Flotsam and Jetsam - Smoke on the Water

A view from the beach on 7/17/26

It's Sunday, so the news is a bit sparse and somewhat off the wall. From Sundance at CTH, Canadian Prime Minister Blames U.S. Climate and Energy Policy for Canada Wildfires "President Trump pointed out Canada’s forestry mismanagement and their failure to follow through with previous promises of investment that have led to catastrophic wildfires now producing smoke streams making U.S. Northern cities and states live under dangerous conditions. Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked about the U.S. government position, and he immediately hit back by saying the cause of Canada’s wildfires is ‘climate change’ and President Trump’s unwillingness to support the Paris Climate Treaty has created the problem that Canada is now dealing with." Tim Sheehy @TimSheehyMT, "As a former waterbomber pilot who used to lead an aerial firefighting fleet, I can tell you “send help” is an extremely dishonest framing by the Canadian government. The Canadian government routinely blocks U.S. firefighting companies from attacking fires in Canada, while aggressively sending their government-subsidized aircraft to the U.S. to earn commercial rates from the U.S. taxpayer. It’s big business for them and they run it like a Chinese protectionist racket." The smoke was thickest here on Friday. You could smell it easily. Last evening a thunderstorm and a cold front came and blew it away.

Misty Severi at JTN reports Democratic strategist James Carville blasts major news networks for not carrying Trump speech, "Mainstream media networks, ABC, CNN and NBC, all declined to show the speech on its news programs and opted to stream it online and show clips of it with commentary during their regular live programming." Nick Arama at RedState sees the White House Crushes CNN's New Claims About Its Failure to Cover Trump Speech. Amy Curtis at TownHall shows just how CBS News' 'Fact-Checks' of Trump's Address Ignore the Facts. PJM's Scott Pinsker explains The Secret Reason Why Fox News Is So Silent About Trump’s Election Fraud Speech. "The producer sent me a one-sentence reply: “I like it - but We don’t touch election fraud in any capacity.” Nothing else needed to be said. Unless you’re a total moron (or CNN’s “chief media analyst”), you could read between the lines: One of the longterm consequences of Fox News settling its lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million is that FNC programming will avoid discussing voter fraud." .... "UPDATE: Fox has just published a major story on Trump's speech and his revelations about election meddling: READ THE DOCUMENTS: White House releases election integrity files after Trump speech." The Reactionary Techno Fog looks at Michigan Voter Fraud and Chinese Influence Ops: Declassified. From Twitchy, Elissa Slotkin's 'Quiet Part Out Loud' Slip Makes the Rounds After She Says Election Fraud Doesn't Exist. Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47, "@StephenM: "We've reached a point in society where access to fettuccine at Olive Garden is vastly more secure than deciding who is Commander-in-Chief of the country." PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!"

I&I finds By 3-To-2 Margin, Americans Believe U.S. Is Turning Into A ‘Socialist State’. New York Post @nypost, "DSA member says she has no problem supporting 'secret Nazis' under one condition https://trib.al/IwxwHrg" Handre @Handre, "The Nazi economy was socialism in a better-tailored uniform. Strip away the parades and you find exactly what Mises diagnosed in 1940 as Zwangswirtschaft: private ownership on paper, total state control in practice. You held the title to your factory. Göring's ministries told you what to produce, what to charge, whom to hire, and where your profits went. That is ownership the way a prisoner owns his cell..." From Breitbart, Polis: Socialism ‘a Tool to Further Exploit People’. TownHall's Matt Vespa likes how Kathy Hochul Got Grilled on Why Everyone Is Leaving NY. Pretty soon, you run out of other people's money, especially when the other people run out on you. 

At the Crimson Hub, Nirav Shah, In The Maine Senate Race, Says He's an 'Outsider,' And He Sure Is. At Althouse, "Many of these candidates claim to espouse progressive beliefs that are similar to Graham. The thing is, it was never about the bullet points..." ""... but rather the way he was willing to speak to any issue directly and honestly that made voters love and trust him." Said Spencer Toth, who was Graham Platner’s organizing director, quoted in "Without Platner, Maine Democrats Scramble to Keep Grassroots Energy Alive/Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate imploded last week. The activists who backed him are seeking a candidate to carry his populist message in the race against Republican Susan Collins" (NYT)." Platner was mostly about wearing flannel well and spouting socialist cant in a deep manly voice. 

Following the insaner side of US politics, Stacy McCain has Knife-Wielding Psycho-Tranny Is Former Arizona Democratic Party Official and Communism, the Palestinian Death Cult and the Pro-Terrorism Red-Green Axis. At News Wax, the intersection, Mamdani Still Mulling Netanyahu Arrest During UN Meet.

