Tex's Place

By Rainer Zitelmann In 2023, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith published a book titled A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? For the Weinersmiths, concerns about colonizing Mars or other celestial bodies outweigh any potential advantages. They argue that while we might be able to think about space settlement sometime in the distant future, we are nowhere near that point yet. Of the concerns they raise, some are worth considering, including unresolved questions as to whether humans can reproduce safely in low-gravity conditions and whether babies can develop normally in such environments. They do write, however, that the Chinese are already planning experiments in which monkeys will mate on their space station – so perhaps we will get our first answers soon. Many of the questions in the book, though, are far-fetched and contrived, and it is clear that the authors have adopted the common approach of intellectual worry-warts, ...

(USMC) By Frank Miele For the last 20 years, the adjective most often associated with masculinity is “toxic,” implying that men who act like men are dangerous – even deadly. Then along comes Pete Hegseth suggesting that maybe that’s a good thing – at least when it comes to the military. Earlier this month, Secretary of War Hegseth announced that the U.S. military will begin annual testing of the testosterone levels of service members starting at age 30. If the tests reveal low levels, it would be up to the individual whether to receive testosterone replacement therapy. Of course, the first effect of Hegseth’s order is that it will greatly increase the opportunity for “Saturday Night Live” to lampoon “he-man Hegseth” as a Neanderthal nincompoop who never got the memo about kinder, gentler manhood. But despite the potential for giggles, low testosterone is nothing to laugh about. Studies have revealed a “steady decrease” in testosterone levels among young U.S. men in the last qu...

By Shawn Fleetwood While efforts to effectively sidestep the Supreme Court’s TPS ruling seem ripe for dismissal, several rogue judges are entertaining such chicanery. Left-wing attorneys representing temporarily-present migrants are trying to sidestep a key U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively greenlighting their clients’ deportation — and a cabal of rogue judges are seemingly helping them do it. The ploy was disclosed in a CNN report published Monday about ongoing efforts to keep foreign nationals under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program in the United States, well, permanently. Titled, “Inside the fights to maintain TPS status for thousands after the Supreme Court sided with Trump,” the article delves into how these left-wing attorneys are looking for ways to essentially skirt the high court’s Mullin v. Doe ruling from last month. In its 6-3 decision, SCOTUS affirmed that the TPS statute bars federal courts from reviewing non-constitutional claims against the gov...

By Sister Toldjah As RedState reported, there was a mass shooting on Sunday at the Bite of Seattle food festival, where two people in the Seattle Center (near the Space Needle) were killed. Four others, including a 2-year-old toddler, were injured. Initially, law enforcement indicated there were two shooters whom they believed were shooting at each other.  But in a Monday update, it was revealed that there are three suspects, one of whom is dead. One of the three suspects, a 15-year-old, is in custody, while the third remains at large. The name of the deceased alleged suspect is Junior Cee Niko Semo, who was 19. Semo, according to investigators, is believed to be "one of at least two people who exchanged gunfire." Something else we learned from that afternoon presser was that authorities believe what happened was "gang-related": In a document filed in juvenile court in Seattle, where a 15-year-old arrested in the case waived his initial appearance Monday, pol...

By Sarah Anderson There's been a lot going on with Cuba over the last week, and I promise you that every single day last week, I sat down to write about it, but my mind wandered onto the next shiny object — to Venezuela or El Salvador or Costa Rica or Nicaragua or the Georgia governor's race . I've admitted in the past that I'm a little bored with all of it, and I feel like the way Iran has played out has distracted the Donald Trump administration from working toward liberating the Caribbean nation from the Castro regime and 67 years of communism.  The truth is it's a complicated process. This isn't Venezuela. We likely won't have a clean and tidy(-ish) ending to the regime. You can't just take out one guy, neutralize his cronies, cut off their revenue stream, and start over with Marco Rubio in charge. The Cuban regime is older, more decentralized, and designed to withstand such moves. The power lies within the Communist Party, the military’s ec...

Critics say the pied-à-terre tax tool creates new privacy and security risks by aggregating affluent homeowners' names and addresses By Amanda Macias, Alec Schemmel Mayor Zohran Mamdani opened a new front in his ongoing battle with New York City's wealthy after his administration published a searchable database identifying affluent property owners who could be subject to the city's proposed pied-à-terre tax, a move critics say could expose them to harassment and public safety risks. The database, released by the city's Department of Finance, allows users to search properties and view the names and addresses of owners whose non-primary residences could be subject to the proposed tax. A spokesperson for the department said the publication of the property roll was required by state law. "As per State law, a property roll was released for public inspection. From this list, DOF will identify properties that may be subject to the new non-primary residence property s...

By Kyle Becker The French have done it again. The nation that gave the world the baguette, camembert cheese, and snooty accents crossed a big red line on social media after a U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday. The U.S. envoy, Dan Negrea, a senior delegation official and alternate representative at the General Assembly, slammed France’s “disingenuous grandstanding” and walked out during a Monday meeting What drew the ire of the seasoned diplomat? France compared the United States to… North Korea. No, seriously. The US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore. Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to it. #AmericaAlone https://t.co/GLNMsYEH9n pic.twitter.com/UTVvljTMeO — France ONU Genève 🇫🇷🇺🇳 (@FranceONUGeneve) July 25, 2026 Negrea took the French to task over their dishonest smear of the United States. JUST IN: U.S. Ambassador storms out of U.N. Security Council Meeting After France Compa...

By Victor Davis Hanson Who Caused Unaffordability? Fear about “affordability” supposedly fueled the new, strident socialism. Yet annual inflation during Biden’s four years averaged almost 5 percent. It peaked at over 9 percent, while prices for some key staples rose by 30 percent over his tenure—all to silence from the Left. (By contrast, annual inflation during Trump’s first term averaged 1.9 percent. In his second term, it averaged 2.6 percent in 2025—and may rise to 4.5 percent in 2026, given the war with Iran.) The socialists were not just quiet during Biden’s four years; they were themselves responsible for the rampant Biden inflation. They had implemented an inflationary de facto third Obama term, ramming through the most radical and costly agenda in decades under the veneer of that cognitively challenged waxen effigy, good ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton. So the current Jacobin takeover of the Democratic Party was not sparked by concerns about “affordability”—or at least not if ...