Platner plans?

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David Strom:

You Know, Platner Doesn't HAVE to Pull Out

(I don’t think Strom intended to employ a double-entendre is this analysis of the Maine rapist’s troubles and possible paths forward, but you never know)

I don’t really care whether Platner drops out or stands firm, because the Democrat alternatives here in Vacation Land are all equally as bad, but watching the hypocrisy at play is truly awesome. And fun.

If I had to lay odds, I would bet that Platner eventually pulls the plug on his campaign for Senate. 

But, really, it's hardly a sure thing. He actually has some reasons to stay in the race, and if he does, the Democrats really can't do anything about it. Despite all the claims that Platner has no choice, no cards to play, and no say in whether he stays on the ballot, he actually holds most of the cards. 

Platner, you see, is not a loyal member of the Democratic Party, which, ironically, was why he won. The Democratic Socialists of America are engaged in a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party, and his entire pitch to the voters who dutifully marched to the polls and eagerly sent in their absentee ballots was that he wasn't a normal kind of Democrat. 

The normal rules don't apply to him, and the Democrats have nothing to give to him in exchange for getting out of the race. 

Bernie Sanders flew him around to be a headliner at the "Fight Oligarchy" rallies. Ro Khanna flew off to Portland, ME to campaign with him. The New York Times did a "catch and kill" with the story, despite knowing that he was credibly accused of rape. The relationship with the Democrats and Platner was transactional: they wanted to win, and the best path they saw was a Democratic Socialist who obviously hated the party, hated women, hated Jews, hated America, and who was openly extremist in just about every way. 

Busy on Stanwich

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300 Stanwich Road, listed at $2.950 million and has sold for $3.1. How Dutchess Daphne found her-buyer clients in Manhattan Beach California, I don’t know, but she did — probably lured them out here with a promise of a lifetime supply of gouda, knowing Daphne. Clever girl.

Closer to town, 184 Stanwich was priced at $4.650 million but a generous benefactor insisted on paying $5.052 million, and the owners graciously acceded; Greenwich folks are nice like that.

It's easy — EASY! — to envision this coming to our country soon; it will probably first surface in California before metastasizing north and east

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A Brazilian court has sentenced a couple to 50 days in prison for "intellectual neglect" after they homeschooled their two daughters without a state-approved curriculum.

A São Paulo criminal court ruled against Audato and Ieda Denardi, alleging they had failed to include programs on "gender and sex education" and "tolerance and diversity" in the curriculum for their daughters, aged 15 and 11, Alliance Defending Freedom ("ADF") International said.

According to the legal group, the court also ruled that the parents failed to properly integrate their children into Brazilian culture, citing the girls' preference for religious and classical music over popular trap or "sertanejo" (folk) music.

Isabel Monteiro, the defense attorney representing the family, said the judge made an "ideological decision to convict them" based largely on the older daughter's preference for sacred music over mainstream music that often features explicit lyrics.

The Denardis were sentenced to 50 days in prison by a lower court in April. They remain free while appealing the ruling, which is believed to be the first criminal prosecution of its kind in Brazil.

The Denardis told Fox News Digital they began homeschooling the girls in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic after realizing their schools were failing to give them a proper education. Ieda said the girls thrived in homeschooling, and so she decided to continue educating the girls at home.

Even the state's own prosecutors urged the court to acquit the parents, concluding after an evaluation by an independent educational psychologist that the girls showed no signs of neglect and were thriving socially and academically.

The Denardis provided more than 3,000 pages of evidence showing they hadn't intellectually abandoned their children, Monteiro said.

However, the judge rejected the prosecution's recommendation. According to ADF International, which is providing legal support for the family, the judge accused the parents of "using their daughters as pawns in an ideological struggle, subjecting them to a form of unregulated education, the effectiveness and quality of which lack adequate metrics within the Brazilian legal system, while completely excluding the State’s involvement."

