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Seth Leibsohn: Iran's Third Assassination Plot on Donald Trump Jul 16, 2026

Show notes

The late philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that the power of toxic ideologies, like fascism and communism—once they take hold—can prove impossible to reform. Now add apocalyptic theocracy to that fascism and you have a rough understanding of Iran’s leadership. The West, and hopefully many in the Trump administration, are learning that now.

As the Wall Street Journal and others reported, Iranian leadership plotted its third assassination on President Donald Trump last week. This, after the United States had already decimated Iran’s military. Federal courts have previously identified two other plots to assassinate Donald Trump, as well as several of his former cabinet officials.

While many Americans recoil at notions of regime change in Iran, Iranian leadership has no such compunction about trying to affect regime change in America—and via assassination. And: It appears almost nothing will shake Iran’s fascist theocracy into moderation or civility.

This is who and what we are fighting in Iran. Let’s complete the job and help make gentler the life of this world.

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Hugh Hewitt: The Lesson From Graham Platner Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

Graham Platner ended his bid to represent the people of Maine in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday night.

He would have done well to begin his consideration with earnest engagement with the Bible.

Really.

Specifically, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 8, verse 17, where it says: “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.”

Now more than ever, every candidate must be warned again about this truth and then again and again. Indeed, it’s inevitable for every candidate in every race in which any opponent has the means to dig deep.

Every would-be candidate ought to subject himself or herself first to the gauntlet of self-scrutiny and then to a gauntlet of “friendly” professionals who specialize in digging up “opposition research.”

If an unflattering story exists, it can be found, and it will be found. And it will be on every front page.

Platner’s saga is already a tale worth telling.

“Nothing that is secret will not be revealed.”

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Seth Leibsohn: Ignorance and the Challenge of the 21st Century Citizen Jul 13, 2026

Show notes

Talking politics with your average young male these days, chances are you will hear all kinds of odd theories coming from the Pied Pipers of Podcastistan. You will hear them mentioning “experts” nobody heard of until about 10 minutes ago or until they were discovered by these podcasters because of their contrary, and often, conspiratorial thinking.

Young men, especially, are attracted to this novel “wisdom,” and they are so prone because, as they will tell you, mainstream institutions have been untruthful over the years. But because some institutions that we used to rely on and respect have been taken over by partisanship and been wrong doesn’t mean that all normative thinking and scholarship is a lie or cannot be trusted, or that people nobody have ever heard of are the replacements of true wisdom.

We dismiss and ignore this fallacious thinking at our collective peril.

The task of the serious is to be able to discern truth from fiction and greatness from mediocrity. In these critical times, that task has never been more important than now.

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Ed Morrissey: By Their Tattoos And Ideology Shall Ye Know Them Jul 10, 2026

Show notes

What happens when the Left plucks a ‘working class man’ from obscurity and pushes him for high office? In an era of Democratic desperation, mainstream media creates narratives to protect him, even at the expense of their stated values.

Graham Platner’s rise and fall stains all the institutions of the Left. Democrats and the media tried to bury or downplay Platner’s checkered past, including his Nazi SS tattoo, his record of disturbing public comments and his moral depravity.

Don’t be fooled by the sudden shift in media coverage. Everything that outlets like Axios and the New York Times reports as “news” today had been reported weeks and months ago by independent media. The Times cooked its own report in early June to protect Platner. Every elite media outlet perpetuated the “working class” lie about a man who lives off his wealthy parents.

The insistence by Democrats and media to make excuses for Platner exposes the corruption of both.

The Nazi tattoo told us all we needed to know.

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Hugh Hewitt: The Supreme Court at 250 Jul 09, 2026

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Teaching Constitutional Law is a joy.

Every semester since 1996, my students hear that Con Law ought to be their most interesting class during their three years of law school.

This year the Court issued 67 majority opinions.

Because district court judge issue bolts-from-out-of-the-blue on a regular basis, there’s a perception abroad that the judiciary becoming politicized. Our highest court, however, is an enormous force for stability in the country that just turned 250 years old.

The most significant of this term’s cases may well turn out to be NRSC v. the FEC, which held that the provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act restricting the amount of money a party can spend in direct coordination with a candidate’s campaign, those restrictions were unconstitutional, and that breathes much-needed life into the two major political parties which indeed need the lift.

