Althouse: Sunrise.

July 15, 2026

Sunrise.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

102 comments:

Whiskeybum said...: Anybody have an opinion on Daylight Saving Time?; 7/15/26, 6:36 PM
rhhardin said...: Simone Porter Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Minor picks an outfit for breast display. The eternal performer problem, what to do about breasts.

I ran across her long ago playing Rozsa Sonata for Two Violins very nicely. Not a breast display occasion.; 7/15/26, 6:37 PM
tcrosse said...: Some sorehead is collecting signatures to lodge a complaint against NYT for today's Wordle. Well, it's only a game, and a low stakes one at that. Easy for me to say, because I got it in 5. That said, I'm still pissed about missing KEFIR.; 7/15/26, 6:41 PM
tcrosse said...: Picture 4 rings my bell. Kudos to the guy who arranged the clouds.; 7/15/26, 6:44 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Bob Dole doesn't care about this nonsense about DST. Bob Dole wants to know who ate his peanut butter. https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/1ff5bhn/the_real_world_with_bob_dole_a_hilarious_three/; 7/15/26, 6:45 PM
lonejustice said...: This is why the Republicans will lose big time in the November elections. Not because of the RINOs, but because of Trump. Put a MyPillow over the the mouths of Republicans endorsed by Trump.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/07/put-a-mypillow-over-it.php; 7/15/26, 6:49 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: thanks RH. That was great. I always liked Perlman's version - especially the last 11 minutes. But that was very good.; 7/15/26, 6:54 PM
Eva Marie said...: @tcrosse: I got it also but it ticked me off. Why are they playing games with us!; 7/15/26, 7:05 PM
Big Mike said...: Last few minutes of Argentina versus England was amazing.; 7/15/26, 7:09 PM
lonejustice said...: Voyager 1 Has traveled through space at 38,000 mph since 1977 and still hasn’t reached 1 light-day. Think about that for a minute.; 7/15/26, 7:11 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: "This is why the Republicans will lose big time in the November elections."

I'd wager that Trump's Iran policy and his tariffs will also hurt republicans this fall. Both of which are unforced errors.

It amazes me that anyone still thinks Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate. Overturning a presidential election through fraud would require thousands of conspirators operating flawlessly across countless locations, with zero leaks and zero evidence—despite relentless scrutiny. That level of perfection is impossible. It didn’t happen.; 7/15/26, 7:14 PM
Aggie said...: Went and saw Young Washington today. Last day, matinee, we were the only 2 there. Reasonably entertaining historical drama, nothing riveting. On Rotten Tomatoes, the professional critics give it 59%, the viewers give it 92%. I would rate it in the high 70's, solid fare with some good supporting acting.

It's nice to see the independent cinema making an effort to celebrate America's 250th, and shameful to see Hollywood deciding that it's unworthy of attention. It's clearly a lower budget movie, but the pace is good and the story focuses on Washington's middle class colonial upbringing, and his brash bravery during the French and Indian wars on the Ohio frontier. I didn't recognize Ben Kingsley in his role.; 7/15/26, 7:16 PM
Jim at said...: *This is why the Republicans will lose big time in the November elections.*

The last time lonejustice predicted an election - by citing a Des Moines Register poll - Kamala Harris won every swing state. Plus the popular vote.

And currently resides in the White House.; 7/15/26, 7:16 PM
Narr said...: When it comes to classical music boobage, I'm partial to Buniatishvili.; 7/15/26, 7:18 PM
boatbuilder said...: One of the reasons Minnesota Republicans haven't won a statewide election since 2006 is because they are led by people like the Powerline bloviators, who think that the primary qualification for any position is a Dartmouth degree, that Trump is "icky", and that strong debating techniques should carry the day. Of course lonejustice is a fan.; 7/15/26, 7:18 PM
Leland said...: Are you hearing lots of planes on the morning walks? Or is that too early for their trek east?; 7/15/26, 7:18 PM
Original Mike said...: Whiskeybum said..."Anybody have an opinion on Daylight Saving Time?"

Oh, now you've done it. lonejustice will be along any minute now to chastise you for being unserious.; 7/15/26, 7:19 PM
Jim at said...: *Overturning a presidential election through fraud would require thousands of conspirators operating flawlessly across countless locations,*

You mean like simultaneously shutting down the counts in six swing states, sending the poll watchers home, restarting the counts and then, by some miracle, have Biden suddenly leading in those swing states three hours later?

Like that?

And there was evidence. Video evidence. Funny how people like you never wanted to look at it.

But as I've said before, it serves you fuckers right. If you hadn't stolen the damn thing, Trump would've had a meaningless second term and already be two years into the rearview mirror.

Instead, you gave him four years to plan his return and he's now shoving it up your asses on a daily basis.

Karma is indeed a bitch.; 7/15/26, 7:22 PM
Original Mike said...: "It amazes me that anyone still thinks Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate."

It amazes me that anyone thinks they know what happened.; 7/15/26, 7:24 PM
tcrosse said...: À propos of classical music, I would like Beatrice Rana to get in touch with Yuja Wang's dressmaker.; 7/15/26, 7:25 PM
Mason G said...: It amazes me that anyone who thinks Biden’s 2020 win was legitimate continues to worry about investigations into the election.

