This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** Welcome to the Bright Side, a weekly roundup of all the good news and ideas you might have missed from the past week. Happy July 4th! Maybe we can beat the heat by cooling ourselves in the shadow of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s nuptials at Madison Square Garden, but no matter what, we’re proudly celebrating America. (If you’re not dressing up your porch goose like a hot dog right now, are you even from here? I’m kidding, but I bring the receipts.) Consider this your star-spangled RSVP to the most freedom-loving party on the block! The most patriotic quotes in U.S. history “History began on July 4th, 1776. Everything before that was a mistake.” — Ron Swanson from “Parks & Recreation” “If I have to lay an egg for my country, I’ll do it.” — Bob Hope “Thanksgiving with no turkey is like Fourth of July with no apple pie or Friday with no two pizzas.” — Joey Tribbiani from “Friends” @oscars Happy 4th of July! ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’ (1999) – The Teen Princess contestants from Mount Rose, Minnesota share why they’re proud to be an American. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Ellen Barkin, Allison Janney, Kirstie Alley, Brittany Murphy, Amy Adams and Mindy Sterling #DropDeadGorgeous #July4th #KirstenDunst #DeniseRichards #BrittanyMurphy #AmyAdams ♬ original sound – The Oscars “I chose Mount Rushmore because to live in a country where you can take an ugly old mountain and put faces on it, faces of great Americans who did so much to make our country super great, well, that makes me, Rebecca Leeman, proud to be an American.” — Rebecca Leeman from “Drop Dead Gorgeous” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” — The Declaration of Independence The America-maxxing of European soccer fans Dear European tourists, if you like free bread, air conditioning, and “Country Roads,” you’re gonna love what’s coming for America 250. Still, I’m questioning whether World Cup fans are ready for the pyrotechnics about to rain down upon them. But we’ll cross that bridge when we light it up. Cue the John Philip Sousa bangers!  @foxsports ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ plays in San Francisco Bay Area Stadium after the #USMNT Knockout Stage victory

America’s man at the United Nations unloaded on Iran’s chief diplomat Thursday, delivering a blistering smackdown after Tehran’s envoy tried to shut down an emergency Security Council session on the Gulf crisis — telling him bluntly that intimidation tactics don’t fly on East River soil. “This is not Tehran,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz thundered at Iranian envoy Amir Saeid Iravani after the Iranian diplomat suggested the council shouldn’t even be meeting and accused Waltz and other members of spreading lies. “This is the United States of America. This is the United Nations Security Council. You will not silence this body.” Waltz — the first Green Beret elected to Congress, who served 27 years in the U.S. Army, including multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa, and received four Bronze Stars, including two for valor — wasn’t done. He continued: The representative goes on to say that the ambassador from Bahrain, the foreign minister, myself, and other members of this body are full of lies; they were lying. Let me ask you. What here is a lie? Who’s lying here? Is this Arab family in Bahrain in a residential neighborhood whose home was destroyed by an Iranian Shahed drone, are they lying? Crowne Plaza Hotel, full of tourists? Are they lying? First responders whose headquarters were struck deliberately so that they couldn’t put out fires:  Were they lying? Is this hypocrisy? Is this what this council is here to denounce today? I ask the representative, are these lies? Are these photographs, are these lies? I’d say not. Iran will not silence us on our own soil. That might work in Tehran, but not in the UN Security Council. We will tell the truth. pic.twitter.com/AwzEbdETzn — Ambassador Mike Waltz (@USAmbUN) July 2, 2026 The fireworks capped a brutal day at the U.N., where Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, laid out a horror-show tally: 808 Iranian missile and drone strikes on his tiny kingdom since late February, killing three civilians and wounding 465 more. Al-Zayani said the barrage — 203 ballistic missiles and more than 600 armed drones — hammered homes, hospitals and infrastructure, and warned that an April strike on an ammonia tank came within a hair of triggering a toxic gas catastrophe. Waltz, addressing the council earlier, had warned that President Donald Trump’s patience with Tehran was wearing thin, accusing the regime of strangling global trade by choking off the vital Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint UN economists say threatens 61 developing nations. “Iran cannot, and we cannot allow it to, hold the world’s economy hostage,” Waltz declared, insisting a “transformative” opportunity for ordinary Iranians remains on the table if Tehran changes course. Iranian envoy Iravani claimed Waltz’s remarks were “lies and disinformation,” insisting Iran’s strikes were purely defensive retaliation against American bases used to launch attacks on Iranian soil. He argued Washington has no business dictating security in the Gulf, insisting only regional nations should call the shots. Waltz was having no part of it.

