Nancy Guthrie update: Sheriff issues response to resignation demand

 Men's Journal

"Famous sketch artist releases image of Nancy Guthrie suspect  “I GUESSED at the parts of face covered with ski mask on this Nancy Guthrie kidnapping suspect. I used the surveillance photos shown,” Lois Gibson, who retired from the Houston Police Department in 2021 and is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most successful forensic artist, wrote on Facebook alongside the sketch. Gibson is not involved in the Guthrie investigation."

"Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today host Savannah Guthrie, remains missing over three months after she disappeared from her home in the Catalina Foothills of Tucson, AZ.

"As the case reaches the 100-day mark, two Pima County supervisors called on sheriff Chris Nanos to step down following allegations that he lied about a history of suspensions and other disciplinary actions he received in the 1970s and 1980s as a member of the El Paso Police Department.

Pima County Supervisors Taking Action Against Chris Nanos

"Dr. Matt Heinz, a Democrat, and the five-person board’s only Republican, Supervisor Steve Christy want Nanos to resign immediately.

"Heinz alleges that Nanos lied under oath.

"He lied under oath to the board about his separation from El Paso PD,” he said. “And we will consider referring his perjury to the [attorney general] for prosecution.”

"Christy is ready to take immediate action against Nanos.

“My position is that unless in the next few days before the board meeting next week, if he doesn’t resign or if he doesn’t retire in an honorable fashion, which is available to him, then I will move and I will support any effort by the Board of Supervisors to vacate the office, which is part of the regulation,” he said.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos Responds

"In a new, blunt, statement, Nanos made it clear he won't speak on the matter until a potential vote is cast." . . . More...

Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart remains hopeful in search for Nancy Guthrie    . . . "Nevertheless, Smart stressed that Guthrie "deserves to be brought home." After all, Smart herself understands what it's like to experience an abduction, reports the Express US." . . .

Why Won’t Barack Obama Go Away? Obama’s second act is louder, longer, and no wiser.

 The American Spectator   

"Unfortunately, the American people are suffering the consequences of Obama’s insatiable desire to insert himself into the national conversation."

"In 1921, Woodrow Wilson, the first of America’s four transformative progressive presidents, became the first president to remain in Washington and make the nation’s capital his permanent home after leaving office. In very mild defense of the man who did more than any other to establish the administrative state and thus pervert America’s carefully constructed constitutional design, Wilson had suffered a debilitating stroke two years prior that left him partially paralyzed and nearly blind. He died just a few years later, in 1924.

"

"Barack Obama, the nation’s fourth transformative progressive president (following Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson), had no such excuse when he and his wife, Michelle, decided, like Wilson, to similarly make Washington’s tony Kalorama neighborhood their permanent home after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Surely, the physical proximity to the White House was one factor in the Obamas’ decision; the 44th president officially visited his former vice president there at least once, with perhaps other unofficial visits as well.

""But convenience of his physical proximity to the White House aside, Obama’s residential decision has proven to be even more symbolically potent. The 44th president has declared that he is still here and he is not going anywhere. Some recent presidents, such as George W. Bush, have decided to ride off into the sunset and enjoy a peaceful, private retirement after leaving the Oval Office. Bush even took up painting as a hobby. Obama is a golfer, but he seems to enjoy politicking and punditry more than the links.

"'Unfortunately, the American people are suffering the consequences of Obama’s insatiable desire to insert himself into the national conversation. He has been vocal in criticizing the Trump-era GOP and boosting Democrats on the campaign trail ever since making the two-mile trek from the White House to Kalorama. Obama soared to the top of the political world after his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech vowed there was not a liberal America and a conservative America, but a singular United States of America. It’s a poignant sentiment. But once in power, Obama ruled as divider-in-chief.

"All these years later, he’s still acting the same way." . . .More...