If there was no fraud, there's nothing to find, right?; 7/15/26, 7:29 PM
Rabel said...: 633.33 miles give or take a parsec. That's how far it traveled while I was thinking.; 7/15/26, 7:29 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: The national average price of gasoline jumped yesterday to $3.88/gal after gas prices jumped in several states, while diesel averages $4.92/gal. Both are pushing toward the next dollar mark- gasoline likely to hit $4 in the next week or so, diesel $5 perhaps by the end of the wk https://x.com/GasBuddyGuy/status/2077376903606911383?s=20; 7/15/26, 7:30 PM
rhhardin said...: The point of boobage is that the lady has to consider it and choose it. Yes, boobs on top and to the side, just the right effect. If you're not a soloist there's no point though. It's to give the men something to do while listening, multitasking two jobs at once. Will even more breast be exposed? Wait and see.

TV camera operators will step in a spoil the game most often avoiding previously revealing angles.

Yuja Wang is the master.; 7/15/26, 7:31 PM
Jim at said...: And I do find it humorous the Power Line Boys in Minnesota are getting the vapors over Mike Lindell. I mean, he's not perfect ... like, you know, Jesse Ventura.; 7/15/26, 7:32 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: No, that's not an accurate description of what happened. The shifts in vote tallies on election night 2020 in several states reflected normal procedural differences in how and when ballots were reported—not coordinated fraud.

Dozens of lawsuits, hand recounts (e.g., Georgia), risk-limiting audits, bipartisan certifications, and investigations (including by Trump-appointed officials like AG Bill Barr and his DOJ) found no widespread fraud capable of overturning the election. An AP review identified fewer than ~475 potential fraud cases across key states out of millions of votes—nowhere near enough to change outcomes.

Courts (including those with Trump-appointed judges) repeatedly rejected the fraud claims for lack of evidence.

The "thousands of flawless conspirators" problem I noted is real: no credible whistleblowers, documents, or data dumps have ever materialized to support the scale alleged.Video evidence exists of normal (sometimes messy) election administration under pandemic conditions, but it doesn't show the coordinated fraud described. cherry-picked clips circulated widely without full context. Election administration has imperfections in every cycle, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence—which independent reviews, audits, and the lack of successful prosecutions have not provided.; 7/15/26, 7:36 PM
lonejustice said...: Picture 4 is my favorite. Stunning.; 7/15/26, 7:40 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: I have this sneaking suspicion that you-know-who can manufacture whatever 'evidence' is needed to push yet another false narrative. That's clearly what tomorrow night's spectacle is all about: 'We have bombshell proof of fraud in Georgia's voting... but trust us, you can't see it. We've seen it for you.'

He'll probably hit us with the classics: 'evidence like you've never seen before' (because, of course, there's nothing actually there to see), followed by the traditional promise to release it all in 'just two weeks.; 7/15/26, 7:42 PM
Known Unknown said...: "*Overturning a presidential election through fraud would require thousands of conspirators operating flawlessly across countless locations,*"

COVID demonstrated this is not true at all. "Conspiracies" can take very little effort to pull off. We all socially-distanced six feet apart not because there was concerted effort and the entire CDC and FedGov was 'in on it' but because some smart-sounding sciency person made it up and voila - stickers on the floors of every Walmart from here to Sausalito. Stories on every newscast. A simple appeal to authority fallacy explains most of what occurred during covid. We masked up despite the molecular structure of the virus being smaller than the microscopic holes in the masks we were constantly wearing. The filthy, dirty masks. Do you want your family to die? Two weeks to slow the spread!

The same thing can occur with elections. It takes 2 people to make a conspiracy. That's about it. Two people with reasonable authority. The rest of the sheep will go along to get along as to not cause any consternation. They will execute orders that on the surface seem absurd and unreasonable simply because they were told to. Do you want election fraud? All you really need is an architect, a couple of lackeys and a host of Good Germans, all doing what they're told because they lack the fortitude and imagination to do otherwise.; 7/15/26, 7:44 PM
Original Mike said...: Until we limit mail-in ballots, insist on strict chain of custody, and enforce ID for registration and voting, nobody claiming an election was honest has a leg to stand on. They simply can't know.; 7/15/26, 7:52 PM
Jaq said...: I just read The Fall of the House of Usher again, and it’s kind of interesting, never mind that the recent movie, Little Brother, uses premise, Roderick Usher is portrayed as crazy, but he spends his days painting “abstract” art, improvising endlessly on his guitar, jazz if you will, and performs contemporaneously composed rhyming poetry, rap, one might say, so Poe anticipates three major art forms of the twentieth century. Through a mentally deranged character…

Some people think that Poe was a science fiction writer, and it’s hard not to agree.; 7/15/26, 7:53 PM
narciso said...: Mcammon did an update as i recall; 7/15/26, 8:10 PM
narciso said...: Yeah when they tried to put election dissenters in prison the giv was up when the helderman was ignored in entirety; 7/15/26, 8:12 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Southern boys have many virtues, but love of high culture isnt one of them. Just give 'em some johnny cash and theyre happy. Can you imagine Bill Clinton, LBJ, or even faulkner listening to beethoven or reading Homer? LOL.

