Welcome to Thursday, July 2, 2026, and it’s National Freedom from Fear of Speaking Day. Many people have a phobia about speaking in public, but the gentleman in the painting below overcame it to have his say in a town meeting. This is of course Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech” painting (the original), one of his famous 1943 series of “Four Freedoms“, all on display at the Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, MA. I photographed this along with another fearless speaker in 2012 meeting, “Moving Naturalism Forward,” organized by physicist Sean Carroll in Stockbridge.
This is what Wikipedia says about the painting:
Freedom of Speech depicts a scene of a 1942 Arlington town meeting in which Jim Edgerton, the lone dissenter to the town selectmen’s announced plans to build a new school, as the old one had burned down, was accorded the floor as a matter of protocol. Edgerton supported the rebuilding process but was concerned about the tax burden of the proposal, as his family farm had been ravaged by disease. A memory of this scene struck Rockwell as an excellent fit for illustrating “freedom of speech”, and inspired him to use his Vermont neighbors as models for the entire Four Freedoms series.
The blue-collar speaker wears a plaid shirt and suede jacket, with dirty hands and a darker complexion than others in attendance. The other attendees are wearing white shirts, ties and jackets. One of the men in the painting is holding a document that reveals a subject of the meeting as “a discussion of the town’s annual report”. Edgerton’s youth and workmanlike hands are fashioned with a worn and stained jacket, while the other attendees appear to be older and more neatly and formally dressed. According to Bruce Cole of The Wall Street Journal, Edgerton is shown “standing tall, his mouth open, his shining eyes transfixed, he speaks his mind, untrammeled and unafraid”, and his face resembles Abraham Lincoln. According to Robert Scholes, the work shows audience members in rapt attention with admiration of the speaker, who resembles a Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart character in a Frank Capra film. According to John Updike, the work is painted without any painterly brushwork.
It’s also National Anisette Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 2 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Footy news: The U.S. beat Bosnia and Herzogovina 2-0, securing its first win in the knockout round since 2002. But there’s some bad news about red cards:
First, the good news: The United States men’s national team beat Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 in the World Cup round of 32 Wednesday night.
Now, the problematic: If the Americans are going to continue advancing, they will have to do it without their top goal scorer.
Folarin Balogun scored what proved to be the decisive goal for the U.S. just before halftime — his third of the tournament — but was then sent off just after the hour mark in a controversial decision that will see him suspended for the round-of-16 match against Belgium.
“It wasn’t a perfect day by any means,” defender Chris Richard said. “But it was our day.”
The red card came after Balogun collided with Bosnian defender Tarik Muharemovic just inside the U.S. attacking third. Both players were on the ground initially, but then the referee, Raphael Claus of Brazil, was called to the monitor by the video assistant referee.
After watching the slow-motion footage, Claus determined that Balogun had raked his cleats down Muharemovic’s leg and onto his foot and ankle, sending him off for serious foul play. Balogun looked shocked; he trudged to the sideline and was consoled by Christian Pulisic and Timothy Weah.
“We had to dig deep for that one,” Pulisic said. “It didn’t go exactly to plan with the red card, but that just shows what a good team we are. We said in the hydration break, you know, this is what it takes to be a really strong team. And, we were able to do it.”
Balogun is the fifth American to receive a red card at a World Cup and is the first player from any country to score and receive a red card in the same knockout game since France’s Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 final.
Ah, I remember Zidane kicked out for headbutting an Italian player after they exchanged “words.” Here are 15 minutes of highlights from the game above: the two plays leading to U.S. goals are at 4:50 and 10:51 (penalty kick); the red-card play at 6:56. (The U.S. scored two goals that were erased by offside calls.) The U.S. won despite losing a top scorer for the last 30 minutes of the game, and we’ll now advance to the round of 16.
*A NYT/Siena poll shows that Democrats are within striking distance of taking the Senate in the fall midterms, but not close enough to make this a sure thing.
Democrats face an uphill battle to win control of the Senate but have pulled within striking distance of enough Republican-held seats to put the majority in play this fall, according to new New York Times/Siena polls in six Senate battleground states.
