For decades, socialists have held up Sweden as a model for the kind of government they want to build in the United States. But according to Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck, that argument falls apart the moment you look at what actually happened in Sweden.

“During the postwar decades, Sweden dramatically expanded government spending, the taxes, the regulation. By the 1970s and into the 1980s, economic growth slowed way down. Investments weakened; entrepreneurs left,” Glenn says.

“Some of Sweden’s most successful companies and business leaders moved. They just moved out of the country. IKEA relocated ownership to the Netherlands. Tetra Pak moved to Switzerland. Sweden’s relative standing among wealthy nations fell sharply for two decades,” he explains.

Instead of doubling down, Sweden then reversed course.

“Governments from both the left and the right reduced regulations. They reformed the pensions. These are things we’re not doing. They introduced private competition into education. … Today, more than 800 independent schools operate with public funding. Private companies run a substantial share of the Swedish primary health centers,” he says.

“Taxes were restructured. Markets were liberalized. The reforms were not a rejection of the welfare state. They were an acknowledgment that somebody first has to create the wealth to pay for it,” he continues.

“It’s really hard to redistribute prosperity after you’ve regulated prosperity out of existence. And that’s what New York is doing,” he adds.

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Two Kansas parents are accused of leaving their six children — including two infants — in a hot car as temperatures neared triple digits last week; the parents reportedly went inside a Wingstop for up to 30 minutes.

Citing Salina Police, KSAL-AM reported that officers were dispatched to the Wingstop in the 1600 block of South Ohio Street around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday concerning multiple children left in a vehicle in the parking lot for approximately 20 to 30 minutes with no air conditioning and only one window down.

‘A child’s body temperature raises three to five times faster than adults. They just do not have the same regulating capabilities that an adult does.’

KSAL said arriving officers found a vehicle containing two 7-month-old children, a 2-year-old, a 4-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 13-year-old. The station said the vehicle was not running and had only one window down while the temperature was 97 degrees with a heat index of 102 degrees.

KSAL added that “the parents of the children,” identified as 53-year-old Michael Krueger and 40-year-old Tiffany Krueger, were located inside the business.

Witnesses said the parents had been in the business for approximately 20 to 30 minutes without checking on the children, the station said.

The Salina Police Department confirmed that Michael Krueger and Tiffany Krueger were booked on six counts of aggravated child endangerment, KWCH-TV reported.

Salina EMS responded and evaluated the children, KSAL reported; police also confirmed that all six children were taken into protective custody, KWCH added.

The parents remained behind bars Monday in Saline County Jail.

RELATED: Mother ‘intentionally’ left her toddler in hot car, police say. Now she’s charged with murder.

Chad Scoville of the Salina Fire Department told KWCH that children are more vulnerable to heat than adults.

“A child’s body temperature raises three to five times faster than adults,” Scoville told the station. “They just do not have the same regulating capabilities that an adult does.”

Scoville added to KWCH that temperatures inside vehicles can reach dangerous levels in a short period of time.

“Temperatures can reach deadly levels inside cars within minutes,” Scoville told the station. “Anything can happen at any time, even if you think you’re going to be minutes — that could turn into an hour. We simply do not want to leave … children or pets in unattended vehicles. Period.”

KWCH, citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said cracking a car window does not help reduce temperatures inside a vehicle. The station’s video report said a thermometer placed inside a car starting at 83 degrees with the windows rolled up reached 108 degrees in approximately 20 minutes.

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There are threats, and then there are $30 billion threats.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta seems to have the magic wand that could remedy the situation, but the decision is not exactly a case of right and wrong.

‘The proposed transaction will increase output, expand theatrical releases, and enhance competition.’

All my exes live in Texas

The massive $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount has the California AG at a seemingly unforgiving fork in the road: either allow it to go through or face an exodus of capital in the amount of tens of billions.

At the same time, Paramount CEO David Ellison is allegedly being pushed by advisers and confidants to consider moving his company’s business out of California. Semafor reported that this would take around $30 billion in planned spending out of state if AG Bonta stops the long-battled merger with his new lawsuit.

If the deal were to go through, Paramount would keep both companies’ lots in California, but if it doesn’t, there are a few distinct possibilities.

The first and most popular choice for companies in recent years has been Texas, where both Oracle and Tesla moved in 2020 and 2021. Oracle then went to Tennessee in 2024, which also offers a lower corporate tax rate than California, but neither of these locations is where Paramount bought new office space.

