But the test for admissions has long been hated by people on the left because it results in disproportionate racial outcomes. And this year is no different.

A disproportionately small number of Black and Hispanic students received admission offers to New York City’s elite public high schools for the upcoming academic year, continuing a pattern of racial and ethnic gaps that has existed for years despite promises by elected officials to address the divide.

About 62 percent of the students in the city’s public schools are Black or Hispanic. But at its eight most prestigious high schools, about 10 percent of the students in the incoming freshman class are expected to be Black or Hispanic, roughly the same as last year. About 80 percent of the seats went to Asian and white students.

At Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, often considered the most selective of the city’s specialized high schools, three of the 777 offers were made to Black students, and 21 were for Hispanic students, together representing a nearly one-third decline from the previous freshman class. One Black student was admitted to Staten Island Technical High School.

So you can see how this is going to play in the media. The NY Times story is headlined, "An Elite N.Y.C. Public School Admitted 777 Students. Only 3 Were Black." And Gothamist wrote the same story a few days earlier under the headline, "Just 3 Black students admitted to NYC's elite Stuyvesant High School, data shows."

What the stories and the headlines don't tell you is the other side of the story. At Stuyvesant High School, 71% of admitted students are Asian. That's out of a population of NYC which is about 11% Asian. In other words, the reason there are so few black students at these schools is not white supremacy, it's because Asian students trounce all other races on these tests.

Former mayor Bill de Blasio attempted to get rid of the SHSAT back in 2019.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to overhaul admissions for New York City’s elite high schools has proved highly divisive, leaving some Asian-American students feeling that they are being pitted against their black and Hispanic neighbors.

His idea has also made the city a national focal point in the debate over race, class and fairness in education.

If his plan — which would scrap the admissions exam and instead reserve seats at the eight specialized high schools for the top students at every city middle school — is approved by the Legislature, the selective schools’ racial makeup would change practically overnight.

Offers to Asian-American students would fall by about half, according to a recent report, but would increase fivefold for black students.

The pushback on this testing winds up blaming Asian parents for having too much privilege. Here comes the "model minority" argument that Asians are just pawns of white supremacy.

“I think what people are missing when they say we are being punished, what they are neglecting to see is, the Asian-American community by and large has a lot of privilege that the black and Latinx community does not,” she said, referring to an “elaborate system of networks, test prep and social capital.”

“We aren’t dealing with the generational trauma of slavery, Jim Crow and redlining,” said Ms. Ahmad, noting that her father is a taxi driver and her family is far from wealthy. Still, she said, “People discount the fact that we have more resources, we are more privileged, and because of that, white Americans tend to hold us up as a model minority.”

The same arguments get made in town hall meetings on the issue.

Speaking before a packed room, Mary Alice Miller, a black alumna of Stuyvesant, said the arguments against change were filled with “racial coding.”

“It’s very offensive to hear all the racial coding: that African-Americans are not good enough, if more of us are accepted into the schools, the specialized schools will bring down their standards.”

But de Blasio's effort ultimately failed, in part because Asian groups pushed back.

Bernard Chow, a Queens activist, spoke against the mayor’s proposal.

“All the hard-working students, the students who are willing to give up basketball and stay home and study,” he said, speaking over “keep the test” chants and banging drums. “Those students who are willing to give up video games, and look at the book, it’s unfair to them.”

Wai Wah Chin, president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York, likened Mr. de Blasio’s plan to the Chinese Exclusion Act, an 1800s law restricting Asian immigration.

A few minutes later, Dulce Marquez, a recent New York high school graduate, called the entrance exam “a product of institutional racism.”

So that's how this has gone for years. Asian students excel and other minority groups desperately want to accuse them of racism but struggle to make the argument because it's nonsensical.

What the left and the media want is to get rid of the tests and punish the outstanding Asian students who excelled on them so that more black students who did not excel can be admitted. They may hesitate to say it that plainly but that's the goal. And with another socialist mayor, the NY Times seems to be hoping to prod Mamdani into shutting down the tests.

The critics have included Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, a specialized school, and the two previous mayors. Bill de Blasio called the admissions process a “monumental injustice,” while his successor, Eric Adams, labeled it a “Jim Crow school system.”

Before his run for mayor, Mr. Mamdani had called for the high school exam to be abolished, but did not make that position central to his campaign. He softened his stance last year, describing the issue as a “struggle” for him.