Republicans are hampered by the unpopularity of President Trump and his diminished standing on the economy, while most of the Democratic candidates are so far running ahead of their party’s own struggling brand, the polls show.
Winning the Senate remains a stiff challenge for Democrats. Republicans hold 53 seats, meaning that Democrats would need to flip at least four seats while defending all of their own vulnerable ones.
The Times/Siena polls looked at the six states that are considered to be the Democratic Party’s best shots at flipping Republican-held seats: Alaska, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. The surveys found that while all six states are close enough to be competitive, if the election were held today Republicans would be favored in enough states to keep control of the Senate.
But the new polls suggest that Democrats have a path.
Mr. Trump carried five of the states in 2024, and if all six states were considered together he won them by an average of eight percentage points. In the polls, the average of the Senate races in those six states was a tie, with 47 percent for both Republicans and Democrats. The shift shows how far the political environment has tilted in the Democrats’ direction ahead of the midterm elections.
The Times/Siena polls show Democrats with a slim edge in Maine and a more substantial lead in North Carolina. Republican candidates lead narrowly in three states: Alaska, Iowa and Ohio. Texas is tied.
Voters across all six battlegrounds were thoroughly frustrated by rising prices — and many blamed Mr. Trump. Only 36 percent of voters approved of his handling of cost-of-living issues, including an abysmal 24 percent among independent voters.
What would it mean if Democrats took the Senate? Well, it would prevent passage of bills that are initiated by Trump. (This assumes that parties would vote as a bloc.) And if the House becomes Democratic as well, then bills that Democrats like and passed in both houses would go to the President’s desk, where he’d veto them; and a veto could not be overriden. We’d thus have a divided government, but if you dislike Trump, his initiatives and appointments would have a smaller chance of passing. I am making no predictions about any changes in Congress as I’m no pundit.
*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal thinks that Trump has considered resuming the war against Iran, but isn’t yet going forward:.
It’s Wednesday, July 1, and the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, famously defined a conservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” An Iran hawk is made the same way. According to The Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump reviewed military options for a full-scale war against Iran to “finish the job,” but has decided, for now, not to move forward.
The Wall Street Journal article is here, and is archived here.
The report says Trump is concerned that renewed military conflict could hurt the chances of a diplomatic resolution and of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, and that he’s shown willingness to let indirect talks in Qatar run past the August 18 deadline. He is said to be fine with continuing limited strikes on Iranian targets if Tehran violates the current temporary deal—as it already has, repeatedly.
How are those negotiations going?
Not well. It seems JD Vance’s “historic” face-to-face achievement was a one-off. Washington has been quietly downgraded from talking to the Great Satan to negotiating with the Little Satan instead—a senior Qatari official confirmed that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Qatari officials in Doha, but there are currently no high-level U.S.-Iran meetings scheduled.
How are those negotiations going?
Not well. It seems JD Vance’s “historic” face-to-face achievement was a one-off. Washington has been quietly downgraded from talking to the Great Satan to negotiating with the Little Satan instead—a senior Qatari official confirmed that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Qatari officials in Doha, but there are currently no high-level U.S.-Iran meetings scheduled.
Faced with Iran publicly denying that peace talks even exist, Vance is denying reality right back, insisting it’s merely a “Persian negotiating tactic.” He’s not wrong that rejectionism is a tactic—he’s just wrong about what it’s negotiating for. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed the delegation will skip U.S. officials entirely, meeting only the Qataris in Doha to talk about unfreezing Iran’s own assets. The tactic isn’t stalling for a better peace. It’s stalling for a better payment: extract the MoU concessions first, discuss the nuclear file never.
Iranian officials have shown no willingness to meet U.S. nuclear demands, focusing instead on asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran says it will impose its “sovereignty and new policy” there regardless of whether it reaches an agreement with Oman, calling the strait a purely internal matter. Reports differ on the nature of the proposed transit fees—Iran calls them mandatory, a regional diplomat calls them voluntary, and Oman’s foreign minister rejects fees outright but leaves room for “maritime service” mechanisms such as safety and pollution measures. Regardless of that distinction, Iran seems set on asserting authority over the waterway: it has already indicated that ships paying “security fees” and following IRGC protocols would get priority transit, while others face delays.