RELATED: California doles out over $100M in taxpayer money to massive film studios

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Strictly business

Last year, Paramount picked up 285,000 square feet of studio space in Bayonne, New Jersey, another option should things fall apart in the Golden State. However, New Jersey joined California’s lawsuit to block the merger, so it remains unclear if the state would still welcome Paramount if it dropped anchor on New Jersey’s shores.

Paramount has defended its intentions by saying the merger is not just good for business, it’s good for the business.

“This merger will create a company capable of investing more aggressively in premium content, theatrical releases, and creative talent at a time when those investments matter more than ever,” Paramount said in a press release provided to Blaze News.

Over the course of several letters, Paramount argued to the California AG that Netflix, Amazon, and Disney have control over the subscription streaming service world, and neither Warner Bros. nor Paramount would be able to “catch up” with the companies without doing “something transformative.”

Paramount added, “The proposed transaction will increase output, expand theatrical releases, and enhance competition with scaled streaming platforms, all of which depend on sustained and growing demand for creative talent.”

Needless to say, Bonta did not agree with these calculations and offered an opposing viewpoint.

RELATED: Hollywood’s Bleeding

Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Not a fan

In his lawsuit, AG Bonta said the merger could inflict “substantial harm on movie theaters, basic cable distributors and, ultimately, audiences nationwide.”

The merger threatens viewers with higher prices, the AG claimed, while reducing the “variety, quality, and amount of content distributed.”

The following states joined California in its lawsuit: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington.

Paramount representatives did not address questions about the potential of leaving California.

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The bullet is said to have missed his head by “less than a quarter of an inch.” That is the whole of it, really — history, for a moment, decided by margin rather than by meaning.

On July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania: a rally, a rifle, eight shots. Trump came up off the stage with blood on his ear, fist in the air, shouting, “Fight, fight, fight.” The photograph — flag flying behind him, crowd frozen mid-scream — held the one second death didn’t win, long enough to mean something before anyone decided what.

‘We have thrived and flourished because our founders were great, our cause was just, our people are brave, our culture is exceptional, and our destiny is written by God.’

Trump ducked first, then Secret Service agents covered him. Some feared he had been killed until he rose, fist raised, and was moved toward the waiting SUV. He was treated at the scene, then at Butler Memorial Hospital, before flying home to New Jersey that night.

The rally grounds sat empty for hours, the gunman’s body still on the rooftop, where snipers had killed 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks within 15 seconds.

Corey Comperatore, 50, a former volunteer fire chief, dove on top of his family when the shooting started. He did not get a photograph — just a flag-draped casket. Two others were wounded but survived: David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74.

RELATED: Democrats still in denial about assassination attempts against Trump, new poll shows

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Just shy of two years after Butler, Trump stood on the National Mall as the 47th president, watching fireworks over a country marking its 250th year.

He spoke past midnight into the wet dark, working through two and a half centuries of American history before declaring, “At 250 years old, we may be the oldest constitutional republic on earth, but our country is just getting started because the best is yet to come. This is only the dawn of the golden age of America.”

Not everyone reads the ledger the same way. By June, Trump’s approval rating had fallen to 36% in the Marist poll, the lowest of his second term, with just a third of Americans approving of his handling of the economy. Despite the low poll ratings, the second Trump term has featured promise after promise kept.

RELATED: From ‘one guy, one gun’ to foreign plots: Glenn Beck exposes the terrifying evolution of assassination attempts against Trump

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Over the same stretch, southwest border apprehensions hit their lowest level since 1970 — a central pledge kept. “No tax on tips” and “no tax on overtime” became law. A raid under 30 minutes hauled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, blindfolded in a grey tracksuit, onto a plane bound for the U.S. to face narco-terrorism charges. Pricing deals with drugmakers cut the list price of several medications, and tariffs pushed companies to pledge new American factories, even after the Supreme Court struck down the authority he used to impose them.

Trump won that November on exactly that defiance and has governed since like a man still living out the title of his own book, “The Art of the Comeback” — written almost 30 years before anyone could have imagined what the ultimate comeback would actually look like.

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One passenger had a terrifying ordeal when his window broke soon after takeoff and he was partially sucked to the outside of the plane.

On Friday morning, the unidentified man was traveling from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen in Germany on a budget Ryanair flight before the harrowing incident. The flight was directed to turn back to Thessaloniki and reportedly landed safely.

