OPINION / COMMENTARY. The guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold lost power on July 24 and spent four days adrift in the South China Sea before contracted civilian tugboats towed it to Subic Bay. The Navy never announced it — USNI News broke the story three weeks later. ARES on the maintenance rot, the free intelligence Beijing just collected, and the crew that deserved better.
The Justice Department closed its landmark Second Amendment case against the LA County Sheriff after the backlog vanished. It took a federal lawsuit, 16 deputies and new software. It should have taken 90 days.
OPINION / COMMENTARY. A new CBS News/YouGov poll finds 58% of Democrats view socialism positively and just 32% say the same of capitalism — a 26-point gap. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear called socialism a ‘failed experiment’ on Face the Nation, then pitched abolishing the Electoral College and term-limiting the Supreme Court. ARES on the two-step, Fetterman’s ‘lunacy’ warning, and the one grievance the right can’t afford to wave off.
OPINION / COMMENTARY. The 60-day clock Trump set at Versailles expired Monday with no deal, no reopened strait, and — per AP — nuclear talks that never started. The day before the deadline, Iran’s army chief announced a roughly $30,000 bounty for any Iranian who captures or kills a U.S. service member. ARES on why “no hurry” is the right answer, and what this stalemate is actually costing.
OPINION / COMMENTARY. Rep. Russell Fry finished third and immediately endorsed Sen. Darline Graham, handing her the Grand Strand eight days out from South Carolina’s Aug. 25 Senate runoff. With Trump, Tim Scott and the NRSC already behind her, ARES breaks down the math Ralph Norman can’t fix — and the 2024 Nikki Haley endorsement he can’t outrun.
OPINION / COMMENTARY. For 68 years, Big Food got to declare its own chemicals ‘safe’ and never even tell the FDA. On Aug. 10, Trump and RFK Jr. moved to end the GRAS honor system — mandatory disclosure, a first-ever federal definition of ultra-processed foods, and a comment window closing Dec. 9. ARES on why this is transparency, not tyranny.
OPINION / COMMENTARY. A government-owned airport quietly moved to install Islamic wudu foot-washing stations in DFW’s Terminal D — until Gov. Greg Abbott called them illegal, put state grant money on the line, and referred DFW and Houston’s IAH to the feds. ARES breaks down the walk-back, the ‘$300,000 administrative error,’ and why equal treatment means equal.
The FBI’s 2025 crime report just posted the biggest one-year drop in violent crime on record and a 20-year low in murder. Call it what it is — a law-and-order vindication.
A sitting Supreme Court justice says elite law schools like Stanford are ‘presumptively off limits’ to conservatives. Stanford denies it — but its own record of shout-downs tells the story.
A Newsom-appointed Contra Costa judge released a burglary suspect on his own recognizance one day before he allegedly stabbed 68-year-old Todd Stewart to death in his own Martinez yard — a case now fueling the fight over California’s sanctuary policies and activist judges.