Earlier this week, federal authorities arrested a Cuban operative who allegedly assisted far-Left activists, including Hasan Piker. The Trump administration now plans to deport the Cuban national. The State Department revoked Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez’s immigration status after he “spent more than a decade working as a foreign subversive for the Communist Cuban regime’s premier influence and intelligence front group in the United States,” agency spokesperson Thomas Pigott said Wednesday. Federal authorities also nabbed Lloga Dominguez’s wife and son. The Cuban national “spent more than a decade in the United States working for the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP),” a communist organization that Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned in June over its ties to the Cuban regime, Pigott said. “He has continued to maintain ties to the transnational communist subversion network throughout his time residing in our nation,” Pigott said. The State Department describes ICAP as “the central node in a sprawling Cuban intelligence and influence operation, claiming to span more than 2,000 organizations across more than 150 countries,” adding that the group “has a long and intimate relationship” with Cuban intelligence officials. ICAP’s current president Fernando González Llort served 15 years in an American prison for acting as a Cuban spy, according to the State Department. Pigott added that the Marxist group has been complicit in “trafficking in vile anti-American propaganda, cultivating pro-Havana regime activists and politicians, and lobbying federal, state and local politicians on behalf of the Cuban dictatorship.” He said the group sought to use America’s Left-wing advocates to export Cuba’s communism. “Under the Trump Administration, America will never become home for Cuban Communist regime thugs who peddle propaganda, run foreign influence operations, or seek to wage revolution against American civilization,” Pigott said. For decades, the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People – or “ICAP” – has been a vehicle for radical left-wing extremism and subversive foreign influence in the United States and across our hemisphere. ICAP is the Cuban regime’s premier influence and intelligence front… — Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) July 1, 2026 ICAP worked with Left-wing nonprofits in the United States, including the People’s Forum, Progressive International, and Code Pink, to organize a convoy to bring supplies to Cuba that Piker joined in March, Fox News previously reported. Federal investigators began probing advocacy groups in the United States that have been lobbying, messaging, fundraising, and organizing with Cuban government officials, according to Fox News. As part of the investigation, authorities have reportedly been looking into Piker, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, and Code Pink D.C. coordinator Olivia DiNucci. The Treasury Department issued administrative subpoenas to Piker and Benjamin requesting records related to their travel to Cuba, communications, and financial activity connected to the convoy, Fox News reported in May. During a Twitch stream, Piker denied knowing Lloga Dominguez or ICAP. “I don’t understand why they’re covering this as like the organization that sent Hasan Piker to Cuba,” he said. “Bro, Trump is gonna put me in f*ckin’ prison, I swear to God, what the hell is going on?” Piker said. “We’re about to hit f*ckin’ 1930s Germany if we haven’t already hit it and … these dumb f*cks on the Democratic Party side are still complaining about the people that the Trump admin is actively targeting, and they’re also taking advantage of that active targeting because they also don’t like us, great.” In a resurfaced clip, Piker said a contact was communicating with the Cuban regime on his behalf to possibly organize a trip. “The Cuban government actually hit my contact from the embassy and told them that ‘if the only thing stopping Hasan from coming to Cuba was the consistent internet access, we can make it happen.’” Piker said. ICAP, which was founded by Fidel Castro in 1960, has denied acting on behalf of the Communist Cuban regime, Fox News reported.

Democrats have figured out that voters are furious about their electric bills and hope to capitalize on the outrage in the upcoming midterm elections. Perhaps blue-state politicians should look in the mirror before scapegoating everything from the removal of federal subsidies for wind and solar to new data center buildout.   BlueStatesHighRates.com, a new interactive index from Always On Energy Research and the Institute for Energy Research, shows that the steepest increases in energy cost sit in the bluest states across the 50 states and Washington, D.C.   Eighty-six percent of states above the national average in the continental U.S. are reliably blue states — that voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in the 2020 and 2024 elections. In contrast, 90% of the 10 states with the lowest electricity prices are reliably red.   Nowhere is the effect of blue-state policies clearer than among the 13 states that declared independence in 1776.   Blue states tend to have aggressive renewable portfolio standards and clean energy mandates that require states to source a specific share of electricity from intermittent wind and solar, driving up consumer bills. The same states usually layer on full retail-rate net metering, which credits rooftop-solar owners more than the generation is worth to the grid, shifting fixed costs onto neighbors without panels. Their regulators also allow investor-owned utilities to adopt their own net-zero pledges and commit to retiring the coal and gas plants that ratepayers will need to pay to replace.   For instance, Rhode Island is the 3rd-most expensive state in the U.S. in 2025, posting an average all-sectors rate of 25.86 cents per kilowatt hour. Rhode Island’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) stampedes toward 100% renewables by 2033, the fastest of any state. In the 2026 legislative session, lawmakers rejected Gov. Dan McKee’s (D) proposal to push the 100% deadline back to 2050, which his office argued would triple compliance costs by 2031.   