How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away

Texas orders unauthorized Dallas Muslim university to cease operations immediately |

  The Post Millennial   

"I directed the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to issue a Cease & Desist to "TexAM," an unauthorized Islamic educational institution operating illegally in Texas." Gov. Greg Abbott 

The Islamic Seminary of America; Richardson, TX

 'The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has ordered that the “Texas American Muslim University at Dallas” immediately cease operations, saying it has been illegally offering higher education programs in Texas without state authorization."The “TexAM University at Dallas” or “Texas American Muslim University” (TexAM) has been marketing itself as a new university for Muslim students. The institution has been claiming to offer STEM programs alongside mandatory Islamic studies.

"According to a letter sent by the coordinating board, TexAM has never received the required Certificate of Authority from the state to operate or grant degrees in Texas under Chapter 61 of the Texas Education Code.

“TexAM has never been granted a Certificate of Authority to operate in Texas; therefore, TexAM is prohibited by law from granting or offering to grant degrees. A person or entity’s non-compliance with Chapter 61, Subchapter G, subjects them to criminal punishment, administrative penalties, and liability for civil penalties and injunctive relief (Tex. Educ. Code § 61.316-319). Furthermore, non-compliance is a violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and subjects the person or entity to the criminal and civil liability imposed under that act (Tex. Educ. Code § 61.320),” the letter stated.

“ 'Additionally, the use of a protected term such as ‘university’ without a certificate of authority is a violation of section 61.313 of the Texas Education Code. Such a violation subjects a person to criminal liability.

"'TexAM’s advertising and postings via its website indicate that your entity publicly holds itself out as offering in the State of Texas STEM degree programs, including a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence and admissions to bachelor’s degree programs in computer science, IT, cybersecurity, and health informatics. TexAM, and all related entities, must immediately cease advertising, offering, and enrolling students in degrees or programs of study until it has applied for and been granted a Certificate of Authority. You must also cease and desist from using any protected terms immediately,” the letter added." . . . More...

Donald Trump Jr: The Candidate No One Is Talking About

 The American Conservative  

"In the end, the question facing MAGA is not simply who can carry Trump’s agenda forward, but who can embody the man himself. If the answer is rooted less in policy than in identity, loyalty, and instinct, then Donald Trump Jr. is much more than a dark horse. He is a logical extension. And in a primary likely to be defined by Trump, that proximity may matter more than anything else."

Willing to place his life at risk...literally

"It’s been an interesting 2026, to say the least. The Iran War, which is exposing ideological divisions within MAGA, has brought the American right to an inflection point. A movement that once prided itself on rejecting foreign entanglements is now grappling with their familiar logic. For supporters, that tension raises an uncomfortable question. Was MAGA ever a coherent political doctrine, or was it always something more flexible and more personal?

"That distinction matters because it shapes what, and who, comes next. If MAGA is defined more by proximity to President Donald Trump than by principles, succession becomes a question of loyalty, not policy. In that world, the next standard-bearer isn’t the most consistent or experienced but whoever can inherit Trump’s connection to his base. And that is why the most overlooked potential candidate in the 2028 Republican primary field may also be the most obvious: Donald Trump Jr.

"The odds-on-favorite, however, is not Don Jr. It’s Vice President J.D. Vance. Seen as the heir apparent, Vance has recently been criticized for remaining silent as the Trump administration’s policy decisions drift from campaign promises. More concerning, Vance has been largely absent from social media during the Iran War. By staying quiet, he’s largely sidestepped his loudest critics on X. That caution may preserve his frontrunner status, but it also exposes a weakness. 

"In a movement driven by confrontation and authenticity, absence reads less like discipline and more like detachment. Nevertheless, Vance has maintained his status as the clear-cut favorite, earning a 48 percent chance to secure the Republican presidential nominee based on the latest Harvard/Harris poll published on April 26. He also holds the lead on prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi, well ahead of the next contender, Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

"Rubio is an intriguing prospect in his own right. Having previously run for president, there is little doubt that Little Marco would jump at the chance to lead the Republican ticket despite public proclamations that the pair have no interest in squaring off against one another. One thing Rubio has going for him is that he has won the admiration of Trump, a surprising turnabout after Trump once mocked the former Florida senator on the campaign trail in 2016. But that’s long in the past now. These days, Rubio looks more like Trump’s right-hand man than Vance does.