After the latest release of admissions results from the city’s Department of Education, Mr. Mamdani’s administration said that it was “reviewing these results carefully.”

Mamdani surely wants to shut down the testing. It fits in with everything else he believes. But he also doesn't want to start a fight with Asian New Yorkers who are willing to fight back. Mamdani also has another problem. Last year, the Trump administration threatened the federal funding of three school districts including NYC.

The Trump administration said this week that it would withhold more than $65 million in federal grants from magnet schools in three large school districts after they refused to overhaul their policies regarding transgender and nonbinary students or to change their diversity and equity programs.

The three school districts — in New York City, Chicago and Fairfax, Va. — were accused by the federal Education Department last week of violating civil rights law.

If Mamdani were to attempt to scrap the tests, he'd not only get pushback from Asian parents, but also from the federal government. Cutting funding to these schools wouldn't make any of the parents happy. 

we'll have to wait and see what Mamdani decides to do. But for now he's clearly been trying to avoid this battle, no matter how much the media prompts him to do it.

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I may be a traitor to my class, but I am still of that class. Academics, of the 1950s and 60s type. My dad grew up with his Jewish mom hoping that he could pass as a WASP at Harvard, despite his working-class Bronx background. 

Think Arthur Schlesinger. Tweed. Soft spoken. Seemingly, but only seemingly, modest. Understated. 

That didn't exactly work out, and by the time I was a teenager, the age of WASPs running things was already over. But I picked up some of the attitudes. Among those is an attitude that disdains hypemasters and braggarts, of which Donald Trump most certainly is. 

So I still cringe when I see things like this:

US Mint to begin producing $1 coins featuring Trump https://t.co/BWTGj0jrfF

I mean, really?! Do we have to go there? 

Trump signed bipartisan legislation in 2020 authorizing the Treasury Secretary to issue dollar coins during the 2026 calendar year carrying designs that are “emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial.”

That law states that no person, living or dead, could be included on the reverse side of the coin — but some have argued it appears to allow for Trump’s portrait (or other living people) to remain on the coin face.

However, federal law is generally understood to prohibit any living person from appearing on most currency. When Congress created the Presidential $1 Coin Program in 2007, it also dictated that no living presidents, or those who had died in the past two years, would be featured on those coins. And an 1866 law fully prohibits living people from appearing on paper currency, though it doesn’t specifically mention coinage.

The final design appears to be a notable scaling back from the ambitious draft design obtained by POLITICO in October. That design featured Trump on both sides of the coin, with the reverse side depicting him holding his fist in the air with the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT” inscribed above him.

When reached for comment, the Treasury Department said that the coins are composed of non-precious metals with a gold-like finish on the exterior. They added that the coins will be available for purchase in rolls and bags in the fall.

The department directed questions regarding the legality of the coins to a comment from the acting chief of the Mint’s Office of Design Management at a January meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, in which she said legal researchers at the Mint and Treasury had determined the proposed coin would not violate any laws.

No doubt a lot of Trump supporters will laugh, and with good reason. For all the cringe factor this has for supporters of Trump like me, they see the humor of Trump trolling the libs, who will go absolutely crazy with anger. It's the same schtick Trump pulled with the Kennedy Center (a president who really pulled off the fake Arthur Schlesinger bit well!), attaching his name to it. 

It was hugely amusing to many of Trump's supporters, but to those of us who still have a vague hope that the model of decorum set by Ronald Reagan (or Kennedy, for that matter, who in public pulled off the role so well even though he was a disgusting pig in private) still should apply to the president. 

Trump is not as crass as Kennedy or Johnson were in private. They really were pigs, and Trump, by all accounts, is a much nicer guy than many presidents have been in private. 

But the "own the libs" shtick can get tiresome at times. Do we really have to use some potential loophole in the law to put his face on a commemorative coin? 

Really?

No doubt there will be lawsuits. A controversy. More discussions about fascism and threats to democracy, all over a coin that just as easily could have had George Washington, an eagle, or even Ronald Reagan. 

Reagan would have been a great troll, without giving nearly the ammunition to Trump's enemies. 

The number may not be large, but it's stunts like this that drive away some number of people who have some sympathy for Trump's policies but who just can't stand his personality. 

Why go there? There are far more important fights to be had. You don't have to grab every opportunity to stick it to the libs, or in this case, politicize a coin that commemorates our 250th anniversary. 

