Friday: Hili dialogue

We’ve reached the end of the work week and the end of the month simultaneously: it’s Friday, July 31, 2026, and National Avocado Day.  Here’s a video that will tell you how to make great guacamole (leave out the cilantro for those, like me, who can’t stand it). You probably need a mortar and pestle, too.

It’s also National Cotton Candy Day, National Raspberry Cake Day, National Spam Day (always good to have a can in the cupboard, as it has many uses), and Shredded Wheat Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 31 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking news, ripped from the headlines: Trump says that the “Board of Peace” created to run Gaza has struck a deal with Hamas, which has agreed to disarm. But of course there is no verification from Hamas (article archived here):

*Yesterday the U.S. and Saudis struck Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and the NYT says this severely risks expanding the war. The NYT of course does not want the war expaned. (Article archived here)

From the first link:

The Middle East teetered on the brink of an expanded war on Thursday, after Iran and the United States reignited their hostilities and inflamed conflicts on other fronts that threatened to draw in more countries.

For the first time since the war began in February, the authorities in Egypt said Thursday that an unidentified drone had caused an explosion at the Mediterranean port of Damietta the previous day. Earlier, Saudi Arabia also acknowledged direct involvement in the war for the first time, after conducting joint strikes with U.S. forces on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on Wednesday.

From the second:

For months, the government in Baghdad has sought to curb the Iran-backed militias that have long operated in Iraqi territory, struggling to meet the Trump administration’s demands that it bring them under state control, disarm them and cut off their funding.

A wave of U.S.-Saudi airstrikes that targeted the militias early Wednesday now risks upending those efforts. The attacks, which killed at least 20 people, have provided a new justification for Iran’s allies in Iraq to hold on to their arms and claim that they are the forces best positioned to protect the country’s sovereignty. And for Iran, the violence presents a chance to encourage these allied militias to join the regional war.

“The era of shedding Iraqi blood with impunity is over,” Mohammad Tamimi, leader of the Iran-aligned militia al-Waad al-Sadeq, said. “Our response will not be mere statements. It will be actions on the ground to enforce the equation: a bombing for a bombing.”

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal summarizes Netanyahu’s recent meeting with Trump & Co.:

The conversation, according to my source, was less a one-on-one than a roundtable—Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, and others weighing in across a wide range of issues.

Netanyahu isn’t losing sleep over the lack of face time. His goal was never to sell Trump on a renewed war; if anything, a private audience on the eve of one would only confirm the suspicion that he was the man pouring poison in the president’s ear, with any potential consequences of such an action laid entirely at his feet.

Netanyahu reportedly laid out three paths: diplomacy, war or blockade. He was far more interested in the latter two, assuming any diplomatic agreement with Iran would collapse on Iranian intransigence and pointing to continued economic pressure and military campaigns as the live options. But he was careful not to show it. As a senior source told The Times of Israel’s Jacob Magid, “Netanyahu did not tell Trump which of the three scenarios he preferred, although the premier did acknowledge doubts regarding the possibility that Iran will uphold any agreement it signs.”

This is not the same Netanyahu who walked into the White House on February 11, plan in hand, slideshow cued, testimonials from Israeli security officials at the ready. The change is deliberate. That presentation, and its consequences, have become a weight on his reputation—in Israel as much as in the United States. His selling point as Israel’s premier “Trump Whisperer” took a serious blow over the last few months of rocky relations and inconclusive results in Iran. Maybe it was time to return to an actual whisper: less room for a spectacular win, but less room for a spectacular loss.

Trump’s only line before the meeting came on Fox News: “We already know everything,” and “we don’t need Israel’s intelligence.” Whether or not that’s true, this was no Mossad chief unveiling Syria’s clandestine reactor to the Bush administration—it was a friendly workshop. As they say, teamwork makes the regime change work.

Right now, diplomacy with Iran seems fruitless.  They want far more than the U.S. is willing to provide, and seem intransigent when it comes to their nuclear program.  War or blockade seem the only efficacious policies right now, and we have no idea how efficacious they’d be.

*Evan Barker, who previously wrote a Free Press piece called “My former colleagues are destroying the Democratic Party,” has followed this up with a newer FP piece called “The inside story of how Democrats lost the working class.” And of course I read all such stories.

