Conservatively Speaking

Monday, July 6, 2026

President Trump Heads To NATO Summit To Collect On Defense Promises And Close Billions In Arms Deals

President Trump leaves for Ankara, Turkey, on Monday night, headed into a NATO summit built around one blunt goal: making allies pay what they promised.

The summit runs July 7 and 8, and the White House trip comes after months of pressure over whether Europe is carrying enough of the alliance burden.

The agenda is direct: push more European military spending and lock in billions in American arms deals while he is there.

The New York Post laid out the core of the trip: President Trump wants allies to hit the 5% GDP defense-spending target by 2035, with 3.5% going to core military needs and 1.5% to broader resilience projects.

Administration officials told the Post that Europe and Canada have already committed nearly $139 billion, and roughly half of that money is expected to go toward American-made weapons.

The Post also framed the trip against tensions from the Iran war, when Trump criticized allies for failing to back the United States strongly enough.

That is why the “Daddy isn’t going anywhere” message landed: America stays engaged, but President Trump is making clear the alliance no longer gets a blank check from Washington.

The Associated Press put the Ankara summit in a longer timeline, noting that last year’s summit produced the spending promises Trump wanted.

This week is the enforcement phase, with Trump pressing allies to turn the commitments into real budgets, real weapons, and real military readiness instead of another round of diplomatic language.

AP described the push as part of a broader NATO 3.0 approach that moves more security responsibility onto Europe while Washington reviews its own force posture on the continent.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already announced a six-month review of U.S. forces in Europe, a move that caught allies off guard and underscored that the old arrangement is being renegotiated.

The schedule is packed with high-stakes meetings. Trump is set to sit down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

Turkey is where the trip gets more complicated.

Axios reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Trump to rein in Erdogan ahead of the summit, pointing to Turkey’s increasingly hostile posture toward Israel.

Axios also reported that the United States is reviewing the possibility of selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, a prospect that has raised concern inside Israel.

Netanyahu’s concern, according to the report, is that a major fighter-jet sale could embolden Erdogan at the same moment Trump is trying to hold NATO together and keep pressure on allies to pay more of the bill.

That puts President Trump in the middle of several overlapping fights: Ukraine, Syria, Turkey, Israel, NATO spending, and the future of America’s military footprint in Europe.

The pattern is consistent.

President Trump is keeping America at the table while changing the price of admission.

For years, Europe talked about burden-sharing while relying on American taxpayers and American weapons to carry the alliance.

In Ankara, Trump is showing up with a different message: pay up, buy American, and stop assuming Washington will cover the difference.

https://wltreport.com/2026/07/06/president-trump-nato-summit-defense-promises-billions-arms-deals/

PHOTO — Democrat Senator Mark Kelly Torched for Wearing Mexico Jersey to Watch World Cup: ‘F**king Clown’

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) was called a “disgrace” on Sunday for wearing a Mexico jersey during a World Cup watch party.

Kelly shared a photo of himself surrounded by others wearing the same jersey while they watched Mexico play against England, Mediate reported.

“Lots of people out in Tucson to watch Mexico take on England. Tucson and La Rosa sure know how to do the World Cup!” Kelly wrote in the caption:

Social media users were quick to pile on the Democrat, one person writing, “Mark, I say this with all due respect… You are a fcking disgrace to America,” while someone else commented, “What a fcking clown. Move to Mexico, asshat.”

Another person shared an image of Kelley standing next to dictators including Mao and Stalin, writing, “Only because China isn’t playing. Right?”

“So you are Mexican now? What a loser. Oh… and your team lost too,” another person replied.

The Mediate article noted that “It didn’t take long for the pile-on to begin on the platform. The post quickly went viral online, garnering millions of views and thousands of replies from frustrated USMNT fans who were furious that a sitting U.S. senator had chosen to jump on board with the U.S. neighbor and soccer rival.”

It was not the first time Kelly has been at the center of controversy. As Breitbart News reported in November:

The Department of War (DOW) has launched an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) that may lead to court-martial proceedings after “serious allegations of misconduct” were made against him.
Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy captain, has been facing accusations of “sedition” from President Donald Trump after participating in a video with other Democrats last week calling on military servicemembers and intelligence officials to “refuse illegal orders” from the administration.

The outlet reported in 2022 that Kelly had repeatedly voted against border security measures which enabled former President Joe Biden’s open border crisis and hurt American citizens, while an advertisement from Firebrand PAC and Heritage Action said Kelly “sacrificed the people of Arizona to Biden’s open borders cruelty,” according to Breitbart News.

Also at that time, Arizona Senate Republican candidate Blake Masters told the outlet Kelly allowed China to colonize America’s farmland.

“Personally, I’d prefer not to be colonized by a tyrannical foreign regime hellbent on destroying us, but I guess Mark Kelly has found some common ground with the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2026/07/06/photo-democrat-senator-mark-kelly-torched-for-wearing-mexico-jersey-to-watch-world-cup-fking-clown/

Maine Dem. Senate Hopeful Graham Platner Panics and Cancels Town Halls as 'New Scandal' Bombshell Looms

This is certainly an interesting development:

Oop! There may be a new scandal?

Apparently, it's more than one event, actually. This could be juicy.

Oh, we are sat for this one!

Oh, all his little Commie friends will come to his defense. Of that, you can be sure.