I'm generally skeptical that there is much room for bipartisanship in these tumultuous times, but it's worth making a nod to it sometimes. And this would have been a good one. Unfortunately, the whole Semiquincentennial celebration has been a bust, and while that is not all Trump's fault, he might have made a better try at it. 

I remember the Bicentennial, and despite 1976 being a bad year in a bad decade, we pulled it off beautifully. Watergate and the evacuation of Saigon were fresh in everybody's mind; we had a president for whom nobody had voted, and yet Americans were proud of our history and said so.  

This time around? It's been disappointing. It's not all Trump's fault, of course, but it's stunts like this that make it more difficult than it has to be. 

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest. Now I can read the comments below that call me a Never Trumper. 

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Rather than rethink the platform espoused by a man who wore a Totenkopf tattoo and professed himself to be a communist, the party wants to keep the rhetoric while going light on the Nazi and commie references. Now that Democrat insiders have to choose a candidate who can check those boxes, their activist base is sharpening their knives against whoever might somehow emerge from that smoke-filled backroom, Politico reports:

Maine Democrats want to hold onto Graham Platner’s progressive base — but they can’t agree on who is best positioned to carry the torch.

That indecision is creating a fractured field heading into an unpredictable late July nominating convention for one of the most important Senate races on the 2026 map. Now, various candidates are rushing to prove they are the most aligned with Platner’s policies, without tying themselves too closely to the disgraced oysterman.

Labor organizations and the national progressive organizing group Our Revolution are backing former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, who campaigned with Platner during the primary and got the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign earlier this year. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a former Platner surrogate, is also behind Jackson, as are dozens of current and former state lawmakers.

But some state legislators and local activists who had backed Platner are flocking to Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who similarly ran as a progressive in the gubernatorial primary. And former public health official Nirav Shah is touting more progressive policy positions than he did when he ran for governor in an attempt to break off some Platner supporters. Behind the scenes, he is also working to recruit former organizers from Platner’s campaign, according to two people familiar with the strategy and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Oh, yes, that's a great strategy. Democrats definitely should tie people affiliated with Platner and his serial lies onto the campaign of their next anointed replacement. Susan Collins will never see that coming!

And while we're at it, why would anyone seek the endorsements of the people who foisted Platner on voters in the first place? Bernie Sanders did more than most to promote a Nazi-tatted, middle-aged mooch while perpetuating the "working class" false narrative that imploded over the past two weeks. Ro Khanna was arguably worse, insisting that he "believed" Lyndsey Fifield while arguing that Maine voters owed Platner a Senate seat for "grace and redemption." In fact, anyone who endorsed Platner or continued to do so after the NY Times' first exposé about his violent behavior toward Fifield should be disqualified from this conversation entirely. 

In other words, the socialist struggle continues. We could even call it Maine Kampf. (In fact, we have done so, several times now.)

Interestingly, and perhaps tellingly, Politico never mentions the real animating issue from Platner's campaign. When he noped out last week, Platner helpfully appended "Free Palestine" to his valedictory letter. The issue of Israel has dominated the Left in this cycle, and yet not a word about it appears in this analysis. Perhaps that's because all of the potential replacement options have the same radical take about Israel. 

Or maybe it's because the Democrat establishment running the nomination process in Maine now wants to downplay the Israel issue. Axios reports today that a showdown is coming in the House:

House Democrats' internal split over a vote to cut off U.S. aid to Israel has extended to leadership, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) planning to vote differently.

Why it matters: Such a divergence between the caucus' top two leaders is exceedingly rare and underscores just how much anxiety this vote is giving some in the party.

Many House Democrats have substantive misgivings but plan to vote for the measure anyway due to growing political pressure from the left.

"There are going to be people within our own party trying to drag us over the coals," one House Democrat told Axios on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the political pressures undergirding their vote.

"So you don't get to a place of like, 'Okay ... it isn't good for us to vote for an amendment that is poorly drafted and has all kinds of unanticipated consequences,'" the lawmaker added.

Eeeenteresting. I'd guess that Mike Johnson is forcing the vote to embarrass Massie, as well as to make Democrats cast votes that set them up as political targets no matter what they choose. If so, kudos to the House Speaker, who doesn't have much to work with this session but seems to get the most out of what he does have. 

That's going to be a problem in Maine, too, because the Left will make it an issue if party leaders look for someone who can appeal to the center. This is a powder keg, and the backroom process of anointing Platner's replacement may be the spark to set off an implosion within the Democrat Party this cycle. Stay tuned ...

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So there is hope for a continued upward trajectory.

