August 16, 2026
“I hate Mackinac so much…every time I’ve ever come here, I’ve hated it.”
– Abdul El-Sayed, Democratic Nominee for the Senate in Michigan
“America deserved 9/11” and “Go back to Auschwitz” and “I don’t support the state of the United States of America”
– Hasan Piker, Abdul El-Sayed Supporter/Influencer
“F*ck the Constitution. I wipe my ass with the Constitution. It’s a piece of paper. F*ck the Constitution, f*ck this country.”
– Hasan Piker, Abdul El-Sayed Supporter/Influencer
“This is no longer the Democratic Party of JFK. Heck, this is not even the Democratic Party of Barack Obama. This is a party that has been totally captivated by these far-left, extreme liberals who support massively raising your taxes, who support abolishing the police, who support abolishing private prisons, and who support reopening our southern border and our nation’s borders to illegal alien criminals from all over the world.”
– Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary
“There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the method of achieving the same final objective: communism proposes to enslave man by force, socialism by vote. It is the same difference as there is between murder and suicide.“
– Ayn Rand
“Social justice is a fraud, a promise to distribute what one would not have if one followed its bidding.
Wealth just would not be there or would rapidly disappear if the ordering by the principles of the market that now guide its production were replaced by some others which would give to each that to which he imagines himself to be entitled.” – F.A. Hayek
DSA – Democrat Socialists of America: These folks OPENLY state that they want to destroy America, Western Civilization, and defund the police.
Today’s Democrats are OK with that. They justify working with and voting with these radicals by calling themselves “big tent democrats.” This is crazy.
Read and listen to what they say… believe them. They control today’s Democrat primaries.
When they say “free healthcare” or “universal healthcare,” they mean Medicare/Obamacare… that means your Blue Cross/Blue Shield or other private insurance negotiated by your union or provided by your company is GONE! Empty promises that will cost more, cover less, and make you worse off… but “equal.”
Some Democrat talking heads are trying to make comparisons between DSA and the Tea Party. The Tea Party tried to reaffirm and re-establish constitutional principles. The DSA wants to undo the Constitution.
They are so crazy and so unrealistic that many just don’t believe it. Believe it!
This is NOT your parents’ or grandparents’ Democratic Party.
Trump’s Economy, Jobs & Cost of Living: It’s working… slowly… but it’s working!
Manufacturing is up.
Jobs are coming back to America from overseas.
Inflation is down, well below Biden-era prices.
Trump tax-free accounts for kids are booming nationally, with lots of matching funds!
Republicans introducing a bill to cap student loans at 2%.
Republicans passing NO TAX on tips and overtime.
Big Beautiful Bill has encouraged investment by small businesses which creates jobs.
NATO & the EU are stronger and more self-sufficient, which brings economic benefit home.
DSA socialist programs cost money (taxes) and that doesn’t help the middle class. See NY.
All of these things (and more) have been implemented or are being implemented under President Trump’s leadership and Republicans in Congress.
Democrats just continue to vote NO. If Democrats believe it could help Trump or Republicans, the Democrats oppose it… even if it’s good public policy.
This partisan bickering has to stop… but it’s important to call out a spade.
Russia Continues to Commit War Crimes in Ukraine: Putin and his cronies continue to attempt to terrorize the West by specifically targeting civilians in Ukraine… a war crime.
One of the primary challenges is that Putin remains convinced he can outlast the West in this brutal war of attrition. Another reason why Europe’s and our support is so critical… now!
Putin’s military is losing on the ground… thousands killed every month.
Putin’s military industrial complex is being systematically destroyed throughout Russia.
Putin’s oil and gas industry that finances his war is being destroyed and/or damaged daily.
Putin’s people/voters are suffering daily because of Putin’s ego and his delusions of grandeur.
Russia is desperate. Putin is desperate. Desperate people resort to desperate tactics that are killing innocent civilians with ballistic missiles and cluster bombs.
Remember, Russia attacked Ukraine and Europe.
Remember, Putin can end this war tomorrow by withdrawing his troops and not attacking neighbors.
Remember, the U.S. and Russia, as well as others, signed the Budapest Agreement securing Ukraine’s nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees.