Other politicians, like Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in New York, have had more success pushing back overambitious climate goals, after a finding that cutting emissions 40% by 2030 would impose costs exceeding $4,000 annually on upstate households and at least $2,300 in annual costs for New York City residents. Budget negotiations replaced the binding 2030 obligation with a 2040 target of 60% reductions.  Overarching most of New England and the Mid-Atlantic is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) — a cap-and-trade program that adds compliance costs to coal, oil, and natural gas generators that spill into customer bills. RGGI prices cleared at $35 per ton of CO2 in June 2026, the highest ever, spurred in part by Virginia’s reentry to RGGI. Almost every RGGI member channels its carbon-tax proceeds into green energy slush funds, except for New Hampshire, which rebated 93% back to ratepayers in 2023.   These factors discourage investment in new natural gas pipelines, which leads to an inadequate supply of natural gas that unnecessarily increases fuel costs and wholesale power prices. New York has proven actively hostile to new pipelines, repeatedly denying water permits to the proposed Constitution Pipeline and Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) projects. The latter only broke ground this April thanks to sustained pressure from the Trump administration, but Hochul skipped the groundbreaking ceremony. So has Massachusetts, which has killed multiple major pipeline expansions.  Contrast with the states among the original 13 colonies whose rates fell below the national average in 2025: Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Georgia has no RPS standard, no net-metering mandates, no carbon pricing schemes, and has adopted reasonable data center consumer protections. North Carolina does have a 100% carbon-neutral mandate, but its interim 2030 goal was repealed in 2025 after recognizing the costs associated. South Carolina’s non-binding RPS expired in 2021, and it is phasing out full retail-rate net metering. Virginia’s blue-state policies are the odd man out, but it has more commercial sales than other states, which flattens the all-sectors average.   Now that affordability has become the buzzword, Democratic politicians are quick to pin the blame for high electricity prices on anyone but themselves — despite knowing, mere years ago, that higher prices were the point. In floor debates about New York’s climate law in 2019, then-state senator Todd Kaminsky (D) acknowledged that it would “ask people to make sacrifices.”  Red states let their grids run on what works. Blue states ask their residents to make sacrifices because of their electricity policy choices.  *** Sarah Montalbano is an energy policy analyst, and Isaac Orr is vice president of research at Always On Energy Research, a nonprofit modeling firm. BlueStatesHighRates.com is a project of Always On and the Institute for Energy Research.

If you’re a waitress or a waiter, you’ve likely heard about no tax on tips and are already seeing benefits like Atlanta waitress Brenna Warrick, who told The Daily Wire she’s noticed a significant financial improvement. But other tax benefits included in the “Big Beautiful Bill” aren’t so obvious. If you bought a car, had a child, adopted a child, are a senior citizen, started a business, passed down an estate to your child, or happen to be a manufacturer, you could be missing out on tax benefits included in the legislation. xfmi If you bought a car that was manufactured in America between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, you can write off up to $10,000 a year in interest paid on your auto loan, assuming you make under $150,000 a year or $250,000 together with your spouse.  And if you bought a new American-made minivan for your newborn, the benefits keep rolling in. If you had a child or adopted a child who was born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, the baby qualifies for a $1,000 seed investment from the federal government. Cordt Holub, a fourth-generation farmer from Iowa, told The Daily Wire, “I’ve got a 10-month-old girl. It’s truly a unique opportunity not only for myself and my daughter but for kids all over the country.” “Every kid born during that time will have the same opportunity to start investing at an early age and see the impact of compound investing,” Holub added. He said he plans to match the investment for his 3-year-old son who was born outside the window for the $1,000 seed investment from the Treasury Department.  Holub also told The Daily Wire about the legislation’s impact on passing down his family farm and making it to the fifth generation. “In the last five to ten years, inflation has caused land prices to skyrocket and the average age of a farmer is over 60 years old now,” he said. “We are going to hit a turning point in the next couple years of massive amounts of land changing hands. Lowering the death tax keeps that land in the hands of families rather than outside corporations and investors.”  The higher federal estate tax exemption affects more than just family farms and also applies to estates across the country, making it easier for families to pass assets to the next generation. Farms and other businesses also received benefits through 100% bonus depreciation. That means businesses can deduct 100% of equipment and manufacturing costs the second they are placed in service instead of over several years, helping businesses and manufacturers stay liquid.  The legislation’s tax relief extends beyond businesses and farms and offers tax relief for many older Americans through a temporary federal tax deduction of up to $6,000 for qualifying seniors, in addition to the standard deduction. Barb Kuiper, a grandmother of two from Michigan, told The Daily Wire, “Now that my Social Security isn’t taxed, I can take my grandkids to the zoo without stressing over savings and planning for emergencies.” She added, “Retiring is hard enough and I’m grateful for Republicans like Mike Rogers and President Trump for making sure America’s seniors are well taken care of.”  Waitress Brenna Warrick echoed Kuiper’s comment, telling The Daily Wire, “Before Republicans passed no tax on tips, I worried constantly about making ends meet, falling into credit card debt, and being unprepared for emergencies like an unexpected hospital visit. Now, thanks to Republicans delivering tax relief for tipped workers without Jon Ossoff’s support, I can pay my bills on time, buy presents for my son’s birthday, and even take my first family vacation in years.”