‘The injured man was bleeding and initially fainted.’

The man was sucked out of the window head-first up to his shoulders, according to public broadcaster ERT in Greece.

Other passengers rushed to hold him down and prevent him from being sucked out even more.

He was treated for shock and other injuries, while the rest of the passengers were transferred to another flight, according to Ryanair.

One witness described the incident.

“We were sitting a bit further back from where it happened; all we heard was a loud noise, and then the oxygen masks dropped,” the witness said. “The injured man was bleeding and initially fainted.”

According to the doctor who treated the man, he was 61 years old, and his wife had to hold on to his feet to keep him in the plane.

A Greek flight official told ABC News that the Ryanair Boeing 737 suffered an engine failure that led to parts hitting the fuselage and damaging the window.

“Ryanair flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen on Friday morning (10 July) returned to Thessaloniki shortly after takeoff when a passenger window dislodged inflight,” read a statement from Ryanair. “The aircraft landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal.”

The statement continued: “One passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki.”

Video from the aftermath of the incident showed the oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling and the broken window.

RELATED: VIDEO: Woman twerks during arrest after she and 2 others allegedly stormed flight over baggage fee

The aircraft was delivered by Boeing in 2008.

The Hellenic Air and Rail Safety Investigation Authority is investigating the incident.

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A sitting United States congressman reported an unexpected altercation during his visit to Israel last week. While supporters call for accountability, others have insisted that the altercation was nothing more than a big misunderstanding.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) made a post on Saturday detailing an alleged detention by Israeli settlers and Israel Defense Forces.

‘It’s too much, too insulting and humiliating to America. This is how revolutions start.’

The video and photo in Rep. Khanna’s initial post show multiple vehicles in the road with a few men standing outside one of the trucks. The vehicles appear to be blocking the road from the perspective of a camera in a vehicle facing the scene.

Two of the men are apparently holding firearms. One of them appears to be wearing full military garb.

“Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine. When the IDF arrived, they sided with the settlers & continued our detention,” Khanna said in the caption of the post.

“They made a huge mistake. You will be hearing more soon,” he added, linking a New York Times article at the end of the post.

RELATED: California Democrat calls for ICE to be abolished after Homan announces ‘record’ illegal alien arrests

Alex Wong/Getty Images

The initial post has since garnered 10 million views on X.

The New York Times added some context behind Khanna’s three-day trip. On Wednesday, the Democratic congressman was visiting the abandoned Palestinian Bedouin village of Khirbet Zanuta in the southern West Bank.

According to the report, “a car of men holding guns pulled up and blocked the narrow road out of the village.” The men allegedly began harassing and taunting Khanna and his team. Eventually, members of the Israeli military showed up, yet instead of dispersing the settlers, they began blocking the road as well.

While Khanna was eventually allowed to continue his journey, he reflected on the fear that this incident inspired in him: “I felt powerless in that situation, which is not an easy thing, as I have a lot of privilege in life. Imagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes.”

The Israeli military confirmed that troops were sent to the scene after receiving a report of settlers blocking vehicles near the Palestinian village, according to a statement by the Israeli military to Reuters.

“Upon their arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way,” the military told Reuters.

On Monday morning, the congressman reposted bodycam footage capturing what Khanna described as an “unprecedented, illegal detention of Americans by a foreign country.”

The video, posted by Nadav Wieman, executive director of Breaking the Silence, shows the point of view of a man walking up to several men in one car and speaking with them briefly before returning to a van. However, the man does not refer to Khanna by name, nor does Khanna appear at any point in the video.

Of the video, Wieman wrote: “The IDF is lying about the detention of Rep. Khanna. I was on the ground with him that day, and my body camera captured us being detained by both settlers and Israeli soldiers. The IDF did not disperse the violent settlers, as they claim. They explicitly sided with them.”

However, others, including Ambassadors Mike Huckabee and Michael Leiter, have insisted that there is “more to this story,” as Huckabee put it.

In a “Face the Nation” interview, Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the United States, explained that the congressman did not follow the proper protocol, leading to confusion: “There was not an alert. There was a question about visas, that’s all.”

“When we requested he coordinate the trip with us, he rejected that by basically staying silent. So, that’s unfortunate. This whole incident is unfortunate,” he added.

Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, has acknowledged the incident in two separate posts, though both posts merely highlighted others’ reporting on the incident, a fact which one of Huckabee’s high-profile opponents attacked.