Our formerly great cousins across the Atlantic Ocean, from whom we were once separated only by a common language, are determinedly plowing into the dustbin of insignificance just as fast as they possibly can.

 I've spent a fair amount of space cataloging the demise of the once proud and mighty British Navy, the pathetic state of the British economy, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer's mewling efforts to return his country to the control and oversight of the unelected authoritarians in Brussels.

Arguably, one of the most devastating individuals in the Labour government has been the energy minister, Ed Miliband, who is a die-hard climate cultist. Miliband has been mandating and imposing the fever-dream net-zero goals of decades past on the green-energy-decimated reality of the British economy for almost two years now.

The Iran War hasn't helped an unprepared and ill-equipped United Kingdom recover its footing.

The figures show clearly that Starmer's Labour government has no spare cash on hand.

Latest numbers confirm UK deficit is up and is £7.7bn overbudget

Data for the first two months of the financial year confirm that the government is under significant fiscal, as well as political, pressure. At the end of May the UK deficit was £8.9bn higher than in 2025 and spending was well over budget.

Data for the first two months of the financial year confirm that the government is under significant fiscal, as well as political, pressure. At the end of May the UK deficit was £8.9bn higher than in 2025 and spending was well over budget.

Public spending outpaces receipts

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the monthly public sector finances for May 2026 on Friday 19 June. The ONS reported a provisional fiscal deficit for the month of £23.3bn, which was £5.4bn more than in May 2025 and £5.6bn overbudget.

This brings the deficit for the first two months of the 2026/27 financial year to £46.3bn, £8.9bn more than in the same period a year previously, and £7.7bn more than budgeted.

Martin Wheatcroft, external advisor on public finances to ICAEW, said: “The provisional deficit for the first two months of the financial year was up almost £9bn from the same period last year – close to £8bn more than budgeted – as spending outpaced receipts. A £4bn, or 16%, increase in debt interest was just one element in a difficult story for the public finances.

He continued: “With Rachel Reeves searching high and low for every penny she can find to fund the Defence Investment Plan ahead of the NATO summit next month it is looking like the hope for a reduction in this financial year’s deficit to March 2027 is now in jeopardy just two months into the financial year.”

About those few frigates and ships that the Royal Navy desperately needs, and had been promised in this budget, for sure?

 The best Starmer can do is a bunch of drones.

Sorry, mates. Suck it up.

You know who's got money, though?

Ed 'Net Zero' Miliband, that's who.

He's got enough to give away.

...While millions of British families are struggling with soaring energy bills, waiting weeks for a GP appointment, unable to find an NHS dentist and watching public services decline, Labour's Energy Secretary is promising to send billions abroad in the name of "global climate leadership."

As if that wasn't enough, he's also announced another £79 million for clean energy projects in Africa and small island states.

Meanwhile, back in Britain, Net Zero targets keep slipping, major energy projects are delayed, our grid is under increasing pressure and households are still footing the bill.

Although the rock-solid climate cult beliefs he's imposed to the utter ruin of his country do have some wiggle room if it'll buy him what he wants.

Miliband willing to approve North Sea oil to land job as chancellor

Ed Miliband wants to approve drilling in the North Sea to calm market jitters about his possible appointment as chancellor and prove he is no net zero “zealot”.

The Energy Secretary has privately signalled his willingness to grant consent for drilling at the Jackdaw gas field but cannot publicly confirm the move until a consultation closes next month.

Jackdaw, off the coast of Aberdeen, is one of two licences in the North Sea currently held in legal limbo. The other site, Rosebank, would produce oil to be sold in a global market, but Jackdaw would be able to provide enough fuel to heat 1.4 million British homes this winter.

Mr Miliband is keen to show the markets he would be willing to put Britain’s economic growth ahead of his net zero ambitions if he became chancellor amid reports more wealthy people are planning to flee Britain if he moves into No 11.

Andy Burnham, who is set to become prime minister next Monday, has already said he is “open minded” about North Sea drilling to help combat Britain’s cost-of-living crisis.

Never let it be said an unhinged ideologue couldn't be reasonable if it lined up with his own self-interest.

...Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said: “After two years of net zero zealotry, Ed Miliband appears to have suddenly discovered the merits of North Sea oil and gas – just as the chancellor job becomes vacant.

“Either Miliband has had a Damascene conversion or, more likely, this is just another empty promise from the man who said he’d get energy bills down but sent them soaring instead.