Sounds like a lot of judges already sitting on our own courts.

Riverside sale

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29 Coventry Lane (that little cul du sac overlooking Riverside School’s playground), a 1968 builder’s project, listed at $2.1 million, sold yesterday to Orange County CA (92679) buyers for $2,753,000. Fortunately for these sellers, they gave up their attempt to sell for $1.945 in 2021 after 39 days and rented it out instead. They tried again this year, with considerably better results.

Way back in 2005, Russ Pruner’s Shore & Country Associates had this listing and Russ thanked me: I ran a real estate column back then, and when Russ met with the owners to discuss a listing price, they told him, “we just don’t want a price so high that Chris Fountain will make fun of us.”. With that, Russ was able to get their consent to a reasonable price, listed it at $1.195 million and sold it for $1.189 in 9 days. Today, there’s almost no price I’d laugh at, and if I did, I’d probably be proved wrong.

Hahahahah — you morons

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A reverse sally fields moment: “You hate us — you really hate us!”

The LGBTQ Movement Just Found Out How Islamic Nations Actually Feel About Them

We don't understand the Left's 'Queers for Palestine' movement. It's akin to chickens for Colonel Sanders. Homosexuality is not just forbidden in Islam; it's punishable by death, and we've all seen the horrific videos of what Islamists do to gays and lesbians.

Despite that, Leftists think if they're just advocates for the right causes, they'll get a pass or something. They won't. And an LGBTQ cruise learned this the hard way after it was blocked from docking in Turkey.

Profile in Courage

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Smithsonian Museum of American History

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Posted on July 7, 2026 by John Hinderaker in History, Leftism, Trump administration

The Sick Smithsonian

The White House’s Domestic Policy Council has produced a report on the takeover of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History by the anti-American Left. This X account summarizes some of the high (or low) points:

Platner dirt: PJ Media's PR expert predicted all this last June 1st

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I think he’s overly optimistic about his prediction of the Democrat Party’s disappearance (though the DSA is coming on strong), but the first half of Pinsker’s article rings true.

My Platner Prediction Just Came True. Here’s What’s Next — Including the Death of the Dems' Brand.

Scott Pinsker | 12:25 PM on July 07, 2026

Before I take a (well-deserved) victory lap, a confession: My predictive accuracy rate for Democrats is astronomically high, yet I’ve whiffed quite a bit predicting President Donald Trump’s next moves. (Certainly didn’t have Greenland, the Iran War ceasefire, or the White House ballroom on my bingo card.) But there’s an excellent reason why the Donkeys are so much easier to predict: The Democrats rely on traditional PR tactics, so if you figure out why a competent PR pro would play that card, it unmasks their entire agenda. After all, PR tactics aren’t random; they’re based on cause and effect.

Show me your PR tactics, and I’ll tell you your political strategy.

Since the mainstream media is ideologically aligned with the Democratic Party, leveraging PR tactics is — by far — the left’s most cost-effective vehicle for mass communication. Hey, when the New York Times publishes your propaganda above the fold on page one for free, there’s no need to waste money on a page-15 ad. (And we’ll have MUCH more to say about the Times’ propaganda in a sec.)

Donald Trump and the GOP don’t rely on traditional PR tactics. The mainstream media is simply too hostile; Republicans have been burned too many times. It’s why we’re better off relying on social media, conservative platforms, paid ads, testimonials, and the power of the presidential pulpit.

But if you’re an establishment Democrat, you work near-exclusively through the media. And that’s how I knew on June 1 that the Democrats — and not the Republicans — were the ones behind the Graham Platner scandal PR dump:

Be on the lookout for a Democratic dirty trick: If Graham Platner wins Maine’s June 9 primary (which he will) — but withdraws from the race by 5:00 p.m. on July 13 — the Democratic Party can choose his replacement.

[…]

The DNC establishment has a limited window to dump the scandal-tarred Platner and swap him with someone “safer.” But time is of the essence.