Additionally, Huckabee’s two posts acknowledging the incident came several hours after Tucker Carlson’s attack on his response:

An Amercian [sic] member of congress is threatened by foreign terrorists carrying American rifles, backed by a foreign military paid for by American taxpayers, and the US ambassador to that country says not a word in defense of his own countryman, and instead uses his social media accounts to promote his own vapid cable news appearances, which amount to propaganda for that same foreign country. It’s too much, too insulting and humiliating to America. This is how revolutions start. For the sake our nation, Mike Huckabee should be removed from his post immediately.

Blaze News contacted the Jerusalem Embassy’s press office in an attempt to receive a comment from Huckabee but did not immediately receive a response.

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California Assembly members recently peered into the garage of a suburban hobbyist and experienced a collective panic attack. Their legislative response, Assembly Bill 2047, presents itself as a targeted strike against the DIY firearm industry. This classification completely misrepresents the mechanics of the law. The actual mechanism establishes a permanent legal framework in which consumer hardware operates as an automated, inescapable agent of the state.

The statute mandates that every 3D printer sold in California must run mandatory screening software. This system intercepts every digital file, compares the geometric coordinates against a government-maintained database of banned shapes, and shuts down the machine if it detects a forbidden curve. Property law historically recognized a distinct boundary between an object and its purchaser. Under this new system, the state retains ultimate operational veto power over the physical components sitting on your workshop desk, rendering your financial investment and your purchase receipt completely meaningless.

A permanent digital warden in the consumer’s living room.

In 1872, the Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company did not include a microscopic state inspector inside the frame of every Single Action Army revolver to ensure the user aimed at a legal target. The legal system punished the homicide after the body was found. Tools were inert objects of wood and iron. If a blacksmith forged a crowbar in 1890, the state did not mandate that the anvil refuse to shape metals exceeding a certain thickness to prevent bank robberies. A.B. 2047 reverses this dynamic by installing a permanent digital warden in the consumer’s living room.

This structural pivot transforms the machine into the primary enforcer of public policy. The logic governing this bill mirrors the expansion of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970. Originally designed to flag massive international drug cartel transactions, those exact same reporting mechanisms now force local credit unions to report every individual citizen who withdraws $10,000 of their own cash to buy a used truck. The surveillance footprint expands because the code is already written, and bureaucratic infrastructure loathes a vacuum.

If only outlaws have printed guns

The state’s reliance on automated geometry recognition assumes an intelligence that software does not possess. A hollow cylinder with threading on one end is the exact geometric blueprint for an automotive oil filter, a high-school physics lab weight, a specialized irrigation nozzle, or a firearm suppressor. Algorithms cannot parse human intent. The software views the universe entirely as vectors and vertex points, meaning an industrial designer prototyping a new prosthetic limb component faces an automatic shutdown because his custom structural bracket shares a three-millimeter curve tolerance with a specific rifle receiver.

The actual architects of illicit manufacturing remain entirely unaffected by these computational barriers. A criminal operating a black-market workshop possesses the basic technical literacy required to flash an open-source firmware update, bypass the factory software entirely, or source an unrestricted machine from a vendor across the Nevada border. The state creates an elaborate system of restrictions that binds only the compliant hobbyist who registers his machine, buys legitimate materials, and pays his taxes on time.

RELATED: At America 250, Democrats unveil new surveillance state blueprint

ismagilov/Getty Images

The relationship between user and object now resembles a feudal tenancy arrangement rather than true possession. You provide the electricity, you allocate the physical square footage in your home, and you purchase the plastic filament. The state determines whether the machine executes your command.

This aligns with the broader degradation of product ownership seen across the tech sector, such as the 2022 incident in which John Deere restricted farmers from repairing their own tractor transmissions without a proprietary digital key held exclusively by corporate headquarters. A $99,000,000 class-action settlement in April of this year forced the manufacturer to temporarily lease diagnostic software back to owners for a fixed 10-year window, leaving the underlying structure of corporate hardware control completely unbothered. A.B. 2047 takes this this loss of consumer control and weaponizes it into a statutory requirement.

Join and die?

Silicon Valley spent decades convincing the public that connectivity equaled liberation. A.B. 2047 codifies the reality that connectivity equals a centralized kill switch. Once the population accepts the premise that a manufacturing tool must seek state clearance before melting a line of plastic, the database of forbidden shapes will expand during every subsequent legislative session. The next amendment will target unlicensed medical devices, then copyrighted mechanical designs, and eventually any component that challenges a state-sanctioned corporate monopoly or a protected government contract.