They're all the same, whatever side of the Atlantic they're on and however posh the accents.

England is toast if this guy gets his hand on the real checkbook, not just the one in his cult addled head.

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Now I'm well aware that there has been a lot of controversy over the casting of this film. We've covered some of it here. But the reviews out today suggest the movie itself is more than the sum of its parts.

Featuring a tremendous Matt Damon as Odysseus and perfectly deployed supporting players wherever you look, it unfolds in that odd dual register of grandeur and intimacy that Nolan has been busily making his own – while returning to all the signature motifs of its writer and director’s earlier work, from prodigal fathers to exiles in limbo...

Nolan and his collaborators have constructed a strange, fearsome and trailblazing machine of a movie – by some distance, the best of the year so far. Its creator is known for playing tricks with time, and this may be his grandest yet: turning one of the oldest stories in literature into a vote of confidence in blockbuster cinema’s future.

The NY Times' review also suggests the movie itself upstages the stars.

The performances are uniformly good, though Damon’s Odysseus is tamped down and notably devoid of charisma, as if he were as hollow as the wood decoy. In action-adventure terms it’s a counterintuitive choice even if it serves Nolan’s tricky, more non-triumphalist ends. One upshot, though, is that few of the actors, Damon included, manage to hold you with the same emotional force that Nolan’s filmmaking does...

Nolan’s gifts are excessively obvious, and even when his characters don’t stir you, his filmmaking does. Among other qualities, he doesn’t know how to make an ugly image and this one is filled with rapturous beauty. Nolan employs beauty strategically, using it to seduce viewers into stories that can seem needlessly byzantine to some — especially by impoverished mainstream industry standards — more the provenance of the art house than the multiplex. Nolan asks us to dream bigger. His “Odyssey” is a classic in every sense, a transporting affirmation of the art and a work of pure cinema.

The NY Post is similarly impressed.

[Nolan] took up Odysseus’ weighty bow, shot an arrow and scored another hit.

His stunning and captivating “Odyssey” is the director in his David Lean era, eschewing the cerebral topics that tickled him in “Tenet,” “Inception” and, to an extent, “Oppenheimer,” and building his own “Lawrence of Arabia” with a transportive, sprawling and emotional adventure with visuals that will reduce even the most jaded movie buff into a giddy child.

I'm just going to point to one more glowing review, this one from USA Today.

Not only is it the greatest work on the iconic director’s noteworthy résumé, but "The Odyssey" also tops Matt Damon’s not-too-shabby CV. Just give him the best actor Oscar now, for Zeus' sake, as Damon brilliantly portrays the legendary Odysseus on a quest full of fantastical obstacles and psychological self-discovery that also takes a hard, honest look at the battles we fight and who we fight them for...

There are delights in every aspect of “The Odyssey,” from production design to costumes. (Benny Safdie’s helmet as Agamemnon should launch thousands of popcorn buckets.) That sort of all-around excellence is a staple in Nolan’s filmography, be it in “The Dark Knight,” “Interstellar” or “Oppenheimer.” “The Odyssey” is truly special even among those, though, making a 3,000-year-old story feel fresh and original again.

Out of 168 reviews published so far, there appear to be three that don't rate the movie fresh. In fairness, let's take a look at one of those.

Yes, going in, I had my reservations about The Odyssey, but my colleagues kept telling me this is Christopher Nolan. He’ll come through. That’s how I felt about Oppenheimer, but with The Odyssey, it all just felt like amateur hour. I couldn’t take anything about this film seriously. But at least we’ll get to see the end-credits song performed at the Academy Awards…that will be a hoot.

In the end, I just wanted The Odyssey to feel like an epic, grand adventure, and, like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I wanted this story to say something about humanity. Anything that felt inspiring or profound. Instead, we just got this grand adventure all for the sake of being a grand adventure. Sure… many will find that enough for a fun summer movie, but what we really want is a great movie. One we’ll remember for decades to come. We’ll be lucky to remember this film a month from now.

I'm going to try to go see it this weekend or next. Apparently it's difficult to get tickets to theaters showing this in IMAX 70mm. In the meantime, we should be getting audience reviews fairly soon. In the past there have certainly been cases where the professional reviewers seem to be reviewing the politics rather than the film. The audience rarely seems interested in that. So we'll see if they react with similar glowing reviews.

The Critical Drinker hasn't put up a review of this yet, just a video last week about the backlash. If he puts one up today, I'll add it below.

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