"When Trump attends UFC events, it’s usually Rubio by his side. When Trump made an appearance at the College Football National Championship in January, it was Rubio smiling with Trump in the press box. Most strikingly, on the first night of the Iran War, Vance and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard were in a Washington, DC situation room. Rubio, by contrast, was seated next to Trump in a makeshift command center at Mar-a-Lago.

"All of which explains why Rubio’s stock, which once appeared nonexistent, has shot up in the betting markets and also in recent polling data. And though Trump could put the entire question to bed with a single Truth post, the president has remained coy when asked who should lead the ticket in 2028, arguing that either man would make a fine candidate. Trump’s reluctance partly reflects his stated (if joking) interest in running again, encouraged by allies such as Steve Bannon. More likely, Trump hasn’t chosen a successor because the pick will define his legacy. Getting the pick wrong could render MAGA a flash-in-the-pan movement instead of the historical upheaval that he and his supporters view it to be." . . .More...

Spencer Neale is the Features Editor at The American Conservative. He previously worked for Citizen Free Press, the Washington Examiner, the University of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

PSST: WE ONLY BELIEVE RAPE HOAXES AGAINST MEN -

  Ann Coulter  

"When Christine Blasey Ford tried to torpedo Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 nomination to the Supreme Court by claiming he’d raped her 35 years earlier at an unspecified high school party, on an unspecified date, all of liberal America stood and applauded."

"Whatever his position on transgenders, Chirayu Rana, the Indian who claims a female executive at JPMorgan made him her “sex slave,” must be wishing he could change his gender right about now. No sooner had he filed a sexual harassment complaint against Lorna Hajdini, than the media tore him to shreds.

"This is something new. The media have believed way more laughable stories than his.

"In fact, we seem to be living through the Golden Age of women being canonized for falsely accusing men of rape, specifically white men — white lacrosse players, white military contractors, a white guy at Columbia University, white frat boys at the University of Virginia, and a white appellate court judge. (Duke lacrosse, Jamie Leigh Jones, Rolling Stone’s fraternity gang rape, Mattress Girl, Judge Brett Kavanaugh.)

"Today’s hoax rape trend kicked off in 2006, when a black stripper claimed that white members of the Duke lacrosse team had gang-raped her. The media, the professorate and the Democratic Party yipped for joy. This was just the story they’d been waiting for!

Kamala and Booker laugh at Kavanaugh

"Newsweek instantly slapped mugshots of the accused on its cover. Time magazine ran an article titled “Fraternity of Silence,” claiming — falsely — that the players had “formed a Blue line of sorts and stayed mum.” (The article was written by Sean Gregory, who remains a sports correspondent at Time.)                            "Even after it was known that none of the lacrosse players’ DNA matched that found on the accuser, Time was still droning on about the “classic American sex story: the pretty female slave being summoned up to the big house to sexually satisfy the master.” (Author: Jeninne Lee-St.John, currently editor-in-chief, Travel + Leisure, Southeast Asia.)

"Until the bitter end, The New York Times sourced all its information to the prosecutor, Mike Nifong; the lead investigator, Sgt. Mark Gottlieb; and the stripper herself, Crystal Mangum. The paper only began to have doubts around the time Nifong was disbarred and jailed, Gottlieb was forced to quit and committed suicide; and Magnum stabbed her boyfriend to death. (That’s a dinner party!)

"Say, aren’t there any executives at JPMorgan who played lacrosse at Duke? Perhaps it would have been wiser if Rana had accused one of those guys.

"Naysayers scoff at his allegation that he was drugged with Rohypnol and Viagra before being raped.