Totalitarian control rarely arrives via a single, dramatic military coup. It embeds itself through highly rationalized, safety-oriented firmware updates pushed to your device at three in the morning while you sleep. By the time the consumer realizes the machine on his desk is no longer his property, the software has already logged the technological infraction and immediately notified the authorities.

​Tech 

President Trump said Monday he has a pick in mind to fill the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat — and it’s not a rising Republican star or a familiar name from Congress.

Trump wants South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) to appoint the late senator’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone. Graham became the legal guardian of Nordone in his early 20s after their parents died within months of each other, and the two remained close for the rest of his life.

‘This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!’

Graham died Saturday night at 71, likely of an aortic dissection, the medical examiner said, following what his office initially described as a “brief and sudden illness.” His death prompted a scramble among Republicans for the seat.

Trump posted on Truth Social, “I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina. This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!”

Under state law, McMaster has sole authority to name an interim replacement, and that appointee would likely have a leg up in the special primary on Aug. 11 to fill Graham’s spot on the November ballot, if he or she decides to run.

RELATED: Lindsey Graham dead at 71

LOGAN CYRUS/AFP/Getty Images

However, Nordone is unlikely to seek the seat herself. So if McMaster selects her, the special primary would be locked in as the real contest for the nomination while still keeping the seat in Republican hands until the new Congress convenes Jan. 3.

McMaster’s office has not committed to a pick, saying only that its focus “at this time” is on honoring Graham’s life and service. McMaster is expected to hold a press conference at 4 p.m. ET Monday, where he may address the vacancy directly.

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In a recent article, the New York Times set out to decode the supposed political meaning behind conservative political figures’ maternity wardrobes, but it really just exposed how desperate the media has become to smear them.

“Vanessa Friedman, the author, claims ‘these pregnancies symbolically reinforce the administration’s emphasis on the pronatalist movement, pushing family, motherhood, and higher birth rates,’” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey reads from the article on “Relatable.”

“Actually, the truth is that the Trump administration and MAGA in general is young. Like it is a younger movement. I’m not saying all of the youth is MAGA. Obviously, the youth is still predominantly Gen Z, but you got a lot of young people. I love it,” she continues.

“But we’re all kind of like the same generation, in the same stage of life, having kids. That’s cool. Not that I’m someone who needs representation,” she adds.

In the article, the author writes, “If the bare-chested, muscled, mixed martial arts fighters at the UFC match that President Trump hosted on Flag Day were the poster guys for the MAGA’s image of masculinity, then the pregnant women of Trump world are one half of their feminine counterparts.”

“They offer an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement,” she added.

The author used old photos of pregnant Jackie Kennedy and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie, to illustrate her point: that women used to hide their pregnant bellies, and now they show them off, like Usha Vance.

“Now, she tries really hard to go deeply into this to say that this has to do with promoting fertility rates, which may be so, but this is also a change in style. She is trying to contrast style in the 1960s, in 2000, to today,” Stuckey explains.

“I think a lot of women have found that actually accentuating the bump or being able to show that is more flattering than wearing things, especially when you get bigger, that look like a tent,” she continues.

Usha Vance responded to the article on X, writing, “Now that we know the political significance of my $8.75 coral maternity dress from Old Navy, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic-waistband pants and compression socks!”

“She’s just trying to make the point again, it’s not that deep. I bought a dress that was super affordable and that I could fit and that’s all. It’s not some marketing scheme to promote fertility,” Stuckey adds.

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​Allie beth stuckey, Donald trump, Jackie kennedy, Jd vance, The new york times, Usha vance, Pregnant women, Maternity fashion, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

The Strait of Hormuz — the body of water between Iran and Oman linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman — is one of the world’s key maritime choke points through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil customarily transits. It has largely been closed since the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran in late February.

After America’s interim peace deal and ceasefire with Tehran was blown to smithereens last week, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. will “keep” the strait and formally serve as its guardian.

‘We guarded it for nothing.’

U.S. Central Command announced late on Sunday that it had executed another series of offensive strikes against Iran, striking “Iranian military air-defense systems, coastal radar sites, missile and drone capabilities, and small boats using U.S. fighter aircraft, naval vessels, one-way attack aerial drones, and one-way attack sea drones for the first time.”

CENTCOM stated that “the Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade. Iran does not control it.”

