MMN Editor

Americans are routinely told that our nation is hopelessly divided, irredeemably flawed, and perhaps even in terminal decline. Public polling reflects this pervasive frustration, pessimism, and anomie. If someone halfway around the world only followed the polls, he might be forgiven for believing our republic is all but over.
But something remarkable is happening during the 2026 World Cup, which is jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Fans from all across the world have arrived in America — and they are absolutely loving it. We too often take our way of life for granted, but many soccer tourists now here cannot stop marveling at what they see. (RELATED: Ghost of Alexis de Tocqueville Returns — What America Can Learn From Him)
The unlikely symbol of this phenomenon is “Freddy,” a young German soccer fan who has become an internet sensation while documenting his first road trip across the United States. Freddy’s viral social media posts have attracted tens of millions of impressions because they reflect something both rare and refreshing: genuine, boy-like wonder. As he has crisscrossed the American South, Freddy has gushed at everything from Waffle House and Taco Bell to Buc-ee’s, Bass Pro Shops, sprawling football stadiums, and the impressive size of regular, middle-class American homes. Americans, accustomed to taking all these things for granted, have watched with glee as a slack-jawed foreign visitor experiences it all for the first time. (RELATED: The Spectacle Ep. 432: Foreign FIFA Fans Are Teaching Americans To Be Patriotic)
But Freddy the German is hardly alone.
Scores of other World Cup visitors from Europe, Asia, and elsewhere have flooded social media with similar observations. They have wandered through Walmart and Costco as if they were touring cultural landmarks. They have posted videos about yellow school buses, small-town diners, Texas barbecue, oversize grocery stores, and the sheer abundance and variety that characterize everyday life in the most prosperous country on planet Earth. Elsa the Swede has fallen in love with ranch dressing. And even the Transportation Security Administration took notice, posting on social media: “If you’re visiting for a very large sporting event & you happen to discover RANCH while you’re here … please pack it in your CHECKED BAG on the way home.”
These reactions, bursting with youthful exuberance, are amusing. But they also point toward a profound insight: Sometimes it takes an outsider to recognize what insiders can no longer see.
The average American rarely pauses to consider how extraordinary our country remains today. We gripe about suburban sprawl while living in homes that would be considered luxurious by the standards of much of the world. We roll our eyes at chain restaurants that millions of foreign tourists eagerly seek out. We treat abundance as ordinary because abundance is all most of us have ever known.
That familiarity breeds a certain blindness.
But the World Cup tourists are not blind. They see an America that remains dynamic, entrepreneurial, and welcoming. They encounter strangers eager to offer travel advice. They find communities proud to share local traditions. They discover a country that is far friendlier than the caricatures would suggest. The America they are experiencing bears little resemblance to the negative stereotypes they had long imbibed back home.
America, like every country, has problems. The risk of prolonged decline is very real. Patriotism also does not require pretending that everything is perfect.
But it does require perspective — and, above all, gratitude.
As we approach our long-awaited America 250 celebration next weekend, Americans would do well to remember that ours remains the most successful experiment in republican self-governance in human history. The United States is still the world’s leading economic, military, and cultural power. And most importantly, as we prepare to celebrate the immortal words of 1776, it remains a nation founded upon timeless truths about human nature and human dignity.
That last point matters. Our republic was founded on the biblically rooted proposition that human beings possess God-given rights, and that legitimate government exists to secure those rights and advance the common good.
In other words, America is great because America is good. Not perfect. Not above reproach. But fundamentally good.
We see that goodness reflected in the generosity that has met so many awestruck foreigners visiting during the World Cup. It is reflected in the spirit that built the businesses, attractions, and communities now spellbinding them.
The foreign visitors who are spending this summer discovering America have unintentionally delivered an important message to those privileged enough to call this great land home. They have reminded us that our country remains worthy of admiration. They have reminded us that gratitude is often more appropriate — as it is here — than despair. As we prepare to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, that lesson could not be timelier.
There are plenty of reasons for concern. But there is also still reason to hope.
The world still sees something special in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We Americans should see it too.
READ MORE from Josh Hammer:
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To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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California Assembly Bill 1967 requires social workers, when conducting a safety assessment or substitute care provider safety assessment, “to also assess the safety of the home of those who hold custodial rights of the minor.” Sounds good, but it’s not just about “safety.”
The bill’s author is Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur, former executive director of Equality California, “the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization.” According to the Los Angeles Democrat, “This bill ensures that youth in foster care — who are disproportionately LGBTQ+, Black, Latino, and Native American— receive the timely support and crucial interventions required to care for them and keep them safe.” Under this legislation, the safety is tied to the “crucial interventions.”