Ruthless Variety Podcast: I’ve now become a regular listener of Ruthless Podcast at my son’s suggestion. It’s great, entertaining, informative, and funny. I listen to it while I go out for my walks. Sometimes I get stares as I huff by folks laughing at some of their commentary.
If you haven’t listened to their podcast… you should. You’re almost guaranteed to love it and become regulars. They also have their show on YouTube for those of you who prefer that… either way, worth the effort to check them out.
https://www.youtube.com/@RuthlessPodcast
Karoline Leavitt: This week Leavitt announced she was leaving her job as White House Press Secretary to spend more time with her newborn baby.
I’ve been in politics for over 40 years and have witnessed many Press Secretaries do their job… but none with skill and smile of Karoline… most prepared, knowledgeable, quick-witted, and sharpest… I think it’s safe to say, she has been the best!
We wish her and her family all the best and on behalf of a grateful group of folks… we give her our sincere thanks and best wishes.
Read more below and follow me on X & GETTR – @sanuzis
–Saul Anuzis
Saul’s News Weekly Rewind Video
This Week: Kamala Harris accidentally promotes the SAVE America Act, Mike Rogers sounds the alarm in the Michigan Senate race, and Senator Dave McCormick gets good news in Pennsylvania!
The Quiet Manufacturing Boom
Beneath the cacophony of media noise, an important untold story emerges: A manufacturing boom is unfolding across America right now, and especially so in the geographic center of the country.
This developing boom represents an epochal shift because investments in factories and tangible production involve the stickiest kind of capital expenditures. The commitment to production involves a macro “bet” on a yearslong cycle, not a near-term wager on the latest fad or concerns about the price of gasoline next week.
As such, this mostly hidden story deserves to be studied and amplified, both for the economic benefits and also for the possible political windfall for candidates on the populist right.
But before considering the import of this shift, it’s important to look at the numbers, the verifiable on-the-ground data sets that prove this new reality. The most-watched gauge of productive activity, the ISM Manufacturing Index, just surged to a fresh four-year high. Specifically, that ISM reading stands at 55 now, well above the 50 mark, which signals expansion. It has been rising for seven months.
How to Destroy a State, in Five Easy Steps
Democrats are undoing Virginia’s renaissance with a combination of tax hikes, pro-crime policies, an anti-business outlook, and egregious partisanship.
There’s an old saying about how our two parties handle defeat and victory differently. When Republicans lose, they fear that they will never win again. When Democrats win, they govern as though they will never have to win again. Virginia offers proof of the maxim.
As Virginia’s attorney general from 2022 to 2026, I worked alongside Governor Glenn Youngkin to rebuild a state in disrepair. When we took office, Virginia ranked 46th out of 50 in post-Covid job creation. Our schools were among the last in the country to reopen. The murder rate had reached a 20-year high. Fentanyl overdose deaths hit new records. People and businesses were voting with their feet. For the first time in a century, Virginia experienced eight consecutive years of net population loss.
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Commonsense conservative ideas and leadership changed the trajectory. Under Youngkin, Virginia climbed from the bottom tier of job creation to the top five. Smart fiscal discipline produced budget surpluses every year, even while delivering more than $9 billion in tax relief. Over $156 billion in new business investment flowed into the Commonwealth, more than under the previous six governors combined. The murder rate fell. Virginia led the nation in reducing drug overdose deaths because we chose to work with law enforcement rather than against them. Some dubbed it the “Virginia Renaissance.”
But Virginia Democrats have rejected that Renaissance. In doing so, Governor Abigail Spanberger has managed to become one of the least popular governors in modern state history after a little more than half a year in office. It happened in five easy steps
Dem Socialist Candidate Rails Against American ‘Cult Of Hard Work’
The House candidate from Michigan, William Lawrence, has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
A Democratic congressional candidate competing Tuesday in a closely watched Michigan primary has repeatedly criticized what he calls America’s “cult of hard work,” urged the election of more socialist members to Congress, and accused Republicans of being an alliance between “fossil fuel billionaires” and “white supremacists.”
William Lawrence, a Democratic Socialists of America member, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, and Democratic candidate in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, made the remarks across multiple appearances on left-wing podcasts and radio programs uncovered by The Daily Wire.
