Daily Musts Archives

Swamp Getting Down to Business? Nope, It’s Emails from the Dead 24/7. Healthcare Debate Could Be Golden Opportunity. Gender War Prophet.

Posted on November 14, 2025November 14, 2025 by Charlotte Hays

Great. The shutdown is over. Now the wise men and women of the nation’s capital can get down to important business. Who are you fooling? I nominate this passage for Quote of the Day:

Could there be a better example of Congressional dysfunction than that its first pressing business after the government reopens is . . . the return of the Jeffrey Epstein follies? This is exactly what the American people weren’t waiting for.

— Editorial in the Wall Street Journal headlined “The Epstein Follies Return”

Yep, that’s contemporary Washington for you. Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York captures the mood of the most important city on earth:

The fever swamps have become so excited about the Epstein emails that we need someone to come up with a new grand unified theory to fit the tidbits. Trump, as president, spending holidays with Epstein! Trump, as president, meeting Epstein in Europe! Epstein giving Putin blackmail dirt on Trump! Michael Wolff masterminding the whole thing!

Indeed the chattering classes are chattering about the antics of Trump-obsessed journalist (is this description redundant?) Michael Wolff, who buddied up to the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, advising him how to be “the bullet” that ended candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. Four Republicans—including shy Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, and Marjorie Taylor Greene—joined Dems in voting to force release of Epstein files. More on the battle of the email releases.

Hapless former Harvard President Larry Summers, who emailed Epstein that he thought women were less intelligent than men, got caught in the web. The best—and most honest—take on the Epstein files comes this morning from USA TODAY’s Nicole Russell, whose column is headlined “I Didn’t Vote for Trump for his Character. But We Deserve the Truth about His Past.” Russell writes:

I voted for President Donald Trump, and I support a lot of his policies and politics: Lowering taxes, brokering peace deals and ordering strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

I’ve never supported Trump because he had stellar character ….

Let me be clear on this: If Trump has a sordid past that includes knowing about a child sex trafficking ring, as a mother and a Republican, I want to know about it. I have a right to know, and so does every other American.

I’d like to know when Democrats became aware of these emails linking Epstein and Trump. If these are so damning − and they might be − why haven’t they been mentioned sooner for justice to be done?

The reviews of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s performance in handling the shutdown are in, writes Matthew Continetti, and they aren’t good. Continetti is brutal:

Now disgruntled Democrats are acknowledging what Republicans have known for years: Mr. Schumer puts his own interests ahead of the institution—and of everyone else. The 74-year-old five-term senator exemplifies a brittle establishment terrified of the growing socialist movement in the Democratic Party….

Senate Democrats begin the 2026 election cycle with an unfavorable map, a disgruntled base and a weak and selfish leader. One half of the country finally understands what the other half has known all along: Nobody likes a Schumer.

The Shutdown Party. Congressional Democrats are throwing a tantrum over the seven Dems and one independent who voted to end the shutdown, while Democratic National Committee staffers find calls to end remote work and return to the office “callous.” Former Biden adviser Neera Tanden responded to the shenanigans:

“If you think democracy is on the line – working in the office is not a big ask,” Tanden wrote in a post on X. “And there are plenty of other people willing to step up. Get yourselves together people.”

The shutdown ended without the Dems getting enhanced subsidies to disguise the Affordable Care Act’s unaffordability. But they did bargain to get a debate over health care. Rich Lowry’s New York Post column is headlined “How the GOP Can Push True Health Care ‘Affordability’ — and Win.” Lowry writes:

Obamacare taxes should be repealed, the law should allow for genuine bare-bones “catastrophic plans” for those who want them, and states should be given as much leeway to innovate as possible.

Republicans would also be smart to build on a Trump administration rule from the first term that allowed employers to fund accounts — Health Reimbursement Accounts, or HRAs — for employees to buy their own individual coverage.

None of these ideas will make the case for themselves.