"The media aren’t usually so untrusting. In 2008, the Times put on its front page Jamie Leigh Jones’s story about being drugged with Rohypnol, beaten and gang-raped while working for a military contractor in Iraq. Adding to her credibility, she said that, in retaliation for reporting the rape, the contractor locked her in a shipping container guarded by men with machine guns, with no food or water, for 24 hours. (Did they think she’d never go home and tell people?)" . . .More...

Democrats are now the 'party of evil' By the late Michael Reagan, 2018; quoting Tucker Carlson back when he was Tucker Carlson. TD  

. . . "Tucker Carlson, who said the mindless anti-Kavanaugh protesters banging on the Supreme Court’s doors reminded him of zombies from the Netflix series “The Walking Dead,” correctly called them a “mob.”

"But CNN and their liberal ilk disagreed."As far as they are concerned, only right-wingers can become a dangerous mob — like the angry Tea Party activists who showed up and shouted at political meetings back in 2010."Creepy Antifa kids disrupting traffic and harassing old folks in Portland? Gangs of progressive screamers showing up in restaurants to publicly harass Republican officials or politicians? The left-wing media say they are not really “mobs.'” . . .

Spooked by Creepy Mamdani Video, Billionaire Prepares to Flee Hostile NYC and Take His Jobs With Him

  Athena Thorne – PJ Media   

"Sounds like it will be a drawn-out, long goodbye from a man who hates to admit it's over. But it's over. Griffin will never see New York City the same way again. Even if Mamdani is no longer mayor someday, the people who elected him will still be the voting majority in that rotten apple."

...and fire his maintenance people, his local administration. Why not close down the wealthy owners of Las Vegas resorts and send away all the workers (who, by the way, tend to give that city a Democrat majority.) TD

"It started with an undeniably creepy, stalky video starring New York City's dashing young communist mayor, Zohran Kwame Mamdani. The mayor posted the video on Tax Day, April 15. In it, he announced the creation of a so-called pied-à-terre tax — a tax on luxury second homes within city limits. That was the commie part of the video; the creepy, stalky part was that he chose to film it in front of a building that houses a penthouse belonging to one individual billionaire. Mamdani called the man out by name — Ken Griffin, founder and co-owner of the Citadel hedge fund and securities empire — and stoked envy by disclosing what he had paid for his apartment." . . .

. . . "Something the menacing mayor never mentioned in his covetous propaganda clip is that Griffin is already an extremely generous benefactor of the Big Apple. My colleague Robert Spencer reported in April:

The thing is, however, that Ken Griffin is not really a problem for New York City. The Washington Free Beacon reported Saturday that Griffin, along with legendary music mogul David Geffen, made a “joint $400 million donation to Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2023. This constituted “the largest single donation the cancer center has ever received.” Griffin has also given “$40 million to the Museum of Modern Art, $40 million to the Museum of Natural History, and $15 million to the poverty-fighting Robin Hood Foundation.” The Free Beacon adds: “Sources tell us his gifts to city institutions total around $600 million.”

"All told, Griffin "has donated more than $2.5 billion to advance education, opportunity, and health sciences initiatives that significantly transform people’s lives," according to Citadel's website.

"Then, there are also the enormous contributions that Griffin's business endeavors make to NYC's overall prosperity. "…Griffin, whose Citadel and Citadel Securities together employ approximately 5,000 people, is currently building Midtown's tallest skyscraper right on Park Ave.," the Free Beacon noted, "something a mayor with any understanding of how to help working people would be welcoming and celebrating." . . .More...

Athena Thorne • coastal conservative • NYC Metro Area, New England • fearfully and wonderfully made • cats, fish • medium rare • the peatier the better 

Marsha Blackburn to Secret Service: ‘Root Out the Rot”

 RealClearPolitics  

"Former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, who previously served as a Secret Service agent, also expressed concern about the possibility of multiple assailants bombarding Secret Service checkpoints and argued that agents with elite training should help fortify that layer of security."