Trump referred to the latest strikes in a phone interview with “Fox & Friends” on Monday, noting, “We had a deal — it was a done deal — and then they broke it. They always break it. We’ve had 10 deals with these people.”

“So we’re just going to hit them very hard, and we’re going to keep the strait,” continued the president. “And we’ll probably run it. We’ll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we’ll call it the guardian angel of the strait. And we should be reimbursed for that.”

In April, Trump floated the idea of the U.S. unilaterally imposing tolls on vessels attempting to pass through the strait, stating, “Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner.”

RELATED: Trump says interim peace deal with Tehran is ‘over’ after Iranian strikes: ‘They’re scum’

Elif Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images

This suggestion ruffled some feathers at the time, especially since tolls on vessels transiting a natural strait would seem to run afoul of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — ratified by the U.S., 170 other nations, and the European Union — which guarantees vessels the “right of transit passage” through straits used for international navigation; bars states bordering straits from hampering transit passage; and states that “no charge may be levied upon foreign ships by reason only of their passage through the territorial sea.”

In his interview on Monday, Trump said, “When we do that, we’re going to be reimbursed, because the other nations are very wealthy, they’re on our side, and we can’t be expected to do that for nothing, unlike we had for many years.”

“We guarded the strait for 50 years — more — and we never got paid for it,” added Trump.

“We guarded it for nothing, and now we’re going to guard it and we’re going to get paid for guarding it — a lot of money.”

Trump later noted in a Truth Social post that “the U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”

The BBC suggested that American allies will likely “balk” at the 20% duty.

A spokesman for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the unified command of the remaining Iranian Armed Forces, said in a statement on Monday, “We will under no circumstances allow the US to interfere in the management of the Strait of Hormuz.”

The spokesman said that Iran would respond forcefully to any attempt by the “aggressor and pirate US military” to obstruct or create insecurity for the passage of commercial ships outside the routes designated by Tehran, reported state media.

Mohammed Mokhber, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, reportedly said in a statement, “We defend it so that in the future, for the passage of our ships, we are not forced to pay tribute to the enemy!”

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​Strait of hormuz, Iran, Tehran, War, Oil, Trade, Blockade, Gulf of oman, Donald trump, Politics 

A Wisconsin female who was renting an Airbnb at a Florida resort purposely drove into and injured a resort security guard after refusing to provide ID earlier this month, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.

The victim — who works security at the Windsor Island Resort on Aloha Boulevard in Davenport — contacted authorities around 9 p.m. July 4, the sheriff’s office said.

‘All this woman had to do was show some ID and register her car at the resort where she was staying.’

The victim told officials a female driving a gray Chrysler Pacifica was attempting to enter the property when she was told at the entry gate that she needed to be on the list of approved visitors or provide identification, the sheriff’s office said.

The driver, who had a female passenger in the car, asked, “What are you going to do if I drive through?” officials said.

The driver was told that would not be a good idea, officials said.

With that, she sped through the entry gates and proceeded to Lana Avenue, the sheriff’s office said.

RELATED: ‘Needs a reset’: San Francisco mayor’s security detail attacked just as he admits city governance is ‘broken’

Image source: Polk County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office

Officials said the security guard got into his patrol vehicle and followed her.

He asked her again for identification and to register her car as a visitor to the property, and she replied that he was “doing too much,” officials said, adding that she also said she was renting an Airbnb there.

As the security guard stood next to his patrol car, the female then asked twice, “You wanna get hit?” and drove into him, pinning his body between the passenger side of her vehicle and the driver’s side of his patrol car, injuring him and damaging the equipment on his belt and the patrol car, officials said.

The sheriff’s office said the security guard’s injuries were not serious, but the suspect fled the scene at a high rate of speed.

Detectives responding to the scene positively identified the suspect as 32-year-old Tayquanna Butler of Green Bay, Wisconsin, officials said.

Indeed, detectives also confirmed she was listed as a resort renter through July 6, officials said.

Detectives obtained an arrest warrant charging Butler with aggravated battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, officials said, adding that a check of her criminal record showed she had prior arrests in Wisconsin for disorderly conduct and domestic abuse.

Detectives contacted the Orlando International Airport Police Department and confirmed that Butler was scheduled to fly back to Wisconsin on July 7, officials said.

But when Butler arrived at check-in, she was successfully detained, officials said. Polk County Jail records indicate Butler remained behind bars Monday morning; her total bond amount for both felony charges is $25,000.

