Click your tabs once and click your tabs twice, and if it looks like this, then you doin' it right ...
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 10, 2026
Ed: So now it's official. I wonder why he pulled the trigger today rather than wait for Monday ...
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Semafor: The Intercept reports that members of the Democratic Socialists of America circulated a letter calling on candidates to drop Fight, a progressive firm credited with supercharging the campaigns of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. The letter calls a firm founder, Morris Katz, 27, one of the “chief parties responsible for the catastrophic campaign.” Meanwhile, Democrats are turning on Daniel Moraff, 34, an independent consultant whom The Wall Street Journal referred to as the “mad scientist” behind the Platner campaign.
Ed: These two perpetrated a fraud, but the DSA doesn't have clean hands in this either. They're backpedaling to keep people from connecting dots and tying them to the fiasco.
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"They called him and said, 'Hey, you could be facing charges...' And all of a sudden, we get a reversal." 🚨
— Salem News Channel (@WatchSalemNews) July 10, 2026
Jon Fetherston drops a massive investigative bombshell on the Scott @JenningsShow regarding why Maine progressive candidate Graham Platner suddenly aborted his Senate… pic.twitter.com/lxiubYQLUN
Ed: Some people speculated that Platner may have been threatened with prosecution to withdraw. If so, that makes the scandal worse rather than better. If Jenny Racicot wants to press charges, then the AG should follow through no matter what Platner decides. If this is a bluff, then it's a corrupt act by the AG to influence an election and intimidate an elected nominee into a withdrawal. Perhaps the DoJ needs to open its own investigation into the happenings in Maine.
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Maine Wire: For days, Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson repeatedly assured the public that the process would be transparent. Critics, however, noted that the party had released few specifics about how candidates would qualify or how a replacement would ultimately be selected. The newly published three-page Candidate Qualification Rules now provide the clearest picture yet of how the party intends to choose its next nominee.
Under the new rules, anyone seeking the Democratic nomination must first meet three basic qualifications:
- Be constitutionally eligible to serve as a United States Senator.
- Be a registered voter in Maine.
- Be enrolled in the Maine Democratic Party.
Unlike the June primary, however, the replacement nominee will not be chosen by Maine voters. Instead, the nominee will be selected through an internal Democratic Party nominating convention after candidates complete a multi-step qualification process.
Ed: I think they skipped over a few prerequisites, such as "no Nazi tattoos," "have been gainfully employed in the past five years," "no sh**posting on Reddit," "no Kik accounts after reaching drinking age," "no raping people in the statute of limitations period," etc.
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IT'S HERE. https://t.co/vBO0qWPUm8 pic.twitter.com/OC61kPFVTB
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) July 9, 2026
Ed: I meant to fit this into yesterday's Final Word, but it got too huge. This is a very interesting analysis; the data can be found here. It's worthy of debate, at least, and to the extent that it's accurate, it explains why a lot of 30,000-foot messaging fails to land. In the Platner debacle, it also shows how the mad scientists who created that narrative never understood how to reach the intended part of the electorate.
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Matt Taibbi: What a hilarious mess the Democrats have created for themselves. The party has spent the Trump era building a culture of guilt by accusation. Now one group of uncompromising purity-testers will duke it out with another, in a battle pitting moralizing New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his strategist Morris Katz against imperious insiders like Chuck Schumer and #MeToo influencer like Cheyenne Hunt. Is there a way for everyone to lose? As the great Terrell Owens said, “Getcha popcorn ready”:
It was hard not to laugh when images of Platner first hit mass media. The party mainstream can’t reckon with the real reasons it loses to populist candidates — support for NAFTA, its extravagant rescue of Wall Street pirates after the 2008 financial crash, a Marie-Antoinettian “learn to code” attitude toward working class voters — and instead keeps trying to apply marketing band-aids to its problems. A favorite trick is looking for “white men with unusual jobs” to put up as candidates, as the New Republic’s Perry Bacon unironically puts it.
Being so lost up your own backside that you think the way to answer voter rejection is to answer with more insulting stereotypes is an almost impossibly dumb strategy, but nobody in the Democratic Party hierarchy has been able to swim in the waters of self-awareness long enough to see it.
Ed: Another fine rant from Matt Taibbi. More seriously, though, this is exactly what I explained in my analysis of Jasmine Crockett's post-primary tirade. Intersectionality will be more corrosive than this embarrassing debacle in Maine, and it will spread through every Democrat stronghold. The DSA's poaching will just accelerate it.
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Important thread on why Angela Davis is a fraud. She is the founder of the movement in America to abolish prisoners. But when real political prisoners from the Soviet Union, east Germany and Czechoslovakia asked for her help, she ignored them. https://t.co/C6FyqQsXuu
— Eli Lake (@EliLake) July 10, 2026
Ed: Socialists oppose prisons, and then create gulags. Every single time.
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Axios: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is baffling fellow Democrats by pouring money into yet another competitive House primary — this time in Arizona.
Why it matters: The DCCC has racked up a spotty record in its attempts to intervene in Democratic primaries this cycle, leading some House Democrats to question why they're paying dues to the campaign committee.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who previously criticized the DCCC for intervening in California, told Axios she is "frustrated" to see the practice in her own backyard.
Another House Democrat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to criticize leadership, told Axios, "The DCCC's endorsement, I think, hurts the message."
Ed: I almost wrote about this today, but other topics occupied my time. Axios never mentions the DSA, which is odd considering that it's almost certainly why the DCCC has become more pre-emptive in this cycle. The people objecting to it are likely those attempting to raise the gates for the DSA activists to sack the Democrat castle.