From 2018 to 2023, I was a Democratic operative, working for a slew of progressive candidates. I taught DSA-aligned staffers how to build a money machine for the left; coached progressive politicians on how to speak to donors; and collaborated with billionaires to create a robust fundraising network. I chart this story in detail in my forthcoming book, Nothing Left, a dispatch from the inside of the left’s rise and takeover of the Democratic Party.

In late 2024, I decided to leave the party, disillusioned by a leadership class that I had watched drift further and further from the working-class Americans they purportedly represented. But my history means that I have worked directly with the people behind almost every victory in the recent socialist sweep, including New York City’s Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Colorado’s Melat Kiros.

So believe me when I tell you: This far-left earthquake is only the beginning. It will not stop in deep-blue cities. What you just witnessed is only a preview of what is to come.

That’s not good news! It gets worse:

. . . Today’s hard left may masquerade as a grassroots, organic movement, but there is now major funding behind many of its most radical candidates. Donor networks like “Way to Win,” for example, promote far-left campaigns at their conferences and via email lists, introducing candidates to mainstream Democratic donors and helping infuse their campaigns with cash. The wealthy Soros family has backed some of the most incendiary “Squad” members and causes. Meanwhile, the very same operatives involved in earlier iterations of the Squad now have a decade of experience. These are not the “crazy activists” you see fighting online; they are highly competent, skilled and, for the most part, keep a low profile. They’ve now built an entire ecosystem that runs parallel to the official Democratic apparatus—equipped with their own consultant network, endorsing organizations, donors, and, yes, billionaires who back them. This is not a right-wing conspiracy. I have the receipts.

. . . The great irony, of course, is that the socialist movement is not composed of the working-class people it claims to represent. Rather, they are children of lawyers, professors, donors, and NGO directors who grew up with an incredible amount of privilege. So too are many of their voters. Darializa Avila Chevalier, for example, ran in a district that includes the Bronx, but she lost the working-class section by 30 points. She did well with young people and higher-income voters, and won the college-educated areas of her district by double digits.

. . .In response, the Democratic establishment and the progressives have nearly morphed into the same conglomerate. Fueled by the loss of working-class voters, this messy coalition has had no option but to concentrate its efforts toward the newly minted, overeducated, upper-middle-class base. For an illustration of that reality, one need only look at the Democrats trying to fight back. Two weeks ago, moderate Democrats signed a “Promise to America” pledge, outlining principles including “We are capitalist, not socialist,” and advocating “secure borders” and “safe communities.”

The effort is laudable. But just thirteen Democratic congress members signed it, out of the 212 in the House. The rest are either on board with the socialist surge, or quietly tolerating its rise. Most likely, that is because they are terrified of being primaried by a progressive caucus determined to rack up as many wins as it can ahead of the presidential election.

What it means is that the far left is steadily, with little to no resistance, capturing the Democratic Party.

So, what’s the solution? The only hope is for Democrats to stand up and expose the progressive movement for what it is. These people will not help your wallet. They will not lower costs. They will try to take down our borders, abolish our prisons, lambast our country, divide us into identity groups, and abandon the values of the working class. They say so explicitly. And even if they didn’t, I should know; I was there, until the moment I gathered enough courage to leave.

Ms. Barker says the solution is to expose the “progressives” for what they are, emphasizing that they are not the party of the working class. Ignoring this movement won’t help.  I’m doing my bit; now you do yours. Go out and expose progressivism today!

*Apropos of Fauci’s roasting the other day before a Congressional committee, the WaPo editorial board has written an op-ed called “The sad takeaway from Fauci’s refusal to testify” (archived here). While they note that Fauci wasn’t perfect, that kind of grilling is no way to have an impartial and useful assessment of how what we did wrong and what we need to do to mitigate pandemics in the future.

Anthony S. Fauci refused to answer any questions about the origins of covid-19 while testifying before a Senate committee, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times. President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci, and the retired civil servant followed the advice of his lawyers to say nothing lest he perjure himself.

But it’s a real shame that the country cannot have an honest conversation, with the benefit of hindsight, about the many mistakes that were made six years ago. America has never fully grappled with the causes and consequences of covid.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who spearheaded the Senate’s investigation into Fauci, had repeatedly said he wants to put the former health official behind bars. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during an interview this week that “if he lies again, he could be subject to perjury prosecution.”