Iran will not make a deal the U.S. can accept. That’s the reality. The only question left is how many more “historic” handshakes, Doha detours, and denied peace talks it takes before that reality mugs Vance the way it mugged every liberal Kristol had in mind.
What Segal is saying is that Iran won’t even make a deal that gives Trump ammunition for saying he achieve his goal that “Iran will never have nuclear weapons”—much less anything else he could brag about. If Trump is unwilling to admit defeat or pretend that a total defeat is a total victory, he’d have to go back to war.
*In further evidence of takeover of the Democratic Party by “progressives,” two such Democrats, one of them a Democratic Socialist, won gubernatorial and Congressional primary elections.
Democratic dissatisfaction with the status quo percolated through Colorado’s primaries Tuesday as a socialist defeated a longtime congresswoman and Sen. Michael Bennet lost his gubernatorial bid to the state’s combative attorney general.
Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old Democratic socialist, toppled Rep. Diana DeGette, 68, for a Denver congressional seat, according to the Associated Press. Her win is the latest advance for a socialist groundswell that is forcing a reckoning for Democrats. Bennet lost to Phil Weiser, who assailed Bennet’s votes to confirm some of President Trump’s nominees and increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and criticized his support from wealthy donors.
“The incumbents that are there right now are too complacent,” Kiros said in an interview Tuesday ahead of the election. “I think what we’re seeing is a reckoning and a referendum, frankly, on the leadership of the party to actually fight for the policies that the voters care about.”
Colorado is the latest flashpoint in a Democratic civil war. A slate of left-wing candidates toppled Democratic House incumbents or won crowded races in New York last week, riding endorsements from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. In Maine, Graham Platner won the Democratic primary in June, putting a progressive with a working-class message—and a complicated past—on the ballot for Democrats in one of the most competitive Senate seats in the November midterm elections.
The victories in New York set off alarm bells for centrists, and the elections in Colorado served as a barometer for whether progressive candidates appeal to voters outside coastal metropolitan areas. Kiros topped DeGette 51% to 42% with 93% of the vote counted, the AP reported. Weiser led Bennet 56% to 44%.
Centrists scored at least one win Tuesday as Sen. John Hickenlooper fought off a primary challenge from the left. Hickenlooper’s easy victory came in a race that was seen as closer than expected in the final stretch.
Them’s big leads for the progressives, too! I’m not sure why the Democratic party is moving leftwards, which I don’t think is a good way to win Presidential elections, at least. Perhaps the Party is so frustrated with having lost both the Presidency and all of Congress that its members are taking any new direction, especially one that smells like “greater change.” And of course we know now that it’s no impediment to winning if you hate Israel: here’s what Grok tells me about Kiros’s stand on the Jewish nation:
She advocates ending all U.S. military aid to Israel (including defensive systems like Iron Dome), accuses Israel of apartheid, occupation, colonialism, and genocide in Gaza, and calls for an arms embargo. Her positions have been a central part of her campaign, which is backed by groups like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Justice Democrats. She frames U.S. support for Israel as complicity in what she describes as genocide and ethnic cleansing.
*Matt Taibbi, at his Substack site Racket, approves of the Supreme Court’s decision on transgender athletes in a post called “Controversially, the Supreme Court rules for common sense” (h/t Divy).
“It’s a good decision for women and girls,” said Kara Dansky, who wrote an amicus brief supporting the states for the U.S. chapter of the Women’s Declaration International.
Dansky was once senior counsel for the ACLU Center of Justice. In this case she was on the other side of the ACLU, whose attorneys (including co-director of LGBTQ and HIV rights, Chase Strangio) argued against the state bans. The ACLU has also split with former feminist allies by arguing for the housing of biological men in women’s prisons, including those with records of violent sex offenses. These efforts in trying to force society to reimagine biology are clearly failing, but the outraged reaction yesterday shows the fight isn’t over. NBC described the decision as a “major blow to LGBTQ rights,” and former VP contender Tim Walz claimed the “Supreme Court says schools can be cruelto my trans kids”: [note that the NBC link does not go to NBC]
Cruel is an extraordinary word to describe the act of allowing states to object to a radical social program that was implemented virtually everywhere ahead of both scientific and (especially) political consensus. The numbers aren’t close. A New York Times/Ipsos poll last year found 79% of Americans, including 67% of Democrats, are opposed to “athletes who were male at birth” participating in women’s sports. The same poll found 71% of all Americans, including 54% of Democrats, believe no one under 18 should have access to puberty blockers. This was after exposure to years of movement messaging.