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Her name was Calli Toler.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 9, 2026
She was just 6 years old.
She loved to dance.
She had her whole life ahead of her.
She was just kiIIed when a three time deported illegal alien ran a stop sign and crashed into her.
This is why I stand with ICE. pic.twitter.com/4pe22JAqWJ
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Politico: This may be the only World Cup where Palestinian flags have so noticeably outnumbered Italian ones. At the first global tournament after Oct. 7, 2023, symbols of Palestinian solidarity have been widespread despite the fact that Palestine has never competed in a World Cup.
After being adopted by teams and fans across the tournament, the Palestinian cause may have seen its last hurrah at this World Cup with yesterday’s elimination of Morocco.
The tournament that began with a record eight Arab nations, twice the previous high for any World Cup, now has none left to represent the region.
Ed: The fact that Palestinian flags outnumbered Italian flags is a sad commentary on global politics in the first place. Also, why is this news requiring coverage in Politico? We already have plenty of Hamas symps displaying Palestinian flag in the US as it is, especially since Hamas' massacre of Jews on October 7. If we're suddenly looking at fewer of them because the Arab teams have all been eliminated, well, that's an improvement.
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WOAH 🚨 My jaw literally dropped listening to this
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) July 10, 2026
The Los Angeles Police Department came and tried to clean up Skid Row and in a response a nonprofit working with Mayor Karen Bass SUED THEM and stopped police from EVEN BEING ALLOWED TO ENTER
“LA CAN, which is another… pic.twitter.com/VEUuDkFof9
“LA CAN, which is another organization (an NGO), they get very, very upset and they sue the LAPD when they come and do street cleaning down here. And they're basically saying that their encampments are their Private property. Police can't enter, and they sued the police more than any other organization”
Translation: They are suing to keep the homeless population right where they are so the NGO homeless money laundering industrial complex keeps running
This same NGO has also launched protests to stop Skid Row from being cleaned up
Pure insanity. It’s criminal
Ed: The refusal to enforce vagrancy laws and the dissolution of mental-health asylums for involuntary commitments is what created and amplified this misery, turning it into a cancer in every urban core of the US. It's time to go back to solutions that make cities livable and don't just let people collect like trash on the streets. The people in these urban cores have to start electing serious people to office first, rather than the socialist clowns that brought us these cancers on urban cores, or else elect serious people to state government that will seize control of cities that refuse to address them. Neither outcome is in the offing in Los Angeles and California, unfortunately.
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Jonathan Turley: For many, it sounds like a Kamala Harris redux by the Democratic establishment, though they will hold a “convention” of 600 people to make the selection. The rhetoric could backfire.
The irony is that these politicians are drawing distinctions that would have been unthinkable just months ago. Ro Khanna insisted, after withdrawing his support and appearing at a rally for Platner, “I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line.”
The problem is that women had previously accused him of such violence, but Khanna endorsed him anyway. The goalpost moved higher and higher for women, where rape (involving a liberal woman) was now the red line for Democratic politicians.
The actual red line appeared to be polling that showed that Platner could not deliver his side of the Faustian bargain. He could not deliver Maine. Suddenly, again, women had to be believed and the party had to choose his replacement.
Ed: I'm not so sure this is "irony." I think "corruption" works better. Otherwise, Professor Turley nails it, including the Wales reference in one of my favorite films.
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Latinx was never a thing. It was invented by the sorts of people who recruited and “vetted” Graham Platner because he seemed to be what they think working class people are like. https://t.co/0Cpn8UjH12
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 10, 2026
Ed: And yet, the media persists! What do Hispanics know about their own culture anyway, amirite?
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Michael Shermer at The Free Press: The proceedings, which began Monday in Utah and are expected to conclude on Friday, have surfaced overwhelming evidence against accused killer Tyler Robinson. For example: He confessed the crime by text to his transgender roommate Lance Twiggs (“you werent the one who did it right???” “I am, I’m sorry.”); his own parents recognized him from released images, and said that the rifle he used matched that of his grandfather; Robinson’s DNA was found on the rifle’s trigger, a spent cartridge casing, two unspent cartridges, and the towel used to wrap the rifle; surveillance footage showed Robinson jumping down from the rooftop where the fatal shot appeared to be taken; and bullet cartridges recovered at the scene featured engravings (“Hey fascist! Catch!” and “OwO what’s this?”) made with a tool found in Robinson’s bedroom, alongside a shell casing engraved “test shot.”
This is not an exhaustive list.
You might assume, given all this, that the vicious conspiracy theories sparked by Kirk’s assassination, which have infected our society ever since, would have faded.
You would be wrong.
Ed: It's a very good essay, but it goes a little too easy on the conspiracy theorists. The people exploiting the case are profiting off of the lies. It's not just a psychological mechanism for dealing with brutal events; it's an entire economy that rewards poison and demagoguery. The hearing and trial will help expose these parasites for what they are.
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Wow. This was an absolute Mic Drop by the United States 🇺🇸 at the UN.
— Kosher (@koshercockney) July 9, 2026
The Islamic Regime representative: “I have one word only: I advise to the representative of the United States to be polite.
He then seems to threaten the US Ambassador and the US itself:
“It will be better… pic.twitter.com/tQnW6wB6yx
US Ambassador, Mike Waltz:
“Frankly, I’m not going to dignify this with another response, especially, as this representative sits here, in this body, representing a regime that has killed tens of thousands of its own people and imprisoned many more simply for wanting freedom from YOUR tyranny”
Ed: To quote Burt Reynolds: Do the letters F O mean anything to you?
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— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) July 10, 2026
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Last night's lyric: "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers.
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