"Sen. Marsha Blackburn sent a sharply worded letter Wednesday to Secret Service Director Sean Curran demanding an immediate, top-to-bottom review of the Secret Service, a move that comes nearly two weeks after an armed gunman sprinted past a checkpoint leading to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in a third assassination attempt on President Trump.

"As part of the review, Blackburn called for a “full, thorough audit of every single employee on your payroll.”

"'It is blatantly clear that the Secret Service needs to be cleaned up,” the Tennessee Republican wrote. “Unless you root out the rot, our nation will suffer the consequences.”

"Blackburn’s letter also comes just days after a Secret Service Uniformed Division officer was arrested in Miami after being found naked and masturbating in a hallway in yet another embarrassing spectacle.

"The senator drew an explicit connection between the misconduct pattern and the agency’s core protective mission: “At a time when President Trump faces increasing threats to his safety, including yet another assassination attempt, the Secret Service cannot afford to have individuals who engage in this kind of embarrassing, disgraceful conduct on its payroll.”

"Blackburn stopped short of calling for Curran’s resignation, but her demand for a full personnel audit – along with the blunt warning about consequences – signals mounting congressional pressure on an agency that has faced repeated public scrutiny since the July 2024 assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, that nearly killed him. An attempt on Trump’s life two months later at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course, was another close call.

"Blackburn cited the recent arrest of the agent for indecent exposure at the Miami hotel and framed the personnel issues as symptomatic of deeper structural problems – including what she described as persistent difficulties in vetting, hiring, and maintaining agent morale." . . .More...

Mayorkas' legacy: Tuberculosis makes a comeback in San Francisco

 Andrea Widburg - American Thinker   

 . . . "one of the reasons nations have policed their borders has been to keep out diseases. Thanks to the Democrats’ open-door policy for illegal aliens, America has seen a resurgence of third-world diseases that had once become alien to America, things such as measles, TB, whooping cough, and even polio and dengue fever."

"The headline on a San Francisco news website is stunning: “‘This is a big outbreak’: Nearly 1 in 5 affected by TB at SF school.” Certainly, when I was growing up and living in San Francisco, such a headline would have been unimaginable, but now tuberculosis is a growing problem in California, a state with the single largest illegal immigrant population in America.

"According to SFGATE:

New data shows 18%, or nearly 1 in 5, of tested students and staff at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco were diagnosed with either latent or active tuberculosis during an outbreak that started in November. 

New testing is scheduled to start today. 

In total, 96% of the school community was tested, seven people were diagnosed with active cases during the course of the outbreak and 241 latent cases were reported, according to data released by the San Francisco Department of Public Health on April 27 to the school community. (Emphasis mine.)[snip]

Tuberculosis remains a problem for California, where cases hit a 12-year high in 2025 with 2,150 reported. The state also had a “substantially higher” rate of disease in 2025 than the U.S. overall, the department said, with 5.4 infections per 100,000 people compared with about 3 per 100,000 nationwide.

"The news about Riordan follows reports from last week that two California high schools—one in San Diego, in the southernmost part of the state, and one in Fresno, in Central California—had experienced TB outbreaks. TB’s surge in both those regions made sense, given  that they are where most of California’s enormous illegal alien population clusters. And yes, the fact that they’re illegal matters, because it means that they come from impoverished countries rife with disease, enter the U.S. without any medical barriers, and live in densely populated communities. All lawful applicants to America are screened for TB." . . . More...

Are Biden’s immigration policies allowing dangerous diseases into our country? Back in 2023 some worried about this.

Biden's Open Borders Bringing Diseases to Your Neighborhood | RealClearPolitics

. . . "Texas border counties have a TB rate triple the national average. At least TB is treatable. Polio, on the other hand, can paralyze you for life.Time will tell how big a threat the return of polio is. In the 1940s and early 1950s, thousands of Americans were permanently paralyzed by it, but vaccines ended that nightmare."  