As noted by Katy Grimes of the California Globe, the bill allows any minor residing in any residential facility to file a legal application against their parents without cause or evidence of harm. In effect, the bill would “allow children to ‘divorce’ their parents,” who might not approve of irreversible surgeries and treatments advertised as “gender affirming care.”
The evangelists of transgenderism portray the male-female biological reality as a construct, which is not the case. Bruce Bawer, author of A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society, notes that transgenderism and homosexuality are “two utterly different phenomena,” and queer “can mean anything.”
Zbur’s LGBTQ+ formulation is the true construct and, strictly speaking, there is no LGBTQ “community.” Should that be doubted, consider the prospect of a Lawyer, Gardner, Banker, Trucker, Quaker community. As AB1967 moves through the legislature, there’s more that parents and taxpayers should know.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) maintains a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender Business (LGBTBE) requirement in its supplier diversity program. LGBTBE sets up a 1.5 percent procurement goal for LGBT-owned business enterprises that routes millions in utility contracts toward firms certified on the basis of the owner’s sexual identity.
“The Equal Protection Clause doesn’t come with a carve-out for fashionable identities,” notes financial professional Jay Rogers. “The Fourteenth Amendment protects individuals, not groups,” contends the Northeastern and Harvard alum, and in California, there’s more to it.
In 1996, Californians passed the California Civil Rights Initiative (Proposition 209), which prohibits preferential treatment in government education, employment, and contracting based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, and national origin. In 2020, Californians rejected Proposition 16, which would have repealed CCRI.
“The LGBTBE program extends the same identity-preference architecture to a new category,” notes Rogers, “but the equal-protection principle the voters encoded in the state constitution is identical.”
Sexual orientation of any kind is not an achievement or claim for special treatment. No one who “identifies” as any part of the LGBTQ construct is denied the opportunity to bid on contracts or denied admission to state colleges and universities. Indeed, some state colleges offer LGBTQ “studies,” which is not exactly an academic discipline. Long after the passage of Proposition 209, California maintains a vast DEI bureaucracy that rewards identity over merit.
As Rogers notes, the CPUC’s LGBTBE program’s own compliance record – 0.44 percent, spent against a 1.5 percent goal at full compliance cost — “doesn’t justify its existence on any metric.” So California should “repeal it and build something that actually works.” That would require a system based on merit alone.
DEI and reality dysphoria are no basis for public policy, and parents should understand that AB 1967 is not a one-off. In 2022, California became a sanctuary state for “transgender youth seeking gender-affirming medical care.” In his signing message, Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “parents know what’s best for their kids, and they should be able to make decisions around the health of their children without fear. We must take a stand for parental choice.”
As parents might note, Newsom, with ties to the Brown, Pelosi, and Getty families, sends his own children to exclusive private schools. On the other hand, the wealthy governor opposes parental choice for low-income students in California’s underperforming government schools.
California also passed a law barring schools from notifying parents about their children’s gender issues. Assembly Bill 1955, from 2024, is known as the “Safety Act,” in the style of AB 1967. The Globe’s Katy Grimes believes these measures “erase parental rights,” and if parents agree, it would be hard to blame them.
READ MORE from Lloyd Billingsley:
Investigating the Newsoms
California Forces Venture Capitalists Into DEI Regime
Climate Change Superstition Still Rules California
Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
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The United Kingdom is bidding farewell to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and connections are being made that his resignation happened days after the rape gang reports were released. (READ MORE: The Unfathomable Horror of Britain’s Rape-Gang Holocaust) 
The Spectacle Podcast hosts Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay discuss Starmer’s resignation, Andy Burnham as the potential successor, and what it means for the U.K. going forward. Melissa and Scott go through the horrific report and its findings of over 250,000 victims of Pakistani/Muslim rape gangs, criticizing Starmer’s government for prosecuting minor offenses and ignoring bigger evils. (RELATED: On Belfast) 
Tune in to hear their discussion!

Listen to The Spectacle with Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay on Spotify.
Watch The Spectacle with Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay on Rumble.

And so. America awakens.
Anti-American socialist zealots have now managed to get the attention of the American people through, of all things, by damaging the iconic reflecting pool that stretches out in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
Fox News headlines with, “‘Deranged’ vandals fuel Mall sabotage trend, from blood writing to Reflecting Pool damage,” with the subtitle, “Razor-blade-like slashes damaged over 300 feet of the pool’s liner the same day it reopened after Trump-ordered repainting.”
