OUT: Believe All Women. IN: Graham Platner. What a Ceasefire! Austin Metcalf’s Father: ‘The Moral Decay Is Frightening.’ Belfast Burning: Beheading Incident Is Trigger. More
The Dems have come a long way, baby, since that old “believe all women” ruse. It was made clear that it was a ruse all along last night when scandal-ridden Graham Platner triumphed in Maine’s Senate primary.
A USA TODAY headline described Platner as “unscathed” by scandals. “Unscathed” is an understatement: with 81% of the votes counted, Platner had 72%. Former Governor Janet Mills was a distant second with 35%. Platner will run against GOP moderate Susan Collins in the fall. Interesting sidelight on that old “believe all women” stuff from The Free Press:
Lyndsey Fifield told ‘The New York Times’ Graham Platner emotionally abused her and became physical multiple times. So why is she under attack?
In addition to women, billionaires might want to watch their step. Axios has five takeaways from the Platner win. In his victory speech, Platner admitted that he is “still far from perfect.” Also, an understatement. In the running for bluntest headline of the day: “The Scum Also Rises: Graham Platner Makes History As First Vanity Oysterman With Nazi Tattoo To Win US Senate Nomination.”
In other primary elections news, California has at last counted enough votes to know that Republican Steve Hilton definitely made the finals and will face Xavier Becerra in the Governor’s race. It is hard to exaggerate the miracle that a Republican did that well in California. UK Telegraph headline: “Cameron Aide One Step from Becoming California Governor.”
South Carolina was also the scene of primary elections yesterday. Once a rising star, Rep. Nancy Mace flamed out of the gubernatorial race:
Mace did not come close — sitting in fifth place with 80 percent of the vote counted. A onetime Trump critic, she had sought to pitch herself as a Trump die-hard.
[Pamela] Evette and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson will face each other in a runoff because neither secured at least 50 percent of the vote among such a crowded field….
Lt. Gov. Evette has President Trump’s endorsement. GOP Senator Lindsey Graham received more than 50% of the vote, thereby avoiding a runoff.
Oh, What a Lovely Cease-Fire. The U.S. has launched strikes on Iran after the terror regime shot down an American Apache helicopter (the two crewmembers have been rescued). A Wall Street Journal story:
The strikes, which lasted several hours and which the military said were carried out in self-defense, were directed by President Trump.
“The operation was a proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters,” Centcom, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, said in a statement released around 9 p.m. Eastern time announcing the end of the operation. …
In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a drone attack on the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, the IRGC said.
Many hearts sank at the words “proportional response.” An editorial in the Washington Post finds President Trump “overly eager” to reach a deal with Iran:
While Tehran’s current leadership structure remains opaque, it’s clear that hard-liners retain significant power. In recent weeks, Trump has seemed overly eager to negotiate a peace agreement to extract the U.S. from the war he started in February.
While the administration often repeats that no deal is better than a bad deal, the president also frequently announces that a final breakthrough is imminent (usually to soothe markets right before they open). He also has telegraphed that he lacks the appetite to restart full-scale bombing and pressured Israel over the weekend not to fire back when attacked by Iranian proxies.
The Middle East Forum notes that Iran’s decision to attack Israel was to protect its proxies, most immediately Hezbollah in Lebanon, part of Iran’s “Resistance Axis.” The Wall Street Journal suggests that after three days of strikes, the conflict is entering a “dangerous new phase.”
More on the Iran strikes from CBS.
Karmello Anthony, the Texas teenager who plunged a knife into the heart of another teen, Austin Metcalf, at an athletic event, has been convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years. He will be eligible for parole in 17 years. The case was clear-cut:
One of the most emotional testimonies came from Collin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr Elizabeth Ventura, who described a large, gaping wound in Metcalf’s chest and said the knife had pierced his heart.
Despite overwhelming evidence of Anthony’s guilt, “hate-filled protests” erupted outside the courtroom when the “guilty” verdict was read:
Someone raged, “This whole thing’s been racist!
Another person yelled, “Y’all used to locking up n—as any goddamn way!”
A Metcalf supporter donning a suit and tie was hauled away from the courthouse in handcuffs after he allegedly shoved an Anthony sympathizer.
The cops physically blocked the pro-Anthony mob from reaching the detained man.
“Bye b–ch! Bye p—y ass n—a!” one woman cackled.
This is such a disheartening story. Anthony’s mother made a plea for mercy for her son. In a heartrending statement, Austin Metcalf’s father demanded that Anthony look him in the eye:
Metcalf had been silenced by a gag order by the court for opposing the decision to place Anthony under house arrest while awaiting trial.
He blamed the teen’s crazed supporters for swatting his home six times.
The outraged Metcalf briefly mentioned the pro-Karmelo Anthony protesters who had formed outside the courthouse as he shot down the group’s claims that the trial was racist against a young black teen who had committed the stabbing in self-defense.
“This was never about race,” he said. “It is about right and wrong. The public’s response sickens me … The moral decay is frightening.”
A Knife Attack in Belfast. A Sudanese migrant has been identified as the suspect in an attempted beheading in Belfast. You read that right—beheading:
Stephen Ogilvie, thought to be 44, suffered injuries to both eyes after Sudanese migrant Hadi Alodid, 30, allegedly tried to behead him late Monday night, the Sun reported.
Barbaric video footage showed Ogilvie being pinned under the knifeman — with a horrified witness heard crying, “He’s trying to cut his head off. He’s slicing his head off.”
The migrant — who reportedly exploited a legal loophole to get into the UK — is also accused of threatening to kill a radiographer on the same day as Monday’s attack, the hearing was told.
Fortunately, a heroic bystander stepped in before it was too late. Belfast is convulsed by rioting. In a post headlined “The Barbarism in Belfast,” Spiked Online’s Brendan O’Neill writes that the crazed, savage knifing was a bloody byproduct of state failure. O’Neill writes:
Are we allowed to feel pure, cold rage yet? It’s what millions of us felt this morning as we watched footage of that barbarous assault in Belfast. However much the pleb-fearing thoughtpolice of Keir Starmer’s government might disapprove of such fury, it’s the emotion that swelled in all decent British and Irish people as they saw a brute rain stab after stab upon his sprawled, struggling victim. Good luck trying to curb the people’s rage over this act of wanton savagery.
It was truly obscene. On a dimly lit nighttime street in north Belfast, a kind of medieval butchery unfolded. A local man in his 40s was mercilessly pinned down by the knifeman. Each plunge of the knife was coldly, cruelly executed. The monster went for the man’s face, his neck, his back. The police announced this morning that the victim suffered ‘significant injuries to his eyes’. Was this an attempted eye-gouging? In the United Kingdom in 2026? Some are calling it an attempted beheading. Whichever it was, we now know the early media reports about a ‘knife incident’ were shamefully euphemistic, dolling up a monstrous atrocity in the garb of everyday crime.
You might remember that there was a knifing in New York’s Penn Station on Sunday. City Journal points out that there was “nothing normal” about the Penn Station slashing. New Yorkers aren’t going to riot (at least about this). Rather, the threat is that they will normalize mental illness. The slasher appears to have been mentally ill. Ho hum.
Don’t miss “The Lockdown Dissidents,” a video opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on “ a group of prominent scientists challenged the prevailing government approach to lockdowns.”