“You’re not going to come into Polk County and act the way you do back home, disobeying not just the laws of decorum but the laws of our state,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. “All this woman had to do was show some ID and register her car at the resort where she was staying. Now she’s facing two felonies and is locked up in jail.”

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​Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Aggravated battery, Airbnb rental, Arrest, Disorderly conduct, Domestic abuse, Florida, Id, Repeat offender, Resort, Security guard, Wisconsin, Crime 

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) died suddenly Saturday night. May he rest in peace, and prayers and condolences to his family.

His death has understandably focused attention on the mechanics of filling vacancies in the U.S. Senate. That process is governed by state law, though authorized by the federal Constitution.

The public deserves better than confident assertions resting on incomplete analysis.

South Carolina law is clear, though somewhat complicated. Republican Governor Henry McMaster appoints an interim senator to serve until the end of the current term on January 3, 2027. But because Graham had already won the Republican nomination for the general election scheduled in November, a special primary will be held on a compressed timetable to choose a new nominee.

Complicated, yes. But clear.

Kentucky is another story.

Attention has inevitably turned there because of lingering questions about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health and his announcement that he will not seek re-election. That has prompted speculation about what would happen if his seat became vacant before his term expires.

Unfortunately, much of the commentary has confidently asserted propositions that are, at best, only partially true.

One widely repeated claim is that Kentucky’s governor would appoint a replacement, but only from a list of three names submitted by the departing senator’s political party. That was once accurate. It is no longer.

Another confidently asserted claim is the opposite: that the governor has no appointment authority because the Kentucky legislature abolished it in 2024. That conclusion may ultimately prove correct as a statutory matter, but it is not nearly as obvious as many commentators suggest.

Kentucky law is murkier than the headlines acknowledge.

Until 2024, the answer was straightforward. Kentucky law expressly authorized the governor to appoint an interim U.S. senator while requiring him to choose from a list of three nominees submitted by the departing senator’s political party. That unusual compromise preserved partisan continuity while limiting gubernatorial discretion.

RELATED: Kentucky governor makes unusual request as mystery deepens over Mitch McConnell’s health

Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images

But in 2024, the Republican-majority General Assembly repealed that statute over Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto.

That much is undisputed.

From that repeal, however, many commentators have leaped to the conclusion that the governor now possesses no appointment authority at all. That does not necessarily follow.

The 2024 legislation replaced the old Senate-specific appointment statute with provisions requiring a special election to fill the vacancy. That plainly reflects the legislature’s desire that the people — not the governor — ultimately choose the senator.

But a special election does not answer a different question: Who, if anyone, occupies the office in the meantime?

Here is where the analysis becomes more complicated.

Kentucky still has a general vacancy provision stating that where “there is no other provision of law for the filling of a vacancy in any office,” the governor shall fill the vacancy by appointment.

Does a statute requiring a future special election constitute “another provision of law” for filling the vacancy? Or does it merely prescribe how the office will ultimately be filled, leaving the temporary vacancy to the general appointment statute?

Reasonable lawyers can disagree.

Those insisting that the governor has no appointment authority argue that the legislature plainly intended to eliminate interim appointments altogether. They point to the purpose of the 2024 law and contend that allowing even a temporary appointment would frustrate that objective.

That is a serious argument. But it is not the only one.

The legislature repealed the Senate-specific appointment statute. It did not repeal the general vacancy statute. Courts ordinarily avoid finding repeals by implication and instead try to harmonize statutes whenever possible.

One could therefore read the two provisions together: The general vacancy statute supplies temporary occupancy of the office, while the election statute governs the permanent replacement.

Whether Kentucky courts would accept that interpretation is another question.

Nor is the statutory question the only uncertainty. The Kentucky Constitution contains vacancy provisions that some commentators believe independently constrain the legislature’s ability to eliminate the governor’s appointment authority. No court has squarely resolved how those provisions interact with the 17th Amendment and the legislature’s 2024 revisions.

In addition, the claim that the rule changes if a vacancy occurs before Aug. 3 rather than after is incorrect. That trigger date applies only “if the unexpired term will not end at the next succeeding annual election.” If the unexpired term will end at the next succeeding annual election, as it would with McConnell’s seat, the Kentucky Constitution provides that “the office shall be filled by appointment for the remainder of the term.”

That brings us back to the deeper question: Is Kentucky’s constitutional appointment authority preempted by the 17th Amendment?