Strangio and the ACLU don’t see that they’re asking for something people can’t give them, even if they wanted to, namely the honest belief that people who’ve transitioned have literally changed sexes. The gambit failed for the same reason Spanish speakers rejected “Latinx.”
As with Latinx, activists tried to lobby “sex assigned at birth” into reality, only to have the population spit it back out as “biological sex.” The court just recognized another thing that was uncontroversial until ten minutes ago. Yes, a small percentage of human beings have intersex characterstics, but most of the world’s population can’t be forced to unlearn what it intrinsically knows. Knowing which gametes your body cranks out is another form of “lived experience,” one is irrelevant to activists, apparently, because it’s “normative.” People know they weren’t “assigned” a sex by hospital clerks. Some people tried to think that way. It just didn’t take.
Activists could have started with a proposition: given that sex is binary, what can society do to accomodate people who experience dysphoria and wish to live under a new identity? The same Americans who accepted gay marriage fairly quickly after Obergefell v. Hodges11 years ago likely would have extended as far as they could without jumping into a factual or scientific abyss, on issues ranging from expanded insurance to easier routes to housing or identification. Instead, activists treated access for biological males to women’s locker rooms, sports rosters, even prisons as settled rights matters, against which only right-wing Christian patriarchal bigots could possibly object. Unless 80% of Americans are bigots, a lot of apologies are owed.
With regard to the climate by activists like the ACLU’s Chase Strangio, Taibbi concludes:
This has been a constant theme, that criticism is murder, disagreement bigotry. Everything that wasn’t an instant salute was deemed evidence of lurking genocidal hatred. Even a lifelong trans advocate like Canada’s Dr. Kenneth Zucker had his career ruined for the crime of believing some dysphoria cases dissipate with time. This couldn’t be tolerated because it clashed with the linguistic imperative of “gender-affirming care.” It isn’t rational to insist no troubled boys or girls might eventually become happy ones, just as it isn’t rational to keep denying hormones make hitting the fastball easier.
Having produced a textbook history lesson in how not to persuade, the movement won’t reconsider its aims. Instead, bet on activists searching for ways to bypass the problem of persuasion altogether. A Vox headline yesterday suggested the loss was a “cautionary tale for all left-leaning lawyers.” For a moment it seemed a mainstream pundit was going to suggest not using courts to force into being policies that majorities in both parties reject. Instead, Ian Millheiser’s point was that the left shouldn’t bring cases to this Supreme Court. Why ask permission, when you’re sure you’re right?
*On that topic, the Washington Post floats the idea that the trans rights activists are actually hurting the cause with their tactics.
“The question right now is not whether transgender advocates should fight or not fight — it’s whether going to hostile courts is the most prudent move,” said Duncan Hosie, a fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center and a supporter of legal protections for trans people.
Given the Supreme Court’s opinions last year upholding bans on transition care for minors and this week’s ruling on trans athletes, Hosie said, it’s clear that “courts are not the most prudent move.”
Tuesday’s decision found that states can separate teams based on “biological sex” without offending the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and Title IX, a landmark 1972 antidiscrimination law involving education.
The court’s six conservatives led the opinion, but even the court’s liberal justices agreed that such bans do not violate Title IX. They disagreed with the majority’s finding that the bans withstood scrutiny under the equal protection clause.
The ruling capped a year of setbacks for the LGBTQ+ movement, which included a ruling against state bans on “conversion therapy” for gay and trans minors, as well as an order temporarily halting California policies that discouraged notification of parents when their children were socially transitioning at school.
Litigators filing lawsuits on behalf of transgender plaintiffs say they face a frustrating dilemma. On one hand, the Trump administration and Republican-led states have implemented policies sharply restricting the rights of transgender people, and activists say those edicts must be fought.