Nothing wrong wrong with that. Its just the way they are. At least they aren't communists or fans of the worst kind of cultural slop.; 7/15/26, 8:13 PM
Eva Marie said...: As far as elections are concerned:
There needs to be an attitude shift. Instead of asking our opponents to trust the results, we should ask: what can we do so our opponents are satisfied the voters are legitimate and the votes are demonstrably verifiable?
I’d also be in favor of starting a tradition where the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts audit each election within a year, and any issues they flag get fixed before the next one.; 7/15/26, 8:25 PM
narciso said...: https://share.google/Hvkyn8geZW2NFmZKG; 7/15/26, 8:28 PM
Peachy+2 said...: 80% of democrats thought Russia "switched" votes for Trump in 2016.

Obama's people came out and said it was not true. Not even one vote was hacked by The Russians. and indeed - there was never any proof - Jus Maddow and Adam Schitt (D) - lying night after night.

Hillary herself said "Trump was illegitimate"; 7/15/26, 8:29 PM
narciso said...: For three years; 7/15/26, 8:32 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: I like a pretty face with my Beethoven, but the most important thing is the music. boobs are optional.; 7/15/26, 8:32 PM
Eva Marie said...: I wish boobs were optional in the comment section.; 7/15/26, 8:40 PM
Iman said...: Baloney Justus needs one of those special Iowahawk pillows.; 7/15/26, 8:41 PM
Iman said...: Do ya like boobsalot?; 7/15/26, 8:42 PM
narciso said...: Do you like gladiator films; 7/15/26, 8:48 PM
Jamie said...: "It amazes me that anyone still thinks Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate."

Oh, I don't know; when 95% of all media sources run 95% negative stories about one candidate and 95% positive stories about the other, when all the components of the Mag 7 engage in "self-"censorship (actually consumer censorship) against one candidate, when blatant lies about one candidate are repeated and amplified everywhere (to this day) as Truth with a capital T, and of course when any effort meaningfully to audit (not just recount) local and state elections is met with angry (or are they defensive? Because you aren't all that sure, are ya?) cries of "Election denier!" rather than a confident "Sure, let's do this - you don't believe what we're sure is true, so let's get to the bottom of it together, hmm?" - it's kind of hard for me to believe that you're all that amazed.; 7/15/26, 9:00 PM
Jamie said...: It's not one of Heinlein's better known essays, but... "Pravda Means Truth."; 7/15/26, 9:04 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Boobs are always optional. Unless you're a baby.; 7/15/26, 9:12 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: COVID proved that a few memos, some Fauci quotes, and 'trust the science' stickers can herd millions without a grand cabal. Appeal to authority is the most efficient virus of all.

But elections aren't quite the same pasture. Health theater was monolithic top-down: one narrative, coordinated messaging, zero opposing party auditors in the room. Elections are deliberately adversarial—rival campaigns, lawyers, poll watchers, chain-of-custody logs, canvassing, audits, and courts all breathing down each other's necks. You don't need 'thousands of flawless conspirators,' sure. But you do need to execute coordinated fraud at scale in contested zip codes while the other side is actively looking for it, then survive the paper trails, statistical anomalies, and lawsuits. That's less 'two smart guys and some Good Germans' and more 'trying to rig the Super Bowl while the refs, coaches, and betting syndicates are all live-streaming the locker room.'Possible in theory. Damn hard in practice without leaving fingerprints the size of a dirty mask.; 7/15/26, 9:13 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: There's another part of female anatomy that isnt "optional" unless you want a 0.0 birth rate; 7/15/26, 9:14 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: I keep going back and listening to Charles Bukowski and thinking about him. He's an -eek- sexist. But he has that male obsession with art and achievement. He says what he likes and what he doesn't like straight out.

That's the problem with female artists and writers. They're too normal and smart. Part of them always realizes how stupid it is to forsake family and even life for their art. As Bukowski says you have to be crazy to be a great writer unless you're a man with guarenteed income = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZL8qs-82GU; 7/15/26, 9:25 PM
Original Mike said...: "chain-of-custody logs"

I wouldn't go there, if I were you..

Fulton County admits to verifying 315,000 votes in 2020 without poll worker signatures

Unattended ballot boxes. Ballots mailed to every resident in the state. Chain of custody is a sham. And are democrats amenable to strengthening it? No they are not. And that speaks volumes.; 7/15/26, 9:31 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: OG Mike writes: "I wouldn't go there, if I were you.."

GA state investigations and audits (including risk-limiting audits and hand recounts) confirmed the overall vote totals were accurate and unaffected. No evidence of widespread fraud or altered outcomes emerged from this.

One other point --Georgia did not mail ballots to every resident. Absentee ballots required a voter request (expanded due to COVID).