Bianco and Hilton Both Need To Win California’s Jungle Primary

 In a previous recall attempt, California had a great chance to be rid of Newsom yet chose to keep him.

Robin M. Itzler - American Thinker   

"Strategically speaking, in order to maximize their chances of advancing Hilton and Bianco to the November election, Republicans need to split their vote as close to 50-50 as possible. President Trump coming out and endorsing Hilton for governor makes that more difficult to achieve."

"Forget counting sheep. If you can’t get some shut-eye, just open the California primary booklet and read aloud the names of the 61 candidates running for governor: 24 Democrats, 12 Republicans, 1 Libertarian, 1 Peace and Freedom, and 23 running with no party affiliation. Ballots were mailed in early May, which means illegal aliens are being instructed on which Democrats should get their votes.

"Yet, this primary season, there is some optimism on the right side of the aisle. With both Republican candidates—Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco—frequently maintaining the one and two positions in numerous polls, along with multiple Democrat gubernatorial candidates possibly splitting votes, there is a chance to save this leftist state come November. The whispered chatter is that both Republicans might be the top two vote-getters—and let’s hope that happens, because it’s the only path to a Republican victory.

"For both Hilton and Bianco to be the top two winners, it would require a lot of disgruntled Democrats, along with No Party Preference voters, to vote Republican. Per the Independent Voter Project:

• Democrat registered voters 44.96%
• Republican registered voters 25.14%
• No Party Preference 22.65%
• Other 7.25%

"Some Republican strategists say it is mathematically impossible for both Republican candidates to emerge as the top two primary winners. They insist that the only path to success is for Republicans to rally behind one of the two leading candidates. This is easier said than done since Hilton supporters want Bianco to drop out, and Bianco supporters want Hilton to drop out." . . .More..

Robin M. Itzler is a regular contributor to American Thinker. She is the founder and editor of Patriot Neighbors, a free weekly national newsletter.

Gorsuch Just Named Who Put Justice Kavanaugh in the Crosshairs During Bombshell Reagan Library Remarks

 24/7 Politics 

 "Madison later believed there would have been no Constitution" without that protection, Gorsuch said. The left is trying to destroy that same protection now – and last time they succeeded, a man showed up at a Supreme Court justice's home with a gun."

Someone flew from California to kill Brett Kavanaugh while Kagan refused to act on warnings it was coming.

"Gorsuch just broke his silence on who left his colleague in that crosshairs.

"What he revealed about the liberal justices who kept Kavanaugh there is something conservatives need to see.

"The Kavanaugh Assassination Attempt the Dobbs Leak Made Possible

"It was June 8, 2022. Nicholas Roske flew from California to Maryland with one purpose: to kill a conservative Supreme Court justice and change the outcome of a case.

"Roske showed up at Kavanaugh's Chevy Chase home in the middle of the night loaded down with a Glock, a tactical knife, zip ties, duct tape, a hammer, a crowbar, and lock picks.

"He had searched online how to cause maximum damage with a knife

"He had told people online he was going to "remove some people from the Supreme Court."

"The only reason Brett Kavanaugh is alive today is that Roske saw marshals outside the home and lost his nerve.

"This wasn't a protest. It wasn't a threat. It was a premeditated assassination attempt – and it was made possible by the Dobbs leak.

"Kagan and Sotomayor Left Kavanaugh in the Crosshairs

"Here's the part the media buried: the conservative justices begged their liberal colleagues to release the Dobbs decision quickly.

"Justice Alito warned them directly – delay was a security threat, because an assassin could still change the outcome if a justice died before the ruling became official.

"The liberal dissenters had one job: finish their dissent so the ruling could be released.

"They refused.

"Mollie Hemingway's new book Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution reveals that Kagan didn't just slow-walk the dissent – she screamed at Breyer so loudly when he considered complying that observers said "the wall was shaking."

"The Dobbs majority had been ready since February." . . .

