Almost Independence Day

As Van once put it, but now: Our usual cartoons, Jon Stewart and gang, a "Lucky" winner and new Phoebe Bridgers over troubled waters.

Jul 02, 2026

Yes, it’s still free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is the author of fourteen books and director of five films for PBS since 2022. In a previous life, he was a longtime editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. His latest film “Woody Guthrie and The Ghost of Tom Joad” is now streaming everywhere via PBS.

Jon Stewart and gang with special look at the 250 countdown, or is it down for the count?

Had to laugh at this posting from one Twitter wag: “If Taylor and Travis really want a private wedding, they should get married not at Madison Square Garden but at the Great American State Fair.”

Meanwhile, if you are World Cup watching: Folarin Balogun, who is a US citizen because he was born here, scored a go-ahead goal for the US team in a knockout game. Score one more for birthright citizenship. A law not just a GOOOOOOAL.

Get “Lucky”

On Tuesday, I snuck off to the local cinema to see my friend Rod Lurie’s latest film, “Lucky Strike.” It follows his previous war film, from 2020, “The Outpost,” which became the most popular movie on Netflix for weeks running. Rod, a West Point grad, can be trusted to make strong war flicks (although he is now shooting a Western). My taste in films runs more to two of his earlier “political” films, the acclaimed “The Contender” and “Nothing But the Truth.” But I thought “The Outpost” (based on a Jake Tapper book) was terrific, as is the quite different “Lucky Strike.”

Scott Eastwood, who also appeared in “The Outpost,” takes center stage here as a U.S. Army engineer stuck near or behind Nazi lines during the Battle of the Bulge and his struggles to reach safety. It reminded me that Rod’s all-time favorite film (and in my top five) is Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory,” but Eastwood here is in his own “no man’s land” for days.

I won’t give away what the title means, but it did make me recall the famous slogan for the cigarette during my youth: LSMFT. “Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco,” though in this movie “fine” could be changed to “fatal.” A certain communication device named “Lassie” also plays a key role. The cinematography is tremendous and the writing and overall tone reminded me of a fine episode of the HBO series “Band of Brothers,” no small praise—and Colin Hanks, from “Brothers” also makes a brief appearance here—and it too “inspired” by true events. Here is the trailer:

Paul Krugman:

The fact is that very few Americans — even among politicians who call themselves “democratic socialists” — are really socialists. What many, I’d say a majority, of Americans support is what Europeans call social democracy — an ideology that is OK with living in a mostly market-driven economic system in which some people make much more money than others, but one that advocates policies to tame markets and inequality with progressive taxation, safety net programs, and regulations.
America already has an extensive range of social-democratic policies, although they are weaker than those in most other rich countries. And sustaining social democracy — indeed, making U.S. social democracy stronger — has very broad support, even among Republicans. Actual socialism, by contrast, has little public appeal.
Why, then, does it look as if socialism is on the rise? Mainly because right-wing propagandists continually smear social democratic policies as socialist, trying to make popular, mainstream policy ideas sound extreme. And some Americans who are basically social democrats in effect respond by saying, “Well, if that’s socialism, I guess I’m OK with socialism.”