Republicans have to introduce them to the public and explain them, even if it makes them uncomfortable and even if they’d prefer to talk about something else.

Real Clear Politics on Sirius FM Radio asks if President Trump can “flip the script” on health care.

Long before the Biden administration went giddy supporting mutilation of small children—which it dubbed “gender affirming care”—Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins University was a hero of sexual sanity. We’re proud that Independent Women had Dr. McHugh speak at an Independent Women event back when the issue was just a shadow on the horizon. Sohrab Ahmari has a highly recommended (by me) Unherd piece on Dr. McHugh’s work. I can’t resist going long and quoting the beginning of Ahmari’s piece—it shows the incipient insanity Dr. McHugh spotted earlier than most:

At one point in 1991’s Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins) tells detective Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) that “there are three major centers for transsexual surgery: Johns Hopkins, University of Minnesota, and Columbus Medical Center.” Buffalo Bill, the woman-skinning serial killer Starling is pursuing, probably “applied for sex reassignment at one or all of them,” only to be rejected.

That bit about Bill’s rejection — the killer merely thinks he’s trans — is a relic from an earlier, hard-to-imagine age, when patients’ claims of belonging to the opposite sex were apparently subjected to rigorous scrutiny, rather than being readily affirmed. Yet the film’s dialogue fails the test of verisimilitude in one respect. By the time the events in Silence of the Lambs take place, in the 1980s, Johns Hopkins University’s sex-change clinic had been closed down.

Dr. Paul McHugh, then head of psychiatry at the Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, made the decision to shutter it in 1979. …

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren. A cynic might say that the CFPB was designed to keep ordinary people from making choices their betters disdain. Now progressives are rallying around the CFPB again—and they should have checked their facts first:

Progressives are trumpeting a report that consumers’ financial data may be less secure following Trump administration efforts to shrink the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

But in their eagerness to attack Trump, attention is refocusing on a massive scandal that plagued the “consumer watchdog” agency under Joe Biden– one that left over 250,000 people’s data exposed.

Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters—a top MAGA foe— blasted Trump’s efforts to downsize the CFPB, claiming staffing and contractor cuts put Americans’ data at risk….

But critics say that in blasting current Bureau chief, MAGA favorite Russ Vought, progressives like Waters are forgetting about the biggest threat to consumer data security in recent years: A massive data leak that occurred under the previous Biden administration, under the leadership of leftist favorite, former CFPB head Rohit Chopra. And by attacking Trump now, they are merely serving to highlight the leak and the huge risks of the agency having such expansive power and authority.

In other news, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “image is stained” (per the New York Times) by a corruption inquiry that involves his inner circle. … The Trump administration is preparing tariff exemptions on certain foods … to which the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board responds, “Yes, We Want No Banana Tariffs.” … And “Climate Reality Hits Nantucket” details the tony island’s worst crisis of conscience since the islanders were forced—forced, I say—to drive away unwanted illegal immigrants….

… The American Spectator argues that 50-year mortgages are “the worst idea since New Coke.” I’d amend: worst idea since college loans. … People who drive big trucks should be able to read road signs—latest outrageous Trump demand. … What keeps Ms. Must up at night (thanks for asking)? When somebody as serious as Joel Kotkin argues that the U.S. could go communist. Please read Kotkin’s “The Specter of Communism Haunts the West — Mamdani Is Only the Beginning.”

Why Did Schumer Even Bother? Epstein Is Back. Shrink: TDS Is Real. Girlboss Lies. Ellis Island’s Truth. And More

Posted on November 13, 2025November 13, 2025 by Charlotte Hays

President Trump late yesterday signed a bill to end the longest government shutdown in history. The bill funds the government through January. Here’s a breakdown of what’s in the legislation.

Although Speaker Mike Johnson had enough GOP votes to pass the legislation, six Democrats broke ranks and voted in favor of the bill. All six are from swing districts. Now that it’s over and there will be a deluge of business that had been put on hold over 43 days, it’s tempting to dub this the Seinfeld Shutdown—i.e., a shutdown about nothing.