The Vigilant Fox @VigilantFox, "RFK Jr. says HHS loses $100,000,000,000 a year to theft. He found some thieves would bribe poor people with flat screen TVs to get their patient numbers and enroll them in hospice. Then they would proceed to bill Medicaid "$6,000 a month FOREVER." RFK JR: "We shut down 800 hospices. You know what a hospice is? Where you're going to die. Typically, if you go to a hospice, you leave within 18 days because your dying is terminal." "We started looking at these hospices in Los Angeles, and the people never died. Two or three years later they were there, and we're paying $6,000 a month." "We found a hotel room with 29 hospices in it. I mean a hotel, every room was a hospice, and none of them had any patients. They were just addresses." "The guys who own them, they were Estonians and Armenians and people from Eastern Europe who were getting the patient numbers. They were stealing them from doctors' offices."..." At Da Caller, $225,000,000 In ‘Hideous’ Fraud Schemes Found Across US Schools, Report Alleges.

Ken Timmerman at Am Great explains The Trump Trap, "Trump's MOU set a trap. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fell into it." Joe Chalfant at TownHall claims Iran Just Killed the Memorandum of Understanding. At News Wax, Iran Suspending Commitments to Interim Deal With US. They just stopped pretending to abide. And, US-Iran Fighting Escalates With Infrastructure Targeted. Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh, " JUST IN: Iran is REELING after President Trump ordered CENTCOM to begin targeting infrastructure targets, causing power outages and destruction of bridges "The war planners [are] bombing ROADS AND BRIDGES around Bandar Abbas!" The IRGC is getting CUT OFF from key supply lines to Bandar Abbas, key to Strait of Hormuz control The REAL bridge and power plant day is still coming up. Iran will be forced into compliance!" Bandar Abbas is a major key to control of the Strait of Hormuz. At Althouse, "In the days before the sentence was carried out, she had tried to keep living as if nothing was about to happen... She showered and wore thick felt-like clothes..." "From "I danced until 2am… then it was off to my flogging/An Iranian rapper and critic of regime was determined to show no suffering as a woman in a black chador put down her Quran and picked up her whip" (London Times)."

Clown World ™ @ClownWorld, "The Boston Globe’s headline: “She came to Boston for a Noah Kahan concert. Now she’s in ICE custody” The actual story: she missed a 2017 immigration court hearing, which triggered an outstanding removal order years ago The concert isn’t why she’s in custody. The removal order is." From NYPo, DHS issues scathing update on future of ‘maple leaf menace’ accused of slapping patriotic teen. "“This illegal alien who assaulted a teenager has no business being in our country,” DHS wrote in a statement on X, dubbing her a “maple leaf menace.” “She is now in [ICE] custody pending REMOVAL from our nation,” the agency’s statement concludes." Too easy. Drop her off in Nicaragua. At News Wax, DHS Warns TPS Holders to Take Exit Offer and Sen. Blackburn Revives Ban Birth Tourism Act. From NYPo, Trump administration weighs imposing $100K bonds on green card applicants. Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog says Fuck You, Tim Walz, for pardoning a child molester to protect him from deportation. Anyway it didn't work. Marco Rubio deported him anyway. Alex West Q @RealAlexWest_Q, " HOLY CRAP! Sec. Marco Rubio just got a MASSIVE standing ovation in Germany after he told Europe we need to move back toward Christianity and against 3rd world migration Marco is CRUSHING it and the whole world sees it! We LOVE MARCO."

NIOH Berg @NiohBerg, "Meet Andy Burnham, Britain's soon to be new PM. • Nobody voted for him • Nobody asked for him • He is haunted by allegations over his handling of the rape gangs • His main concern seems to be that Starmer wasn't enough of a tyrant • He will make everything worse • He will make Britain suffer even more." RadioGenoa @RadioGenoa, "In Europe there is a strange phenomenon where churches burn and mosques do not."

From Campus Reform, Brown taps hallucinogen researcher to lead 'merit' seminar "Brown University has selected anthropology and linguistics professor Paja Faudree, whose recent scholarship focuses on Indigenous use of hallucinogenic plants, to lead the 2026-27 Pembroke Seminar." At NewsWeek, US Universities Got Over $300M From Sanctioned China Entities. Gee, I wonder why China gives money to US schools; it's not altruism. 

NYPo claims New numbers reveal the child sex-change mania is worse than we knew "Recently released court documents show that Children’s Hospital Colorado, affiliated with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, prescribed puberty blockers to more than 250 patients and cross-sex hormones to nearly 550 patients in a single year, 2025."