At stake is nothing less than control of the U.S. Senate.

Which means, between now and July 13, the Dems are highly incentivized to publicize ALL the Platner scandals they’re aware of, because one of two things will happen:

Graham Platner drops out in shame and is replaced by a DNC establishment favorite who’s safer, fully vetted, and more likely to win (and follow orders).Graham Platner stays on the ballot, but because the scandal(s) dropped in May/June, it’ll be “old news” by the first Tuesday of November.

It’s good, old-fashioned cui bono logic: If the Republicans had the goods on Graham Platner, we would’ve dropped the bomb(s) after July 13. In fact, we probably would’ve done what Virginia attorney general candidate Jason Miyares did in 2025 and released the info a month or so before the election, because that would maximize the pro-GOP fallout.

I don’t think it’s coincidental that the latest Platner scandal broke EXACTLY one week before the Dem’s July 13 deadline, and neither should you.

From leveraging major media outlets (like Politico and the New York Times) to timing the release of these scandals, this has all the PR fingerprints of a Democrat-on-Democrat hit job. Think about it: Platner’s first major media-driven scandal broke roughly a week before the June 9 primary; the second major media-driven scandal broke a week before the July 13 cutoff date for replacing him on the ballot.

The timing is too on-the-nose to be accidental, because in PR, things don’t move until you push ‘em. 

It’s also suspect that the New York Times, in its first exposé of the Platner scandal, focused on the allegations of Lyndsey Fifield, a 40-year-old conservative. For obvious reasons, the allegations of a conservative woman against a far-left Senate candidate were easier for Platner’s base to dismiss.

That’s an observation Will Upton of the Daily Caller made:

[The New York Times’ story] was a favor to Platner’s campaign, a disservice to readers, and an insult to the women who say they were hurt by him.

[…]

The Times’s goal here was not to fairly give hearing to allegations against Platner; it was to play Fifield for a sucker, give her story just enough air that the Democrat Party’s cretin media and consultant class could zero in on it and crush it.

Politico’s reporting on Platner from yesterday, which focused on the credible rape allegations of a liberal Maine woman named Jenny Racicot, raises even more questions about the New York Times’ bias:

Racicot said she was contacted by The New York Times in the spring and shared off the record that Platner had assaulted her. She told the Times that she had some positive memories of her relationship with Platner but thought he did not respect women and had cut off contact with him after an incident in 2021 when Platner had come over drunk; but the Times article stated that Racicot “declined to elaborate” about what had happened, only describing his behavior as “reckless” and “unsettling.”

A spokesperson for the Times declined to comment. [emphasis added]

If Racicot is telling the truth — and she told the Times’ reporters point-blank that Platner had sexually assaulted her — then describing her rape as “reckless” and “unsettling” was journalistic malpractice. That’s a shocking, horrible, disgusting understatement! (The two Times reporters were Kate Glueck and Lisa Lerer.)

The Times has some explaining to do. (And some apologizing to do, too.)

But as of today, the Democratic Party establishment is ecstatic: Platner is done. When he didn’t quit earlier — and actually won Maine’s Senate primary (by a landslide!) — the establishment waited one week before the July 13 deadline and dropped bomb #2.

Kaboom!

Now, the Democratic establishment has what it always wanted: A free hand to pick Platner’s replacement. The DSA upstarts were discredited and humiliated; Chuck Schumer and his cronies were proven correct. Hallelujah! 

It’s Christmas in July!

At this time of national crisis, when the horror of Taylor Swift's wedding exclusion list is still reverberating, this vignette from San Francisco will lift your spirits

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Thank goodness the Iranian war has ended peacefully and the media can once again turn its attention to important news.

TO BOLDLY GO WHERE GIULIANI WENT 30 YEARS AGO:

Viral Video Shows Woman Learning the Hard Way That BART’s New Fare Gates Are a Real Pain in the Butt.