Thus, the Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim ponders the question of “Why Schumer Had to Do It.” Swaim argues that ordinary Democrats did not demand a shutdown, but that left-leaning nonprofits did—the shutdown was “a show” for the base:

But what or who is that “base” to which Messrs. Klein and Blanchard refer? Poke around and you’ll find it consists mainly of cash-flush foundations, unions and activist groups. The American Civil Liberties Union; the Sunrise Movement and other environmental and climate groups; Planned Parenthood and other abortion-rights outfits; an array of immigrant-rights organizations, some of them so radical as to be almost insurrectionist; the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association; the Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Lives Matter and other racial-justice organizations; the Human Rights Campaign and assorted LGBTQ activist groups; scores of foreign-connected Palestinian-rights and otherwise “anti-Zionist” organizations; the George Soros-funded network known as the Open Society Foundations . . . and on and on. …

These demands issued from progressive nonprofits led by ideologues and staffed by young busybodies.

Liberal politicos frequently accuse Republicans of slavishly catering to the whims of Mr. Trump. There is truth in the charge. But Mr. Trump will leave office in three years. Progressive nonprofits aren’t going anywhere.

Extended and enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, so-called, were at the heart of why the Democrats held out so long. They are cynically trying to blame the failure of the ACA, passed without GOP support, on the Republicans. When health insurance is debated in Congress, as per the deal to end the shutdown, Chris Jacobs, founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, reminds us that there already is an alternative to the ACA. In forcing a debate, the Dems may have opened the door to replacing the ACA. Will they get “cornered” by the ACA? Meanwhile, Kurt Schlichter says that the Dems want fighters but keep getting losers.

The ACA was an issue in the shutdown. But so too was hating Donald Trump. A psychiatrist writing in today’s Wall Street Journal proposes that, in a way, Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, though “no serious mental-health professional would render such a partisan and derogatory diagnosis.” Dr. Jonathan Alpert writes about what he has seen in his own practice:

I initially viewed this as an ideological reaction, an understandable response to a polarizing figure. But over time the symptoms took on a more clinical shape. What once looked like outrage now presents as a fixation that distorts perception and consumes attention.

One patient told me she couldn’t enjoy a family vacation because “it felt wrong to relax while Trump was still out there.” Others report panic attacks or trouble sleeping after seeing him in the news. Their anxiety has outgrown politics and become a way of being.

The term “Trump derangement syndrome” emerged as a tongue-in-cheek partisan label. The joke obscured the psychological reality in which a political figure becomes a symbolic stand-in for threat and loss of control.

Mr. Trump himself isn’t the pathology; he is the trigger.

With the shutdown ending, Dems and the media are making a beeline back to the Jeffrey Epstein “bombshell.” Miranda Devine charges that they are “pushing another desperate anti-Trump hoax – a false Epstein smear campaign.” Their latest hit did require some fancy footwork:

House Democrats pulled a bait-and-switch on a new trove of Jeffrey Epstein documents Wednesday when they released just three select emails in which the pedophile financier mentioned President Trump, including one claiming, “Victim 1 spent many hours at my house with him.”

But the Dems on the House Oversight Committee deliberately withheld the name of the victim in the missive — Virginia Giuffre, who said before her death earlier this year that she witnessed no wrongdoing by Trump during their interactions.

Media outlets jumped on the limited document release anyway — led by the New York Times and CNN, which appeared to have gotten a sneak peek at the messages.

Glutton Alert: The House Oversight Committee has released 20,000 pages of documents provided by the Epstein estate. Meanwhile, hope springs eternal. And don’t expect the Epstein matter to fade. “Why Trump’s Epstein Problem Won’t Go Away” is the headline on Eli Lake’s latest at The Free Press:

The fight over the Epstein files has become a test of the president’s power.

