Kiké Hernández is a menace when the calendar flips to October 😂

We remember. On a DC building …

A few weeks ago I sent the final draft of the fourth volume of The Political and Strategic History of the World to my publisher, and I must confess, when I finally pressed “send,” it was a relief. It is a history of the world, but since people make history, it is a history of people: great people, terrible people, mediocre people, evil people. I set out to write a magnum opus, and after eight years of almost daily toil I am gratified with the end product. With this last volume I will have almost run my course as a historian—but not quite. I will continue to offer my commentary on current events so long as there is an audience interested in reading it, but my real passion since I was a boy continues to be history. And between us, it sometimes gets awfully tiring writing about Donald Trump or Mark Carney or the latest entrant through what has become the revolving door at 10 Downing Street. Which brings me to my point. I have launched a Substack. It will include some missives on contemporary politics when, as happens from time to time, I feel the need to get something off my chest, or wish to let my hair down to a greater degree than my editors would allow. But mainly it will be about the fascinating people and events that have shaped the world. I am starting out with a series on what I regard as the most important speeches ever delivered. If you, too, love history, please consider joining me. I will provide a link in the comments below.

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I'm now a professor at @umdeclaration at @OleMiss.

This is what we’re dealing with @CivilRights — insane faculty undermining the very survival of their institutions, and casually rejecting decency and balance in the process. We see you 🧐 and we are committed to our ongoing litigation against the UC system.

"There are thousands of stories to be told about those who died that day and those they left behind. This is only one of them." Never forget. nationalreview.com/2004/09/n…

I will put two questions to you all. When is war necessary? In my view, two cases would both qualify: when a geopolitical adversary invades Europe, and when a regime whose motto is “Death to America” actively pursues nuclear weapons. What are the measures of a successful war? This answer has two parts. Did the conflict achieve its objectives, and at what cost in lives and treasure? If a conflict achieved its intended objectives at minimal cost, it is a success. The anti-Trump media is so allergic to giving him credit for anything that the most successful military conflict in the history of modern warfare (Iran) is reduced to “gas prices are too high.” On one extreme, Ukraine hawks support waging a proxy war against a nuclear superpower led by Putin -- a Machiavellian psychopath -- with the sole objective of publicly humiliating him in the most escalatory manner possible. On the other extreme, Iran isolationists take an extremely laid-back, laissez-faire view of a regime led by an extremist Shia sect whose stated foreign-policy objectives are the destruction of Israel and the United States, and which is striving for nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems in furtherance of those objectives. Trump’s strategy has been to achieve the stated goals of repudiating Putin without escalation and permanently hobbling Iran’s nuclear program. He has achieved both at minimal cost in American lives and public money. That is a success. There is room for disagreement and nuance, and an opportunity for a civilized conversation. But feeding the pattern now spilling from social media and comment sections into the public square -- where people insult each other, feign incredulity at one another’s positions, and delude themselves into believing they are righteous crusaders for truth while those who disagree are the enemy -- is dangerous, undignified, and boring.

Absolutely spectacular play by Colton Cowser here. You won’t see a better play this year.

The Democratic Party is becoming the party of socialism. 58% view socialism positively. 50% view capitalism negatively. I’m a proud free market capitalist. This is lunacy.

Karoline, you have been nothing short of extraordinary. You have taken on one of the toughest jobs in Washington with confidence, discipline, grace and an unmatched ability to deliver the President’s message. Simply put, you are the greatest @PressSec . But what has been equally special is that you’ve let us see the woman behind the podium. It has been a privilege to watch you excel as a professional while also being an incredible wife and devoted mom. You’ve made all of us, who have had the privilege of working alongside you, so proud. I am blessed to call you dear friend and I’m excited to see what your next chapter looks like. Congratulations, @karolineleavitt !

Ben is wrong. I was on the air the day Richard Dreyfuss and Jeramie Rain welcomed their son, Ben. Legend has it they were set to name him Peter until it turned out he was born with a rare disorder called Peter's anomaly that left him with just one eye. I mention being on the radio because that is how I heard about it—we were the internet before the internet. All tidbits of pop culture flowed through the radio. My biological clock was ticking loudly, and I spent many hours imagining the joy that surely awaited me someday. The public display of the Dreyfuss's mix of joy and whatever else attended them shattered my rose-colored glasses about having a baby. Fast forward, decades later when Ben's rants began showing up in my For You feed on X. What a nutcase, I thought. Oh wait—he has one eye. And he was a druggie. And he ideated suicide. Having grown up the baby sister of a heroin addict (talk about shattering, but I digress), I felt a mix of empathy and curiosity. At some point I subscribed to Ben's Substack. He was the first, and until recently, the only subscription I paid for. (Follow and subscribe to @NiallHarbison ) After now seeing that Ben is—after a fashion—fine, I decided to drop my subscription. But timing being what it is, just as my subscription was about to lapse, my husband Thom directed a production of the three-hander The Shark is Broken. Written by the son of Robert Shaw it's about the three stars of Jaws being stuck on the boat because the mechanical shark was constantly broken. In lesser hands the play would have been a shit show, but Thom made it sing. I know it isn't a documentary, but holy Mo, the depiction of Ben's dad lined up so closely with his public reputation that it gave me pause. Fine or not, Ben Dreyfuss is (so far) a survivor. And I like to support survivors. So, I re-upped. Mind you, I dropped from the premium Founder level to the mid-tier. Look, we all have some equivalent of one-eye. Everyone is wounded; some keep bleeding, and no one gets out unscathed. So no, I do not feel sorry for Ben and his one-eye. He's a good writer. And I encourage you to subscribe. But he is a nut. open.substack.com/pub/bendre… Everyone Feels Sorry For People With No Eyes. But No One Thinks Of The One-Eyeds. by@calmdownfeed

The Odyssey Was EVEN WORSE Than I Expected. Here’s Everything Wrong With It.

The report from Al-Jazeera has one other intriguing nugget. Just how many people are showing up for the Ayatollah's funeral?

The vote that would create the United States was deadlocked, and the man who could break the tie was eighty miles away, dying of cancer, on the wrong side of a thunderstorm. His name was Caesar Rodney. On the first of July 1776, while Congress argued itself toward independence in Philadelphia, he was stuck back in Delaware. He was tamping down Loyalist trouble, in constant pain from the cancer eating at his face and fighting for breath due to his asthma. Then the letter came. Delaware's two delegates in Congress were split. One for independence, one against. Without a tiebreaker, the colonies would not stand united. And a divided front was exactly what the Crown was counting on. He did not hesitate. He climbed onto his horse near midnight and rode straight into the storm. Lightning split the sky. The roads turned to sludge. A journey that normally took two days but he made it in eighteen hours. He stopped only to change horses, soaked with every mile. He reached Independence Hall on the morning of July 2 just as the vote was called, still in his boots and spurs. Caked in mud. Thomas McKean never forgot the sight of him standing in the doorway. Rodney walked in and cast his vote for independence. It broke Delaware's tie, and with that, not a single colony stood against the break from Britain. On this day, 250 years ago, a dying man rode all night through a storm so America could be born. America 250 🇺🇸

There is nothing wrong with smoking a cigar and shooting the bull. The left is desperate to smear Justice Thomas!

Yes, I believe this, but I’d phrase it a bit differently, after James Burnham: The sunset of managerialism that dominated the long 20th century, and the promise of a one-two combination of the name-on-the-door Elon method + AI.