The Supreme Court has gone about its work successfully and will be back at it in October. The “republic of laws not men” carries on.

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Seth Leibsohn: Socialism Rising Jul 08, 2026

Show notes

A specter is taking over the Democratic party and haunting America...Marxist and Islamic Socialism.

A new crop of Democratic party candidates truly stand for and believe in the worst and most dangerous ideologies of the past. These candidates are winning nominations and likely winning races for mayor, for Congress, and for Senate—from Los Angeles to Washington, DC; from Colorado to Michigan.

Even a cursory look at their platforms and speeches reveals admissions of support for Marx and Mao and Stalin, and Islamist organizations from Hamas to Hezbollah.

This juggernaut of alien and anti-American ideology has a motor, and it has momentum; even the Democratic front-runner for President and the Democrat’s former nominee, Kamala Harris, is in regular consultation with one of its leaders, seeking favor and advice from Zohran Mamdani.

The toxic ideology, from which millions died, and fled from in Europe, Asia, Lebanon, and Iran, cannot be replanted here. But just now, due to enfeeblement or sympathy, no force within the Democratic party can stop it.

The job must be left to us.

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Carol Platt Liebau: A Blow to the Unelected Ruling Class Jul 07, 2026

Show notes

In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court has issued one of the most important administrative law decisions in years. It overrules a famous precedent called Humphrey’s Executor, which had protected some independent agency commissioners from being fired by the president.

President Trump removed two members of Federal Trade Commission over policy disagreements. But federal law says commissioners can be fired only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or misconduct. So the fired commissioners sued.

The Supreme Court held that the statutory limits on presidential removal violate the Constitution’s separation of powers. And the Court was right. If public officials exercise executive power but answer to no elected president on matters of policy, they’re no longer accountable to the voters. That creates an unelected governing class — an oligarchy, really — that’s protected by law. And that’s fundamentally un-American.

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Carol Platt Liebau: A Win for Biology Jul 06, 2026

Show notes

Few issues have generated more controversy in America than whether biological males should be allowed to compete on girls’ and women’s school sports teams. Now, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that states may protect biological females from having to compete against biological males without violating the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause or Title IX.

It’s important to understand what the Court did—and didn’t—decide. The ruling doesn’t require states to adopt those protections. It simply says they are free to do so.

That matters because the decision explicitly affirms a basic truth: men and women are physically different. Recognizing that reality is not discrimination. It is a legitimate basis for protecting fairness in girls’ and women’s sports. And it leaves those policy decisions where they belong—with the people and their elected representatives.

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Hugh Hewitt: America is Still the Last Best Hope Jul 03, 2026

Show notes

As you celebrate this 4th of July weekend, I hope you get time to slow down and relax. Enjoy the day with friends, family, and loved ones in your world. As you do, remember that even these things are the fruits of freedom, the benefits of a stable government, civilizational order.

For 250 years—a quarter of a millennium now—our nation has benefitted from these gifts.

Yes: There is plenty to be concerned about as we look at the health of our nation in recent days. We are—and this is not hyperbole—more polarized today than the upheavals I lived through in the late ’60s and early 1970s.

We have a lot of work to do.

And yet—I really believe this—we have a lot to be thankful for.

America is still as my old friend, Bill Bennett has said the last best hope.

On behalf of Salem Media, have a great 4th of July.

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Albert Mohler: Christianity and the American Experiment Jul 02, 2026

Show notes

As the nation approaches our 250th anniversary, it’s important for us to take a moment to recognize and appreciate the role that Christianity played in the foundation of the American experiment.

Broadly speaking, there is simply no question that the basic worldview behind the foundation of our republic was the biblical worldview of Christianity.

And it didn’t begin here exclusively, but it goes way back in history into the great foundations of Western civilization.

Is America a Christian nation in terms of explicit constitutional arrangement? No. But I think it's safe to say it wasn’t considered necessary at that point for such a claim to be made.

Our Founders did not foresee a secular age coming, but in that secular age there are now important arguments to be made—arguments about the meaning and the dignity of life, about marriage and family and religious liberty.

As we mark 250 years, it’s up to us now to continue to make those arguments and to make them loudly, make them we must.

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