really know why. They just think it’s about freedom, but, they are basing their devout reverence on a system that used to work because it heavily restricted who was allowed to participate.

That’s the opening salvo from Brandon Smith’s latest, of which you’ll definitely want to read the all. Haven’t checked in on the B-Man in entirely too long, for which lapse I offer my humblest, most abject apologies.

Mike @Substack

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