The story reports:
FIRST ON FOX: Vandals have targeted the National Mall with multiple separate “8647” markings, a blood-written message on the Washington Monument and damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, prompting federal officials to warn of a growing trend.
“Unfortunately, this summer has seen a significant increase in vandalism to the National Mall — for example, several 8647 markings, a person writing words in their own blood on the Washington Monument and the cutting of fuel lines around the Great American State Fair,” Interior Department communication director Katie Martin told Fox News Digital.
The pattern emerged after President Donald Trump ordered a restoration and repainting of the reflecting pool, which was met with protestors leaving multiple “razor-blade cuts” and removing fencing to then toss in water.
Got that? There is the president of the United States taking a moment from his, shall we say, “busy” job,  to make sure the nation’s capital is beautified. Pristine.
And for those who have been to Washington over the decades and seen the reflecting pool close up, not to mention know its history, it is a job more than worthy of being done. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Drones From Dreamers?)
Periodically, there is a remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The speech is quite legendary, serious American history delivered on live television in 1963. I was (ahem!) a history-loving kid at the time, and watched it on Mom and Dad’s black and white TV. In fact, Dr. King’s speech was one of the first of the newly aborning television age events to be carried by live TV. So my young self sat in front of the TV on that hot August day and watched, never forgetting the “I Have a Dream” words that captured the televised attention of the nation.
And, yes, the crowds Dr. King was speaking to were easily seen crowded around the Reflecting Pool, beautiful even on black and white TV as the Pool sparkled in the sunlight.
The point here is decidedly simple. History is an ongoing event — whether the history sites it marks are good, bad, or indifferent. Or, sometimes, horrendous. They are to be remembered — not trashed.
A few years back, I had the opportunity to attend a conservative event in Dallas, Texas. I had some time to myself, and used it to visit one of the most horrendous, historical crime sites of my youth — the infamous Texas School Book Depository that overlooked a Dallas freeway that, on Nov. 22, 1963, had one Lee Harvey Oswald perched in a sixth floor widow with a rifle, ready to assassinate President John F. Kennedy as JFK’s open air limo passed below him.
What struck the most was the diligence Dallas and federal government officials had applied to ensuring the site of the assassination was preserved to its historical exactness. Making an obvious point not to damage it.
Which brings us back to the Reflecting Pool stretching out in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where, on a happier occasion, Dr. King stood looking out at the pool and crowd of thousands gathered around it to hear what became instantly recognized as a decidedly historic speech.
The Pool was not disturbed that day. Everyone was concentrated on the event at hand — hearing Dr. King’s words in the middle of the tumultuous drive for civil rights for all Americans.
Which brings to mind an obvious point. The Reflecting Pool that stretches out in front of Abe Lincoln’s famous memorial should be admired — not treated like a garbage dump — by protestors. No matter the cause of the protestors. Which appears to be, in this case, socialism.
In the nation’s capital, it should not need to be said, there needs to be a basic, fundamental respect for American history. An appreciation for what happened at various locations, as well as a real effort to preserve them for future generations.
Safe to say, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is one of those historic sites. And anyone who goes there with the intent of damaging or destroying one of those sites — no matter their political views — should pay the price.
Leave the Reflecting Pool alone.
READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord:
Jennifer Siebel Newsom vs. Conservative Women
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I didn’t intend to see Supergirl. I knew it would be infantile, dark, and woke — three of my biggest kryptonite rocks — and I had a book to finish, already late due to a medical trauma. But a critic buddy called me with an extra screening pass, and I wanted to see him. Now, the reason he had a ticket for me tells you all you need to know about the box-office prospects for Supergirl, and the mentality of Hollywoke, what’s left of it.
My liberal friend has a like-minded 12-year-old daughter who loved the Sam Raimi Spider-Man pictures. She took one look at the Supergirl trailer depicting a depressed, drunk, nihilistic heroine and told her dad she had no interest in it. If the moviemakers can’t lure an impressionable pre-girlboss into the theater, just imagine all the boys and young men the film will attract. (RELATED: Declawing Feminism)
So, I sat there in a soon-to-be-empty seat, hoping to at least enjoy some mindless superhero action worthy of a $170-million production, based on a comic-book universe I’d loved as a kid. And I didn’t even get that. The film is dark, all right, but not just in thematic mood. It’s so underlit, it makes Night of the Living Dead look like The Wizard of Oz by comparison.