RELATED: Outrage erupts after sitting member of Congress found in dementia living care home after being missing for months

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The 17th Amendment permits state legislatures to authorize temporary gubernatorial appointments, but it does not require them to do so. It assigns that discretionary decision to the legislature.

Whether that assignment preempts a contrary state constitutional provision remains an open question.

That means Kentucky faces multiple unresolved legal issues, both statutory and constitutional.

Perhaps Kentucky courts would conclude that the 2024 legislation successfully eliminated every form of interim appointment.

Perhaps they would conclude that the general vacancy statute remains available until the special election.

Perhaps they would hold that the Kentucky Constitution independently authorizes the governor to make a temporary appointment.

Or perhaps a state or federal court would hold that the Kentucky Constitution is preempted by the 17th Amendment, which gives the legislature discretion over whether to authorize temporary gubernatorial appointments pending a special election.

The point is not that any one of those answers is certainly correct. The point is that no court has decided any of these questions.

That makes the confident pronouncements now appearing in news stories and television commentary premature.

There is an irony here. The legislators who sought to make Senate succession more democratic may instead have created uncertainty at the precise moment when certainty matters most.

If a vacancy occurred tomorrow, the first contest might not be between rival candidates at the ballot box. It might be between rival lawyers in the Kentucky Supreme Court.

The public deserves better than confident assertions resting on incomplete analysis. When the law is genuinely unsettled, intellectual honesty requires saying so.

Kentucky’s Senate vacancy law deserves that honesty. So do the citizens who may one day depend on it.

​17th amendment, Andy beshear, Constitution, Kentucky, Lindsey graham, Mitch mcconnell, Opinion & analysis, Senate, Special election, State law, Supreme court 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) won the Republican nomination for a fifth term in the U.S. Senate, securing 56.8% of the vote in the June 9 Republican primary election. The 71-year-old lawmaker died, however, on July 11 — allegedly as the result of an aortic dissection caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Action must now be taken to ensure that Republicans have a champion to oppose Democrat Senate candidate Annie Andrews in the Nov. 3 general election.

‘There will be time to decide.’

State law holds that in the case of a vacancy in the office of a U.S. senator from death, Gov. Henry McMaster (R) — who said in a statement that Graham “is irreplaceable” — can appoint a replacement to serve until Jan. 3 following the next succeeding general election, meaning the GOP can maintain its slight voting edge in the Senate.

Since Graham was facing re-election, there will be a special primary election to replace him on the ballot.

According to state law, the one-week filing period for this special primary election opens the second Tuesday after the death — July 21 — and the special primary election must be conducted on the second Tuesday immediately following the close of the filing period, which would land on Aug. 11.

RELATED: Lindsey Graham dead at 71

Gov. Henry McMaster (R). Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

“A runoff, if necessary, must be held two weeks after the first [special] primary,” says state law. “The nomination must be certified not less than two weeks before the date of the general election. If the nomination is certified two weeks or more before the date of the general election, that office is to be filled at the general election.”

President Donald Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he had somebody in mind to replace Graham but declined to volunteer the name.

“I have somebody that I think would be great, but I don’t want to say it now because it’s just, you know, it’s too soon with Lindsey,” said Trump. “I don’t want to even talk about anybody, but I do have somebody that I think is really good.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) told “Meet the Press” that “there are at least one or two Congress members that I would expect Henry McMaster, our governor, to consider,” but that regardless of who is named as the temporary appointment, “an open primary process would be in the best interest of South Carolinians.”

In terms of contenders in such a race, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) has made it clear that he is not game.

Wilson noted on Sunday morning that while he had spoken to Trump about Graham, he had assured the president that his “goal is to remain in the House to keep his two-vote majority for the American people.”

Failed South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nancy Mace, on the other hand, appears open to throwing her hat in the ring, telling CNN that “there will be time to decide” whether she’ll consider running for the now-vacant seat.

A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Rep. Ralph Norman — a congressman once widely regarded as a possible challenger to Graham — is also “open to considering a run”; however, Norman has expressed uncertainty.

Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette is another name that has been floated in media reports as a contender. A source in her camp told NBC News that Evette received “dozens of phone calls and texts” encouraging her to jump into the race. Evette ran for governor but lost in the GOP primary runoff last month.

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​Annie andrews, Gop, Lindsey graham, Lt gov pamela evette, Nancy mace, Primary election, South carolina, U.s. senate, Politics