Strengthening chain-of-custody, signature verification, and audits enjoys broad bipartisan support in principle. Many states (red and blue) tightened mail-in rules post-2020. Procedural errors happened, but available evidence shows they did not change certified results; 7/15/26, 9:40 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Lyle the effiminate homosexual https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59HpKD3u6ks; 7/15/26, 9:51 PM
DINKY DAU 45 said...: Well this is something new, from what I understand at the moment is CBS News, CNN, NBC, AP, BBC, and Newsweek have all run continuous fact‑checks debunking fraud claims from 2020 and 2024. They’ve made it clear they will not broadcast unverified allegations as fact.
These outlets have policies requiring real‑time correction when politicians make false statements about elections.
Networks have become more aggressive since 2020 — they cut away from live speeches when misinformation is being pushed, and they add on‑screen banners noting “no evidence supports this claim.” This should be interesting, of course I wouldn't be watching it anyway,there never has been any court approved,documented evidence from over 60 courts with some of trumps own hirings. After FOX entertainment center has to pay millions for false info there is a little more caution.I often wondered why the media would listen to the constant lies from the people they question and never respond with "that's not true and there is no evidence" guess they would be working at MCDONALDS if they did ain't that sad.Just let em keep lying and you;ll get paid. Usually to hold and interrupt program something has to be of national concern and a regurgitated unproven court adjudicated documentation of winner of 2020 election is not something that fits that parameter even if that's what YOUR mind believes. You could also believe moon is made of green cheese,but you gotta prove it. No alternative facts please. This should be a dilly.lets see who got the balls to shutdown conspiracies without provable evidence in a court of law.; 7/15/26, 9:55 PM
Original Mike said...: "GA state investigations and audits (including risk-limiting audits and hand recounts) confirmed the overall vote totals were accurate and unaffected."

None of that is worth shit if you cannot account for how or when "votes" were cast. That's *the whole point* of chain of custody.

"One other point --Georgia did not mail ballots to every resident."

I'm talking about Oregon, I'm talking about Colorado, I'm talking about California. This is much bigger than Georgia.

"Strengthening chain-of-custody, signature verification, and audits enjoys broad bipartisan support in principle."

Yeah, that "in principle" is the fig leaf you hide behind.

"Procedural errors happened, but available evidence shows they did not change certified results"

Fuck the past. Fix the future. But you won't. Take it from Elissa Slotkin.; 7/15/26, 10:00 PM
bagoh20 said...: I'm going to warn you people that if you don't stop it, our host is going to get so bored with you, she may take this blog right into the lake with her and leave nothing for us but a single blank page where that photo would have been if the iPhone survived. Then Mead will hunt down each and every one of you, and sew your callused fingertips together with catgut and a rusty needle.; 7/15/26, 10:05 PM
Candide said...: Jaq said,
“… so Poe anticipates three major art forms of the twentieth century. Through a mentally deranged character…”

Or maybe modern artists imitate 19th century madhouse?; 7/15/26, 10:23 PM
Narr said...: Four reflections. The last is perfection.; 7/15/26, 10:24 PM
Aggie said...: Last week, the story was about the implosion of Graham Platner's candidacy, which had been touted with great excitement. What caused it? His past behavior was a known series of serious sexual infractions and questionable behavioir. The NYT got out in front of the story, conducted interviews, and followed leads. And then they chose to write up the most innocuous of leads, and bury the rest of it - pretending that the accusations were central, when they were incidental and sympathetic. They kept the real story penned up - until the most damaging witness insisted on coming forward, and refused to be ignored, and until the NYT's journalistic malfeasance was exposed. And a day or two later, Platner was done.

Now we are dredging up the 2020 election again. And virtually everyone is pointing at the story in the pen, and staking their claims, one way or the other. Many salient facts about this election have been out since election night 2020. The impossible statistics, the deliberate disregard of election security procedures, the irregularities, one after another, in precinct after precinct. Things that have been sworn to and / or proven. And yet the story remains in the pen, with these things mostly ignored.

The power of the modern American media to stifle the facts has been demonstrated over and over. How long did the Charlottesville fraud perpetuate? Russiagate? These frauds went on for years. And still, the arguments get made, even to today, that everything has been debunked.

Why is the story still in the pen, then? Why does virtually every other modern democratic government on the planet engage with voting safeguards, and yet we have those here that eschew them, with a mighty energy, and they all happen to be in blue states with outlier voting statistics that point to fraud? How come? Why isn't the spotlight on the states and cities that 'do not' want voter safeguards?; 7/15/26, 10:27 PM
Jim at said...: *Why isn't the spotlight on the states and cities that 'do not' want voter safeguards?*

To ask the question is to answer it.; 7/15/26, 10:38 PM
Gospace said...: In the "You know what amazes me!" category, it's that there are people who believe E Jean Carroll. Or pretend to believe her, in any event. I believe it's more the latter, but that's an unprovable assumption,

And many of those are now parroting the same message- "The trial proved Trump Raped her! Trump's a rapist!" Well, the trial did no such thing, it wasn't a criminal trial. All her testimony would never be admitted in a criminal trial. And shouldn't have been in a civil trail. The show trial was Stalinesque. A Star Chamber or Kangaroo Court proceeding fully exposing how political trials can be held and the outcome predetermined when the judge and jury are on the same side as the accuser. In this case, could have just as easily been a prosecutor.