When we can finally make out the first scene, we get introduced to the main character, Kara, yes, drunk and disorderly as in the trailer, partly depressed by the media celebration of her cousin, Superman. We’re supposed to understand her melancholy as a semi-pretty young white girl with (ridiculously) unrealized potential in a cruel masculine world, or worlds, since Kara is on a self-imposed exile from Earth. Thankfully, her cute super dog, Krypto, provides some badly needed energy for the audience.
In no historic or believable universe would a little girl seek help to find the powerful leader of a murderous savage band in order to execute him herself, except in feminist fairyland.
The unbearable darkness of being in the theater only got worse from there. Enter brutish villain, Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), who could be a refugee from the Mad Max franchise, only less original. In fact, most of the alien characters in Supergirl would have fit in the Star Wars cantina scene, which was clever half a century ago, and is now tiresome. Krem and his colorless Brigands kill a master swordsmith — Asian because white men aren’t craftsmen — and his wife, leaving alive the young adult daughter, Ruthye, played by plain Filipina-English actress Eve Ridley.
Predictably, Ruthye shows up at Kara’s bar, bearing a sword she plans to kill Krem with, never mind his hundred brigands. And that’s where and when the movie abandoned all hope of reason and tolerability. In no historic or believable universe would a little girl seek help to find the powerful leader of a murderous savage band in order to execute him herself, except in feminist fairyland. In fact, most boys wouldn’t do it, knowing their limitations against the odds.
Even the brave Mexican farmers in the classic The Magnificent Seven understood they needed the titular Seven to get rid of the preying bandits, which inspired Charles Bronson’s wonderful speech to the hero-worshipping village boys: “You think I am brave because I carry a gun? Well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility — for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers…”
DC Studios mogul James Gunn, director Craig Gillespie, and starlet-turned-novice screenwriter Ana Nogueira try to imitate the Western trappings of the Seven and the Sergio Leone films, but with no idea of what makes them work. For one thing, and most unacceptable to them, real men. If the vengeance seeker was a boy — afraid of his task but bound by family and warrior honor — the dimension and his relationship to Supergirl would have been fascinating. But that’s the difference between the talented white male writers who helped build Hollywood, and the feminist hacks destroying it. (RELATED: The Wreck of Feminist Hollywood)
Kara takes on a ruffian who seized Ruthye’s sword, revealing her prowess to the girl. And demonstrating to us that all the action scenes would be quick-cut, confusing, and undistinguishable messes, with every punch, strike, or fall a CGI nightmare, depriving us of even the satisfaction of a good fight. Kara refuses to aid Ruthye until Krem shoots Krypto with a slow-acting poison dart.
That’s right. The villain who decapitates people without blinking gives a dog three days to die. And he just happens to have the antidote, conveniently allowing Kara to go after him and help Ruthye in the bargain. The movie goes to hell from there, or rather, the viewer does, with no idea of pacing, storytelling, or logic.
The barbaric Lobo shows up, well played by Jason Momoa, injecting a bit of welcome testosterone into the girl-power screed. In the most cringeworthy scene, Ruthye — in a jail cell with Lobo — pretends to be a frightened little girl to a monstrous Brigand guard. When he opens the cell door, she literally jumps on his back and somehow knocks him out after a long fight sequence. How? We can’t tell, since the fight beats are visually unclear and confusing.
This leads to a major indecipherable CGI battle, Kara and Lobo versus the Brigands, which the comic-book “heroes” appear to be winning. Krem couldn’t care less that his men are getting routed, being more interested in chasing down and killing a little black captive girl and her parents. To our horror, Krem escapes, signifying that we must endure a lot more of the movie, including additional angst from Kara. And something we thought we’d escaped — her origin story and odyssey from Krypton to Argo to Earth, guest starring David Corenswet as Gunn’s Tom Hanks-like Superman. Finally, Kara dons the Supergirl costume and enters the last battle as a bona fide superheroine, alongside Lobo.
The best thing I can say for the film is that I didn’t mock actress Milly Alcock the way many of us did Rachel Ziegler, who deserved it. But I did feel sorry for her. She’s not pretty or formidable enough to play an iconic action lead, even if better written. Gunn didn’t want to indulge the Male Gaze with a Sidney Sweeney, even though it basically popularized comic books (see Wonder Woman, Catwoman). But Alcock’s likable and sincere, and she’d grace a good, realistic female role. Hollywoke may not know how to make those anymore, but some of us do.
READ MORE from Lou Aguilar:
The Great American Cultural Stalemate
The Left’s Trillion-Dollar Nightmare
Eastwood: The Last Man Standing