On the other hand, lawsuits challenging these policies are routinely reaching the Supreme Court and resulting in precedents that are detrimental to trans rights, covering the entire country and potentially lasting for decades.
Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT & HIV Project, said he recognizes the movement needs to “adapt.” But there are no easy answers, Strangio said, when “you have every branch of [the federal] government stacked against you.“
I’m not sure that going to the courts is the big problem; rather, it’s the uber-activism of the gender movement, so that it pushes things that aren’t widely accepted, like the participation of biological men in women’s sports and the “right” to affirmative care. And that’s on top of some activists’ assertions that are misleading and irrelevant, like “all this legislation is trying to erase trans people” or “there aren’t that many trans athletes, anyway.” It’s the promotion of laws and practices that Americans don’t buy that is what brings these things to court. Of course there are some bigots fighting the activists, but arguing that Americans in general are anti-trans and want trans people contravenes what we see with our own eyes. Listen to the rhetoric of Chase Strangio, a trans lawyer for the ACLU, commenting on the Supreme Court case:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is, as always, cynical:
Hili: The radio said it was going to rain.
Andrzej: People say a lot of things.
In Polish
Hili: Mówili w radiu, że będzie padał deszcz.
Ja: Ludzie różne rzeczy mówią.
*******************
Another great medieval letter from TherionArms:
From Meow Incorporated, WAFFLES!
From Funny and Strange Signs:
From Luana: the newly-elected Democratic candidate for Representative in New York. This is what our party has come to:
“There is no money for schools, or childhood poverty”
These people live in a made up world. NYC spends 44k per year, per child on public school that leaves them illiterate. https://t.co/1jTfSekuoO— Lee Kuan Yimby (@LeeKuanYimby) June 29, 2026
The Number Ten Cat is right here:
Breaking: Three US Supreme Court justices haven’t read the 14th amendment https://t.co/upyyvxlWys
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) June 30, 2026
Ricky Gervais posting as his cat, Pickle:
My daddy told me the main kitty in Alley Cats was based on me, so I changed the description pic.twitter.com/3Uml48sSfE
— Pickle (@PickliciousF) June 30, 2026
Two from my feed. First, a raptor rescue (I love animal rescues):
That is freaking awesome!🫶🫶 pic.twitter.com/Zlo9JzXEYa
— 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 ✨🎵 (@Hoang_HQ) June 30, 2026
A Snow Horse/Angel. I hope this is real (so far there are no notes on it being AI):
A New Hampshire farm woman lies down in the snow and makes a snow angel.
Her horse does it too.pic.twitter.com/MgIHOHXiZk
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) July 1, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was 2 years old, and would be 84 today had she lived. https://t.co/AVLPSetKRP
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) July 2, 2026
And two from Dr. Cobb. Sound up on this video of a deep-sea sponge (sound up to learn about spicules):
Wow, I wasn't expecting the spicules to be that long. Also really cool color on this sponge@schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 935 #deepwonders #MarineLife
And look at the eyes on this fish!
An addition to the "Awesomely Peculiar Hall of Fame" — extremely rare sighting of a barreleye fish, & first footage of this species, Winteria telescopa, alive in situ. Filmed during the #Doldrums expedition at 710 m. Read more about tubular eyes & a light organ here:youtube.com/shorts/1bhh3…
— Schmidt Ocean Institute (@schmidtocean.bsky.social) 2026-06-29T18:29:48.705Z
LatelyI have found myself trying to follow Israel’s election politics even more closely than my own U.S. politics, which I drown in everyday. In particular I have been stunned by the behavior and the Netanyahu government’s acceptance of the violence of settlers in the west bank and the ever-increasing demands of the Haredi to be treated special. I think I understand it at the (cynical) level of political coalition survival, but this morning saw a Shalom Hartman Institute Ark Media video conversation, the first 35 minutes of which were very enlightening for me toward an understanding of the Haredi viewpoint. I urge readers to watch sometime today and would like to hear opinions from readers in Israel, such as Starwolf, (and also regular commenters such as Norman, D.A., and of course PCC(E)) on whether they think this analysis holds water. Url for video should be