Oh, wait, Trump had one of those also. The bazillion felonies he's guilty of. Still stuck in the NY appeals courts which are probably waiting for Trump to die so they can moot the appeals.; 7/15/26, 10:45 PM
Peachy+2 said...: not the rusty needle!; 7/15/26, 10:53 PM
Lazarus said...: Pissy Canadians gave Americans massive grief over acid rain in the 80s. Canadians are like that. Today, Canadian wildfires pollute our air and darken our skies with strange colors and Americans take it in stride.; 7/15/26, 10:54 PM
Eva Marie said...: JD Vance in Joe Rogan. Very good interview.; 7/15/26, 11:17 PM
Eva Marie said...: on the Rogan show; 7/15/26, 11:17 PM
Prof. M. Drout said...: The obvious solution to the Daylight Savings Time problem is just to fix the Earth's axial tilt. Duh!
You put rocket motors with some kind of ball-bearing system at the North and South Poles and slowly push the Earth vertical. You could even put the motors on top of the big red and white striped poles to gain a little more leverage.
It's a crime that we haven't already done this. We've obviously had the technology since the 1950s!; 7/15/26, 11:31 PM
chickelit said...: MUL wrote: "COVID proved that a few memos, some Fauci quotes, and 'trust the science' stickers can herd millions without a grand cabal. Appeal to authority is the most efficient virus of all."

AI says:
"Miracle, mystery, and authority" is a famous ideological triad coined by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. Specifically, they appear in the chapter titled "The Grand Inquisitor", where they are described as the three powers used by leaders to conquer and control the human conscience"; 7/16/26, 12:23 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: “I wish boobs were optional in the comment section.”

Well, since you bring it up, I happened to be watching “Uncovered” last night, one of Kate Beckinsale’s earliest movies. She plays an art restorer who uncovers clues to an ancient murder in a painting. I’m sure the title was not intended to refer to her incidentally fully uncovering in one scene what was always covered in leather in her vampire stuff, the only way I’d seen her before. Anyway, they’re everything you’d hope for.

As for permanent DST, never going to happen. Too many early birds around. As usual, early birds are the reason we can’t have nice things.; 7/16/26, 12:25 AM
Lazarus said...: Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin put Biden over the top. Biden's margin was about 10,000 in Arizona and Georgia and about 20,000 in Wisconsin. Cheating wouldn't have been that hard to organize, execute, and conceal.; 7/16/26, 12:59 AM
wendybar said...: Western Lensman
@WesternLensman

Michelle Obama gripes that media fixated on her outfits rather than her "powerful" oratory.

"It wouldn't matter what I said. The article would start with what I had on. And I realized, oh, this is how they do women in politics."

The perpetual grievance tour continues.

Hudson Flodin
@JCMJLGR

Replying to @WesternLensman
This might be a long shot, but are there any clips or quotes of her saying literally *anything* positive about her time in the White House? Or hell, even just anything positive in general?
2:04 PM · Jul 15, 2026

https://x.com/JCMJLGR/status/2077454183230300485?s=20; 7/16/26, 2:14 AM
Breezy said...: A link via Instapundit re Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.

https://quotulatiousness.ca/blog/2026/07/15/the-prince-the-only-people-who-havent-read-it-are-the-ones-who-keep-losing/; 7/16/26, 3:06 AM
Breezy said...: Regarding 2020…. You won’t find truth about it, nor any circumspection about the possibility of election fraud in the mainstream media. They are complicit in the no-fraud narrative, if not the fraud itself. You have to follow.truth seeking people or orgs who have a data driven forensic mindset. Orgs like GANerds in GA, for instance, has uncovered timely systematic registration and removal of Illegal voters. The voter rollls are putty in the hands of fraudsters there.

I sympathize with those that don’t want to look under the hood of our election systems, who can’t imagine it could be that bad, but to not do so is unpatriotic and will be a shameful result in the history books, given all the swirling questions. We should all cheer the look-see, deal with any gaps, and move on. It’s our republic, and we want to keep it.; 7/16/26, 3:28 AM
gadfly said...: Strangely, it is OK for Melania to refuse to live in the White House with Donald but those who hate black folks just refuse to read or believe the many family stories about Barack, Michelle and the girls. Believe as you will about the Obamas, but the hate between Don and Melania is obvious.; 7/16/26, 3:38 AM
rehajm said...: …there used to be videos of the process the accountants for the oscars use. Basically only two people know the winners and technically you only need one. Everyone else is given a chunk of a task so they know nothing of the result. The rest is easy- you meed only the mechanisms to cheat- all of which are the laundry list of fraud enabling demands in the first order of business of the Pelosi congress. TV news already made public how easy it is to compromise the voting machines.

…of course the deniers claim there’s no evidence but to do so they need to confuse the definition of evidence with proof…; 7/16/26, 3:49 AM
rehajm said...: The Vance comment about the third place LA mayor candidate leaping to second on her enormous popularity in the late vote count is revealing and damning. It passes the beyond reasonable doubt standard…; 7/16/26, 3:53 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Aggie, regarding YOUNG WASHINGTON, the missus and I went one week ago to a lightly attended mid-day showing and we both enjoyed the whole experience. Like you we learned historical facts too. Seeing the colonial era in 1755 was illuminating, and puts the militiamen “standing” in contrast to the royal army. You can feel the colonists chafing at the imposition of the British class system and yet everyone’s motives are easy to understand on both sides. The final scenes are fantastic, and do indeed show the “hand of Providence” safeguarding Washington.