Lawrence is competing in Tuesday’s Democratic primary against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink and former Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam for the chance to challenge Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) in November. The district is rated a “Toss-Up” by the Cook Political Report and is expected to be one of the country’s most competitive House races.
Meet America’s New Un-Americans… the DSA
From HUAC to today’s Democratic Socialists: A history of ideology, allegiance, and subversion.
American Activities. Most readers wouldn’t recognize the group by its proper acronym — HCUAA — but they certainly know the Left’s reordered, twisted acronym: the dread “HUAC.” That translates to the “House Un-American Committee.” Improperly rendered, yes, but the label has stuck. You can succeed at such propaganda when your ideology pervades the media, Hollywood, academia, the culture — what we at The American Spectator have long called the Kultursmog.
Note the cynical repackaging of the committee and its mission: The Left, and especially far-left communist organs such as the Daily Worker, attempted to recast this important committee of the U.S. House of Representatives as un-American itself. That was a rather audacious move by the comrades, given who they were, and what the committee was not. The fact is that HCUAA had been run by Democrats and Republicans alike throughout its existence — by solid, bipartisan congressmen. The Democrat chairs of the House Committee on Un-American Activities ran from Rep. Martin Dies (D-TX) in the 1930s, to Rep. Francis Walter (D-PA), to Rep. Richard Ichord (D-MO) in the 1970s.
No, dear progressive snowflake, “HUAC” wasn’t run by villainous Republican Joe McCarthy. Senator McCarthy was, uh, in the Senate — where, incidentally, he was often joined by stalwart anti-communist Democrats like John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Pat McCarran of Nevada, James Eastland of Mississippi, and Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, the latter two being anti-communist pillars on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and chair and vice chair of the outstanding Subcommittee on Internal Security. Those guys exposed countless self-proclaimed “progressives” as in fact closet communists. For this, they have never been forgiven by the Left and forever vilified by liberal historians.
How Cancel Culture Laid The Groundwork For The Left’s Socialist Lurch
How did so many Americans come to tell pollsters they approve of a system that has proven to be unworkable, tyrannical, cruel, and murderous?
We shouldn’t be surprised at the recent electoral gains of communists who identify as members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). If you’ve been paying attention to the social and cultural landscape in America over the past many decades, you know this has been a long time coming.
The more important question is this: How did so many Americans, particularly youth, come to tell pollsters they approve of a system that has proven beyond a doubt to be unworkable, tyrannical, cruel, and murderous?
Socialism is actually slavery, as I recently wrote at the Federalist. It’s the peak form of slavery because it subjects entire populations to the whims of an inner circle of very few masters with no accountability, who have an eye towards global enforcement of their slave state.
Democrats no longer have the No. 1 weapon to keep their socialist wing in line
DNC is broke and relying on outside groups for midterm help while socialist candidates win races
American politics is an ever-changing game of power and big money. For the modern Democrat Party, that means being challenged and sometimes eclipsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) – and there is little to nothing the Democrat Party can do about its rise.
The United States has had many political parties in its history. They include everything from the Federalists (1789) and the Whig Party (1830) to the Libertarian Party (1971) and the Green Party (2001).
The current Democrat Party (1828) is the longest reigning major political party in American history.
The role of the many lesser-known parties in American history has been to chasten the then-dominant parties and/or to champion particular issues – such as the Greenback Party (1874), which fought for paper money in the late 1800s. While that Greenback Party is no more, paper money has replaced gold as the dominant American currency.
You can’t erase woke
YOU CAN’T ERASE WOKE. This political season, like the last couple, has featured Democratic candidates not only running for office but running away from things they said from 2019 to 2021.
The latest is Francesca Hong, the somewhat loopy front-runner for the Democratic nomination for governor of Wisconsin. In the last few days, Hong has walked back her 2020 call to “cancel Thanksgiving” so the nation can “stop celebrating colonialism.” She has also backed off her 2019 and 2021 calls to “defund then abolish” the police. And she no longer stands by her 2021 call to “abolish the Senate,” which she made when she was angry that senators did not convict President Donald Trump in his second impeachment.