The final ruling didn't come out until June 22 – two weeks after the assassination attempt." . . .

. . . "For those two weeks, with a would-be killer already arrested and more threats building, the left-wing justices did nothing to reduce the danger to their colleagues. 

"Roske was sentenced to eight years in prison.

"Not one liberal justice has faced a single consequence."

Schumer and Biden know how to argue for assassination TD

NYC Grocers Are Begging Zohran Mamdani to Stop Before His Government Store Opens -

Renewed Right  

"Every radical-left mayor in America is watching this experiment.  If Mamdani gets away with it in the largest city in the country, it becomes the template – Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, then everywhere a socialist mayor wants to tell you what food you can buy and at what price."

"Venezuela had government grocery stores too.

"Now Zohran Mamdani wants New York City to try the same thing.

"The locals who actually run food businesses in East Harlem are not impressed – and they're saying so out loud.

"The Plan That 45 Grocery Stores Did Not Ask For

"Mamdani is spending $30 million of New York taxpayer money to open a city-run grocery store in La Marqueta, a public market space at Park Avenue and 115th Street in East Harlem.

"He plans five stores total – one in each borough – by 2029.

"The city-run stores will be exempt from paying rent or property taxes, advantages that every private grocer in the neighborhood will never get.

"Fox News Digital analyzed the area around La Marqueta and found 45 grocery stores already operating within a 35-minute walk." . . . More...

How Disneyland Remade American Politics

 Beverly Gage   

"It’s not just that Reagan co-hosted Disneyland’s opening day or that, like Nixon, he went back again and again. It’s that Reagan and Disney shared a view of America." 

"On July 17, 1955, Ronald Reagan stood near a mocked-up wood-plank town in Anaheim, California, where a 13-star flag flew incongruously over an “Old West” landscape, and introduced the world to Disneyland. He had been invited by Walt Disney himself to co-host the park’s live ABC broadcast, alongside Art Linkletter and Bob Cummings—three Hollywood actors who seemed to embody a wholesome, all-American ethos. From the imagined past of Frontierland, the show leaped ahead to Tomorrowland, set in the far-off year of 1986, emphasizing the technical marvels yet to come: nuclear energy harnessed for civilian purposes, human beings riding rocket ships into space. Disney foretold great things for a 1980s in which the United States would serve as “a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” But even he could not predict the most important political fact of the age: that his genial co-host would become president.

"Southern California was a strange place to build a park about the past, because the region at the time was all about newness and abundance and growth. For a lot of its history, Orange County had been Southern California’s version of flyover country: a vast agricultural expanse between two desirable places, Los Angeles and San Diego. But Disneyland was changing that. Before long, 50 miles south of deep-blue Hollywood, Orange County would become a region famed for its right-wing politics—but also for its mythmaking skills. Those two things, it turned out, went naturally together.

"The two presidents Southern California gave America both understood this instinctively. Richard Nixon and Reagan each built a national career on invoking a version of the American past in which the specificities of historical context mattered less than the big picture. For Nixon, progress meant proclaiming a “New American Revolution” on the eve of America’s bicentennial while dismantling the federal programs that had built the postwar middle class.

 "For Reagan, it meant recapturing a lost optimism and an old-fashioned faith in America as an exceptional nation. Both men were less interested in history as it actually happened than in history as it felt—and Orange County, a place that had built itself almost entirely from scratch, turned out to be exactly where the myth of America’s future was getting made.

"I’m a historian—and historians tend to be myth-busters. With the country’s 250th birthday on the horizon, I figured it was a good time to step out of the ivory tower and check in with the past as it exists here and now, at the museums and monuments and roadside attractions where Americans go to learn about their history. After all my travels—to Davy Crockett’s Tennessee and Texas, to the real Erie Canal, to the birthplace of the American automobile and the actual Old West—I couldn’t miss out on Disneyland, the single most influential historic attraction in U.S. history." . . . More...