In sum, it is a great first entry into the incredible miraculous story of our first president. We’re looking forward to the next chapter.

Cherry on top: it grossed more than Supergirl over the first two weekends. So imagine how sparsely attended those shows were!; 7/16/26, 5:56 AM
Leland said...: Botfly, Melania doesn’t refuse to live in the White House. There is even a movie of her living in the White House. However, unlike the Obama’s and Clinton’s that only had government subsidized housing, the Trump’s have their own place. It is not surprising that sometimes she prefers her own place. Laura Bush did too.; 7/16/26, 5:58 AM
Leland said...: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”

Yet Democrats still claim Covid managed to pass from animals to humans from a market in Wuhan and not from the lab next to the market studying Covid with money illegally sent to it by Dr. Fauci. Where’s the evidence that the animals sold at the market had Covid?; 7/16/26, 6:05 AM
Conrad said...: No carefully orchestrated, centrally organized conspiracy required. Just hordes of activists working independently to retrieve ballots sent out en masse to names listed on bloated voter rolls, without any oversight from election officials as to who is actually signing those ballots. C'mon, Biden got millions of extra votes over what Obama and HRC received and what bellwether counties indicated should have been the outcome. Dems' utterly rejecting all efforts to investigate says a lot.; 7/16/26, 6:07 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Yesterday we learned core inflation is down to 2.9%, even lower than the “experts” predicted, and initial jobless claims are lower this year than any time since 1969 when the labor force was HALF the size of our current working population. Nice warm tasty facts.

Soooo much better than cold hard facts, like commies always fuck up everything.; 7/16/26, 6:09 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Inflation was 9.1% under the memoir-writing autopen. We’ve come a long way baby.; 7/16/26, 6:11 AM
Conrad said...: Other first ladies and even presidents spent lots of time away from the WH. Who cares? What is this supposed to signify?; 7/16/26, 6:15 AM
Breezy said...: In a recent interview, when asked what their focus will be on in their next chapter, Barack said, “Fun”. Michelle said, “Me.”
No hard feelings there….;); 7/16/26, 6:43 AM
Jersey Fled said...: “ Wholesale prices unexpectedly declined 0.3% in June on big drop in gasoline.

The decline was driven mainly by energy costs falling 6.4%, with gasoline prices dropping 12% and accounting for most of the overall decrease.“; 7/16/26, 7:07 AM
Marcus Bressler said...: President Truman spent 175 days total at The Little White House in Key West during his terms. A Democrat! OMG!; 7/16/26, 7:37 AM
Peachy+2 said...: eva - zooowie. bang.; 7/16/26, 7:49 AM
Peachy+2 said...: Leftist cultists HATE real local representation. To a leftist - only the mobster soviet democratic is qualified.

Read Spencer Pratt's X feed for reality.

The democrat party is corrupt from top to bottom.; 7/16/26, 8:09 AM
Big Mike said...: @Mike (MJB Wolf), point of information. 9.1% was the highest annual inflation during the Biden years. The overall net inflation under Biden was in excess of 20%. As a retiree whose retirement income is based on Social Security plus a fixed pension, I saw a real decline in buying power during his administration.; 7/16/26, 8:30 AM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: OG Mike writes: "None of that is worth shit if you cannot account for how or when "votes" were cast. That's *the whole point* of chain of custody."

Actually, audits, recounts, and investigations do address chain of custody and ballot intake. Georgia conducted a full hand recount of every ballot, multiple risk-limiting audits, signature verification on absentees, and forensic reviews. All confirmed the certified results with no outcome-changing discrepancies.

Oregon, Colorado, and California use all-mail or vote-by-mail systems with established safeguards: voter-verified signatures on return envelopes, ballot tracking (many allow voters to track their own), secure drop boxes with chain-of-custody logs, bipartisan observers, and post-election audits. These states have run successful all-mail elections for years without widespread fraud findings. Ballots aren't "magically appearing"—they require matching signatures, and invalid ones are rejected.

Claims of broken chain of custody were extensively litigated and investigated after 2020. Over 60 lawsuits, hand audits, risk-limiting audits, and reviews by Republican election officials (including Georgia's) found procedural issues in some places, but available evidence showed they did not alter certified statewide results. Net shifts from audits were tiny—far below margins in any state.

Strengthening election security (better signature tech, chain-of-custody logs, audits) does enjoy broad support and has been improved in many states since 2020. "In principle" isn't a fig leaf—it's acknowledging that security and access can both improve without assuming massive undetected fraud that flipped multiple states despite all scrutiny.