Hong spent the weekend before the primary shrugging off her not-so-old outrageous statements. “I had some hot takes, some bad takes on Twitter,” she told reporters. “But I’ve evolved, I’ve learned. I think it’s more dishonest not to learn.”
Communism didn’t die. It just hired a PR firm
Discredited ideologies rarely disappear all at once. They usually shed their language before they surrender their instincts.
After World War II, fascist successor movements in Italy would later recast themselves as national conservatives. In the 1970s, Western communist parties adopted “Eurocommunism,” distancing themselves from Moscow while retaining ambitions for radical socialist transformation. More recently, France’s National Front became National Rally, exchanging a notorious label for a respectable one while preserving much of its nationalist core.
Not every rebrand is fraudulent. Some movements genuinely moderate. But a new name is not proof of a new program. The test is where power moves.
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM IS A LIE — IT’S JUST COMMUNISM WITH BETTER BRANDING
Apply that test to the American Left today, and the vocabulary gives it away. Nationalization becomes public stewardship. Central planning becomes coordination. Censorship becomes safety. Redistribution becomes equity. Political control of capital becomes stakeholder accountability. State dependency becomes economic security. Each pair describes the same transfer: decision-making power moving from private hands to political ones. Only the words change.
Democrats might be divided on party’s future, but send clearer signal for new leaders
In a week of pitched fights over the direction of the Democratic Party, one of the clearest signals sent by voters Tuesday was along generational lines.
In Connecticut’s 1st Congressional District, Luke Bronin, the former mayor of Hartford, soundly defeated 14-term incumbent John Larson in a race that was defined more by their 30-year age gap than any policy differences.
Bronin, who is 47, made a pitch for a new crop of leaders inside the party, framing his campaign as a response to Democrats’ losses in 2024 after President Joe Biden ended his race for re-election amid concerns about his age.
House incumbents are having a historically bad year
House incumbents have fared historically poorly in the 2026 primaries — and the midterm cycle is not over yet.
Ten House members have lost their primary battles so far this year, marking the highest number of incumbent losses since 1970 outside of post-redistricting years, when lawmakers often find themselves running in newly redrawn districts.
The only times the total came close to this year’s tally were in 1974 and 2020, when eight incumbents lost their bids; and in 1980, when six incumbents were defeated. Every other non-redistricting cycle since then saw five or fewer incumbent losses.
Seven Democrats and three Republicans have lost their renomination bids so far this year. Mid-decade redistricting in several states contributed to some of those losses, including of GOP Rep. Andy Ogles in Tennessee and Democratic Reps. Al Green and Julie Johnson in Texas.
Avoiding the ‘Guns of August’ 2026
Donald Trump has done more than any other 21st century U.S. president to “pivot” to Asia and the western Pacific, yet recently his administration has been criticized for going “soft” on China. There is no question that the rhetoric of the second Trump administration is, in Undersecretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby’s words, “quiet and respectful . . . towards China,” but “quiet and respectful” are sound tactics of diplomacy. Building more warships, modernizing our nuclear forces, winning the AI race, using geoeconomic pressure, strengthening our alliances in the western Pacific—those are actions that speak louder than words. The goal in Cold War II with China, after all, is to counter China’s geopolitical ambitions without going to war. It is to avoid the “Guns of August” 2026.
One hundred twelve years ago this month, what George F. Kennan called the “seminal catastrophe” of the 20th century emerged from the failed diplomacy of Europe’s great powers. Barbara Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Guns of August recounted the diplomatic missteps of the great powers in the first decade and a quarter of the 20th century that led to the cataclysmic First World War in 1914. Tuchman portrayed the leaders of the great powers of Europe almost stumbling towards a war that none of them wanted. But as David Fromkin pointed out in his magnificent book Europe’s Last Summer, Austria-Hungary deliberately went to war against Serbia, and Germany had planned for war against Russia and France since at least 1905. Those two wars brought Great Britain and its empire, Italy, and ultimately the United States into what became a global conflict.
The same thing happened in the late 1930s-early 1940s, as Victor Davis Hanson explained in his book The Second World Wars, when a Sino-Japanese War, a German-Soviet war against Poland, a Soviet war against Finland, and a Japanese war against the U.S. and Britain merged into the Second World War. In both instances, separate regional wars grew into global wars with catastrophic consequences.