Maybe he sent a message saying he secretly supports Israel and the right of Jewish people to exist. That would end him in today's Democrat Party, for sure.

Stay tuned.

There are even reports a July 4th parade appearance did not go as planned. Those darn water balloons have surely ruined a campaign or two. Lulz.

It looks like the Platner campaign is in disarray. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

It doesn't sound good for the Democrat's favorite Nazi.

The Democrats should have pulled him when Lyndsey Fifield tried to warn them. Unfortunately, she's a conservative woman so she doesn't matter. They can now deal with the fleas since they chose to lay with a dog.

https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2026/07/06/graham-platner-cancels-event-n2429959

US Energy Revolution: Natural Gas Now Set to Lead Over Petroleum

I've long been a vocal advocate for nuclear power for electricity generation, and I'm still convinced that nuclear power is a major part of the United States' future energy portfolio, especially where the big, electricity-hungry data centers that support the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) are concerned; one small modular reactor per data center may well be the future of these installations.

For most applications, though, natural gas is the big upcoming thing, and it's set to surpass petroleum and coal as the primary sources of energy. And here's the the thing: The United States has a lot of natural gas. A lot of it.

For 75 years, petroleum has been the energy source that has powered the U.S. more than any other. That’s about to change.
By the end of the decade, natural gas likely will surpass oil for the first time after the gap all but disappeared in 2025. This seismic shift will end a chapter that began in 1950, when petroleum ended the longstanding reign of another fossil fuel: coal.
“I say we probably cross that threshold within the next couple years, and by 2030, we will have a big lead on petroleum,” Toby Rice, CEO of top U.S. gas producer EQT Corp., said in an interview.
The transition from America being a nation powered by oil to one running primarily on gas shows how much the economics of cheap gas has reordered parts of the energy sector and pushed out competing fuel sources.

We have vast reserves of natural gas, and improving technologies, like fracking and horizontal drilling, are opening up a wealth of new recoverable reserves, not the least of which are found right here in Alaska. These reserves, and our increasing development of them, have made the United States a net energy exporter, driven mostly by natural gas.

The rise of wind and solar as significant contributors to U.S. electricity generation has also aided the development of gas-fired power plants, as gas facilities can ramp up and down more rapidly than coal and nuclear generators when intermittent renewable power drops.
Notably, the positioning of gas as a top U.S. energy source doesn’t account for the explosive growth of U.S. liquefied natural gas. The U.S. is already the world’s largest exporter of LNG, and shipments are set to roughly double by the end of the decade. Shell predicts U.S. feedgas for LNG plants will make up 23% of total U.S. gas production by 2035, according to its annual LNG outlook.

This is a good and comforting place for the United States to be in.

Alaska LNG Pipeline Showdown: Gov. Dunleavy Rejects Senate Amendments, Calls New Special Session

The transition won't be without its own hurdles. The Alaska state legislature is, as of this writing, still debating the state's role in the financing and tax profile of the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline, which will deliver bulk natural gas from the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula for export. There will be more political battles over pipelines and facilities. But natural gas makes a great deal of sense; it's clean, it's abundant, and it's cheap. Unlike "green" energy sources, it is a high-density energy source. Unlike solar and wind power, natural gas is reliable and constant. Gas-fired power plants can quickly scale up and down to meet demand. No "green" source can do that.

I still believe nuclear power to be an essential and growing part of America's energy profile, and if that magical "30-50 years from now" barrier can ever be breached and workable grid-scale fusion power can be had, that will be the greatest game-changer in energy to date - but on that one, you can color me skeptical.

For now, natural gas is the next big thing, and it doesn't look as though that will change anytime soon.

https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/07/06/us-energy-revolution-natural-gas-now-set-to-lead-over-petroleum-n2204038

What Happens Now? Mike Johnson Just Signaled the Next Move on Birthright Citizenship

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (LA-04) indicated GOP lawmakers will seek to enshrine President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court struck it down last week.

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, host Shannon Bream brought up the Supreme Court’s decision and Trump’s response in which he pushed for a legislative fix. “What say you about how this gets done if there's a change to be made?” she asked.

“Well, I used to litigate constitutional law cases, so I really enjoyed Justice Clarence Thomas's dissent,” Johnson replied. “...He explained that the 14th Amendment, the original intent was to enhance and really value citizenship, and it's been devalued because of birthright tourism, which is what we have now. It's a threat to the rule of law and national security. We do need to address it. We're looking at all angles. If there's some legislative fix, we'll advance that immediately. If it's a constitutional amendment, as you know, it takes a little more time. But we've got to address this.”

President Trump signed the order shortly after taking office last year. The order said the government would not issue citizenship papers to children born in the United States if the mother came to the country illegally and if the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.

Supporters argued that the order would stop people from abusing the 14th Amendment and reduce incentives for people to enter the country illegally.

The Supreme Court struck down the order last week in a 6-3 decision. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion explaining that children born on American soil to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily present “satisfy both elements of the Citizenship Clause” and “are citizens at birth” under the 14th Amendment.

The ruling was not unexpected. Congressional Republicans said they will continue to fight against birthright citizenship through new legislation or a constitutional amendment. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) announced that he is filing a bill that would alter the law defining citizenship.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jeff-charles/2026/07/06/mike-johnson-on-passing-birthright-citizenship-legislation-n2678875