Procedural errors occur in every large election. The data from audits, recounts, and court cases shows they were not decisive here. Extraordinary claims of a stolen election require extraordinary evidence—which independent reviews, bipartisan officials, and the audits consistently failed to find.; 7/16/26, 8:44 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: “those who hate black folks”

Notice gadfly’s dishonest framing. It’s A-OK to hate Trump and every little detail about his life but if you do the same to Obama you must “hate black folks “. It’s not only a dumb argument, it’s dishonest.; 7/16/26, 9:53 AM
bagoh20 said...: Nothing done proves that the ballots counted were cast by legal registered voters. Signature verification is a joke. Many places turn it down so low that anything gets by, because you have to, or lots of valid votes get rejected.
You were told many lies over the years by independent experts and investigations. That's how you sell big lies. It's very easy to skip over the important details or simply accept false premises with your "investigation". There needs to be vigorous cross-examination by people on both sides - advocates.; 7/16/26, 10:27 AM
rehajm said...: california requires signatures and machines verify signatures but voters are not required to provide a signature on their ballot. they may provide any mark, x, smiley face, scribble to long as a witness affirms and signs the ballot as a witness. Witness signatures are not verified, by law.

…if you don’t see the problem…; 7/16/26, 10:57 AM
RobinGoodfellow said...: “Whiskeybum said...
Anybody have an opinion on Daylight Saving Time?”

Mainly I just don’t like the time change. Although I’d be happy just to stay on either standard time or daylight saving time, I’d prefer daylight saving time.; 7/16/26, 11:18 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: ¨Actually, audits, recounts, and investigations do address chain of custody and ballot intake. Georgia conducted a full hand recount of every ballot, multiple risk-limiting audits, signature verification on absentees, and forensic reviews. All confirmed the certified results with no outcome-changing discrepancies.¨

Don’t know where you got your information. But several months ago, the FBI backed semis up to the Fulton County elections office, and seized everything that they had for the 2020 elections, and what they found was not pretty. Missing signatures. Missing and late postmarks. Hundreds of thousands of votes that won’t pass basic security checks. And hundreds of thousands more on tapes that weren’t signed. Why not? Because the Republicans had been shut out of the counting room. So much for an adversarial relationship in order to guarantee election integrity. As they had been in several others of the 5-6 swing states that swung dramatically in Biden’s direction, after the Republicans were thrown out of the counting room.

Let me add that recounts are effectively worthless to detect the sort of fraud that the Dems engaged in, in these 5 states, in 2020. You are recounting the same stack of ballots. And getting pretty much the same answer. The key here is that these ballots had, by that point, been separated from their providence. No one knows at that point whether any given ballot had been signed, the signatures verified, properly dated, was by a dead person, someone who had moved, or even a fictitious person. They were just ballots. Countable ballots, no different from the legitimate ballots in the same stacks.

So, the trick that the Dems used in those states in 2020 (and in AZ in 2022) was to corrupt the system upstream of when the ballots are separated from their providence. Don’t check to see if the ballot was requested. Don’t check signatures or postmarks. Etc. and of course, that was the point where Republican poll judges were evicted from the counting rooms on election night, late, in 2020. This is the place where election judges can challenge ballots for being problematic. Except there weren’t any Republican poll judges in the room when those hundreds of thousands of ballots (at least that many each in AZ, GA, and MI) were accepted as legitimate. After that, those accepted as legitimate can be counted and recounted, until the cows come home, and you are going to get essentially the same results.; 7/16/26, 12:02 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Good point, Big Mike.; 7/16/26, 12:05 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: “Those who hate—“

Whoa bro. The GOP and MAGA are all about love. We love freedom mostly. If you are investigating, seeking, curious about h@te then your efforts will be richly rewarded the leftermost you look. Not our side. We work and play and worship no time left for hating.

TBS I’m riffing off the Bushman quote and assuming a lot but I’m probably right.; 7/16/26, 12:12 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Meet Harmeet Dhillon, AAG for Civil Rights. Brilliant (HS grad at 16, head of Dartmouth Review) Sikh Republican activist. Lost RNC chair election to the incumbent Romney (RINO) family member. Ran much of Trump’s voter integrity program in 2024, which meant that she was key to getting him elected. Esp in AZ, which he managed to carry with the margins that they had realistically expected in 2020 (and at the state level in 2022).

AAG Dhillon is maybe more famous for being at the forefront of shutting down the DEI movement. But one of the things that she did last year was to organize a new branch for election integrity. Which was behind the FBI seizing all of the election records for 2020 from Fulton CO, GA, which showed hundreds of thousands of ballots counted that shouldn’t have been, as well as the unsigned tally tapes (presumably because the Republicans had been removed from the ballot verification process late election night). They also received a significant tranche of 2020 election material from Detroit last week, that is already bearing fruit. Along with Maricopa CO AZ (which opened all of Its 2020 election material to Republicans a year or two ago), that’s 3 of the 5 big swing states where Biden won the election through late night shenanigans late election night in 2020. The other two are fighting her tooth and nail, but very, very, likely will have to at least turn over their voter registration data. That legal request has also gone out to a number of (mostly Dem states, like CO).

Don’t be surprised if some of this is mentioned by Trump tonight in his address.