Fauci resisted issuing guidance to reopen schools for far too long, upending education for millions of kids. He was too slow to accept scientific evidence that the coronavirus spread via airborne droplets, blunting protective strategies.

Newly released diaries show Fauci was self-absorbed and often held different views in private than he expressed in public.

But while it’s fair to criticize Fauci, it’s quite another to try to concoct new ways to prosecute him. Paul is now threatening to hold Fauci in contempt for invoking his constitutional rights.

. . .In 2021, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sought to establish an independent commission to investigate the crisis. But that floundered amid political dysfunction.

Such a panel, which would have been modeled off the 9/11 Commission, could have pieced together a more definitive, nonpartisan record of facts regarding the virus’s origins. More importantly, it could have evaluated where the government went wrong in responding to the pandemic.

The failure to conduct such oversight squandered a precious learning opportunity to strengthen U.S. defenses against the next deadly pathogen.

They’re right.  There’s nothing to gain by prosecuting an 85-year-old man now. Unfortunately, unless he gets further immunity from prosecution, Fauci, who’s the one person we need to hear from, is likely to remain clammed up.

*Hadi Matar, the man who nearly killed author Salman Rushdie by stabbing him in 2022, has been found (additionally) guilty, this time for aiding a terrorist group and following the fatwa orders of the Ayatollah in Iran. (Matar had already been convicted of attempted murder.)

A man who stabbed the author Salman Rushdie more than a dozen times was found guilty on Wednesday of aiding a foreign terrorist group and carrying out the orders of the Iranian government, which had called for Mr. Rushdie’s death more than three decades ago.

Hadi Matar, a young man who had been enraged by Mr. Rushdie’s work, rushed onstage at a retreat in western New York in August 2022 and stabbed him repeatedly. Mr. Rushdie survived the attack, but was left with severe nerve damage and blind in his right eye.

Mr. Matar was convicted of attempted murder in state court last year and sentenced to 25 years in prison. On Wednesday, Mr. Matar, 28, was convicted of providing material support to a terrorist group and committing an act of terrorism that transcended national boundaries.

The verdict, which was reached by a federal jury in Buffalo after just two hours of deliberation, means Mr. Matar could spend the rest of his life in prison. He is set to be sentenced in November.

Mr. Matar showed no response in the marble-and-wood courtroom as the verdict was read aloud. He kept his head lowered, his chair swaying slowly from side to side.

Nathaniel L. Barone II, a lawyer for Mr. Matar, said afterward that he was disappointed with the verdict, which he said he would appeal. The current war with Iran, he said, presented an inherent challenge in convincing jurors of Mr. Matar’s innocence.

There was no debate over whether Mr. Matar had attacked Mr. Rushdie on that day. The trial, which lasted one week, centered on Mr. Matar’s motives: Prosecutors had to convince jurors that he had committed an act of terror and supplied material support to a known terrorist organization.

. . . prosecutors argued that without the fatwa, Mr. Matar would not have been compelled to attack Mr. Rushdie. They presented his notes and composition books, which frequently mentioned the importance of carrying out the fatwa and his pursuit of Mr. Rushdie. In a composition book, he wrote, with bullets before each entry, “We need to kill him ASAP,” “finally get this over with,” and “beginning of Jihad.”

That sounds dispositive to me. Unless they can argue that Matar was not guilty by reason of insanity, which seems unlikely, these are the hallmarks of terrorism inspired by the fatwa. If you read Rusdhie’s compelling book about the attack, Knife, you’ll see how close to death he came. Matar remains a danger to society, and should be dealt with accordingly.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili thinks the Zeitgeist is a spirit:

Hili: Careful, the Zeitgeist is lurking behind you.
Andrzej: Just ignore it.

In Polish:

Hili: Uważaj, za tobą czai się Zeitgeist.
Ja: Nie zwracaj na niego uwagi.

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From Stacy:

From Things With Faces, an angry mop:

From Meow Incorporated:

Only one tweet today as I am entertaining visitors. Regular service will return tomorrow or Sunday.

This Czech Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was fourteen years old. https://t.co/IvcymPu8eD

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) July 31, 2026