Trump’s empty threats are prolonging the Iran war
America’s war with Iran is at an impasse. President Donald Trump’s unfulfilled threats to launch a “major strike” are partly to blame. By constantly promising to strike the Islamic Republic only to back off at the last moment, Trump has undercut America’s leverage and made Iran less, not more, likely to negotiate in good faith.
The United States went to war for all the right reasons. Trump has been clear and consistent that Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, must not obtain nuclear weapons. But Tehran refuses to set aside its nuclear ambitions or its millenarian ambitions to destroy Israel and conquer the Middle East.
If anything, U.S. military action against Tehran was belated. The Islamic Republic has been at war with the United States for nearly half a century. It has created, trained, and funded terrorist groups, and its proxies span the globe.
The Islamic Republic was behind the murder of 603 American servicemen during Operation Iraqi Freedom alone, and thousands more were left grievously injured.
Ukraine needs more help in the battle of the sky
Kyiv is short of interceptors to withstand Russia’s ballistic missile attacks.
After four and a half years of full-blown conflict, the war between Russia and Ukraine is increasingly an aerial one. The omnipresence of drones and sensors at the front line has made manoeuvre almost impossible. The land war is hideous and bloody but largely static. Ukrainian and Russian forces are stepping up missile and drone attacks to wear each other down. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the FT last month, “the battle in the sky” will determine the war’s outcome. It is urgent that Ukraine’s allies do more protect it from the biggest threat: ballistic missiles.
The most remarkable development this year has been the effectiveness of Ukraine’s medium- and long-range strike campaigns. Ukrainian forces have been hammering Russian military sites in Crimea and the logistical routes connecting the peninsula with Russia proper. This is making the territory harder and harder for Moscow to defend and supply. Kyiv is also using its increasingly accurate long-range drones and some missiles to hit Russian defence industrial sites, oil refineries and warehouses, disrupting Russia’s war effort and bringing home to ordinary Russians the cost of President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression.
This should be the time for Ukraine to press home its advantage, with the help of its western allies, and bring Putin to the negotiating table. However, recent weeks have shown Ukraine’s own vulnerability to Russian ballistic attacks, due in part to its allies’ failure to do more to help with air defence.
Russia boosted production of ballistic missiles in 2024 and 2025, exploiting gaps in western sanctions to procure components. Military analysts and Ukrainian intelligence officials estimate it can manufacture roughly 70 a month. Last month alone Russia fired 198 at Ukrainian targets. Kyiv’s only reliable defence against ballistic missiles is the US-made Patriot system but it is almost out of interceptors, as the strike rates of recent Russian barrages shows. Moscow is hitting Ukrainian defence industrial facilities, transport hubs and energy and water infrastructure almost at will.
Swedish Awakening
The Failure of Secularism Leaves a Fertile Field
There are good reasons to believe today that Sweden is witnessing a rediscovery of the faith. The exhaustion of the Christian moral order that attempted to preserve Christian ethics after discarding Christian truth has in many ways opened the minds and hearts of young, predominantly male, Swedes to the reality of God. Yet this alone does not explain the return. The collapse of secular modernity explains the exhaustion of the old order and not the return of faith. At most, it prepares the ground. The seed itself comes from Christ.
At a small café in downtown Stockholm last fall, Pentecostal pastor Josef Barkenbom preached from 1 Kings 14 on how we should not be fooled by the temptations of life without God. After the sermon, I encountered teenage boys attending a church for the very first time.
In my native Sweden, long known for its exceptionally secular population and plummeting attendance at the Lutheran-Evangelical Church of Sweden – our effective state church – over the last half century, places like pastor Barkenbom’s newly planted Stockholm Church have begun to sprout. Baptist pastor Johnny Lithell, after a pastoral fellowship at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., planted a church in Gothenburg in 2018, and has seen a steady rise in members at his congregation. Across the country, the free churches, which are any Protestant denomination outside the Church of Sweden, have seen a considerable uptick in attendees and new members over the last year, especially among young men.
Final Thoughts