The other thing in the background is that there is a clause in Article I of the Constitution that guarantees states a republican form of government. That is presumably violated absent one vote per legal voter, and no more, in an election. I expect that Trump will push this - though his power comes from Article II, and this clause is in Article I. And it’s been suggested that AAG Harmon bring in federal election judges to police this.

It should be interesting.; 7/16/26, 12:39 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Oh, and AAG Harmeet Dhillon was criticized last year, when better than 1/3 of her attorneys, in her Civil Rights Division (CRD) quit over her change of direction with her division. Of course, they were the ones forcing DEI and Equity settlements. Her response was “Good”. She’ll have them replaced in no time. And did. Last week there was a photo showing several hundred new CRD attorneys.; 7/16/26, 12:48 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Oh, and AAG Harmeet Dhillon was criticized last year, when better than 1/3 of her attorneys, in her Civil Rights Division (CRD) quit over her change of direction with her division. Of course, they were the ones forcing DEI and Equity settlements. Her response was “Good”. She’ll have them replaced in no time. And did. Last week there was a photo showing several hundred new CRD attorneys.; 7/16/26, 12:48 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Sorry about the double posting. Blogger problems. In particular we can no longer delete our own (duplicate in this case) comments.; 7/16/26, 12:50 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: While we are at it, with the exit of Pam Bondi as AF, her deputy Todd Blanche is the Acting AG, As well as Trump’s nominee to replace Bondi as AG. The interesting aspect here is that if Blanche is confirmed as AG, the rumor is that AAG Dhillon would be his replacement. Al least as Acting DAG. And I think that petrifies the smarter Dems, like Chuckie Scheamer. A brilliant partisan female POC. Esp on track to be AG. I fully expect her to be the AG choice in a new Vance Presidency, esp with another brilliant Indian attorney as First Lady.; 7/16/26, 1:12 PM
Indefinitely Extended Excursion™️ said...: @ B Hayden: Respectfully, the FBI's recent 2026 seizure of Fulton County materials (under the current administration) is based on long-standing allegations that multiple prior investigations—including Georgia's Republican-led Secretary of State processes—have examined and not found outcome-determinative. Let's separate documented procedures from the upstream fraud narrative.

Georgia's 2020 presidential results underwent:
• A full statewide hand recount of all ballots (risk-limiting audit that became a 100% manual tally due to the close margin). It confirmed Biden's win by ~12,284 votes, with discrepancies well within normal human error rates for hand-counting (~0.1% statewide variation).

• Machine recount and signature verification audits on absentee ballots (e.g., Cobb County sample found no fraudulent ballots at 99% confidence).

• Forensic reviews, state investigations, and dozens of court cases.

These weren't just "recounting the same stack." The hand audit physically examined every ballot for validity as cast and accepted. Ballots had already passed intake checks (voter registration, signature match on envelopes for absentees, eligibility). Once separated for privacy (standard practice), the physical count verifies the reported totals match what was actually marked. Claims of massive fake ballots inserted upstream would require coordinated fraud across thousands of poll workers, observers, and officials—without leaving detectable traces in audits or voter rolls. Courts and investigators (including Trump's AG at the time) found no such evidence at scale.

On observers in Fulton: There were documented tensions and access issues at State Farm Arena on election night (workers sent home around 10:30pm, some counting continued), but Republican and state observers were present, video exists, and investigations (including by the GOP Secretary of State's office) attributed it to procedural sloppiness—not hidden suitcases of fraud. Similar claims in other states didn't hold up under scrutiny.

Fulton has admitted procedural lapses (e.g., unsigned tabulator tapes for some early voting batches—clerical issues that Raffensperger's office called non-impactful to certified results—and missing images, which weren't strictly required at the time). These are worth fixing for future elections via better training, chain-of-custody rules, and transparency. But they don't equate to hundreds of thousands of invalid votes flipping the state. The physical ballots were recounted by hand.

Election integrity improves with paper trails, audits, ID requirements, and bipartisan observation—Georgia strengthened some of these post-2020. But the 2020 outcome withstood every available check. New federal review of the physical materials may surface more on record-keeping, but extraordinary claims of coordinated upstream fraud in 5+ states still need extraordinary evidence beyond what audits disproved.; 7/16/26, 6:18 PM
Tina Trent said...: Gadfly, I doubt you have much to offer in terms of relationships, but sometimes seemingly transactional relationships make for a happy home. Melania has her child and surviving parent with her, safe from communism and poverty; she performs her role to perfection, and the two of them appear very happy with each other.

In contrast, we recently found out that Obama was still secretly communicating with a serious white girlfriend whom he had proposed to twice then dumped, telling her that he would need a black wife to succeed in politics. It took the psychopathic commie cop-killer Bernardine Dohrn and terrorist-supporting Mona Khalidi to browbeat her into submission. She behaved very badly in the White House, running up one of the biggest bills in memory to travel the world with her also-taxpayer funded entourage. She has no class nor humility. She took a no-show DEI job; she took money from a gangster, and she repeatedly called Barack's white grandmother, who paid the downpayment for her mansion, a racist. The snobby Obama is clearly embarassed by her, though, as they age, their race-transactional marriage seems happier.

Every marriage is different.; 7/17/26, 6:19 AM