Victor Davis Hanson has a terrific piece at American Greatness on immigration. VDH hails Ellis Island as the orderly, law-abiding way Americans once welcomed newcomers, in contrast to the Biden administration’s destructive policies. Also highly recommended is Christopher Rufo’s City Journal piece on “The Rise of American Schizo-Politics.” “The far-Left generates violence; the far-Right fulminates conspiracy,” Rufo argues. He writes:

We seem to be entering a period of digitally driven “schizo-politics,” in which both sides’ fringes have developed a web of political narratives, conspiracies, and counter-conspiracies. On one side, we have the left-wing terror memeplex, optimized toward radicalization and random acts of violence. On the other side, we have a paranoid right-wing variant, which refuses to accept reality—“maybe we didn’t really land on the moon”—and directs a growing segment of the population down rabbit holes.

Dynasties Have a Way of Petering Out. I don’t quite know how to fit the word that Jack Schlossberg, heir to Camelot and Caroline Kennedy’s son, will run for outgoing Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat into this scheme. But here’s the Free Beacon headline: “Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy Grandson Running for Congress, Tweeted About Drinking ‘Jew Blood (Ashkenazi not Sephardic)’ and Semen in Offensive Dig at RFK Jr.”

Kirsten Fleming of the New York Post calls Schlossberg (don’t miss the picture of the candidate) “the perfect avatar for modern Camelot.” Isn’t it interesting that RFK Jr., whose kin snubbed him when he signed on for Trump, appears to be the Kennedy who survived Camelot and went on to meaningful employment?

Women and Choices. The Federalist says that by the world’s standards, Kelsea Ballerini had it all. But:

Ballerini is suffering from a broken heart. The 32-year-old’s troubles do not necessarily stem from an off-again, on-again relationship with beau Chase Stokes, though that probably plays a role. Rather, Ballerini’s obvious emotional ache comes from a deep longing to be a wife and mother.

Ballerini’s real-time struggle between the girl boss identity she bought into at just 19 years-old and the reality that it’s left her “sitting in parks” coveting the love and memories made by families with kids is documented in her latest release “I Sit In Parks,” In the music video for the song, Ballerini is seen through a nostalgic, warm filter swinging on a playground as quick clips of a child playing with bubbles or children being embraced by their parents cut in and out.

Alex Berenson’s Substack offering is called “Unreported Truths.” Berenson’s latest is a fascinating scoop on the CIA and Covid. Taking note of a BBC shake-up occasioned by the Beeb’s doctoring of Trump quotes, Independent Women alum Christine Rosen suggests in the U.K. Telegraph that the venerable news outlet is “following the US establishment media down the path to irrelevance.”

Hooray for the military. National Review celebrates the recent surge in young Americans signing up to serve our country:

There is no doubt that Hegseth’s telegenic public-relations focus on lethality, fitness, and “the warrior ethos” has been an important factor in motivating at least some of the 18- and 19-year-olds who are joining the ranks. Abandoning advertising campaigns that many Americans considered woke, the U.S. Army is once again asking young Americans to “be all you can be” — and thousands of them are answering the call, spurred on by marketing that is visibly attempting to make the military seem cool and exciting.

Notable Collapses: Dems. China’s Hongqi Bridge. Notion that Men Can Get a Medal for Punching Women at the Olympics. Fun: BBC Folds. Kennedy Scion to Run. Plus, More

Posted on November 12, 2025November 12, 2025 by Charlotte Hays

Looks like it’s over. The House returns today to take up a Senate-passed bill to end the 42-day partial government shutdown. It then goes back to the Senate. But the end is virtually assured.

Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York poses the key question: “Why did Democrats fight so long – before caving”? York writes:

Why did they stubbornly play a losing hand even as millions of Americans suffered?

The short answer: because Obamacare was at stake. The Affordable Care Act is the Democratic Party’s premier policy achievement of the last half-century, and it is gradually sinking beneath rising costs, making “affordable” health coverage increasingly unaffordable. Without more taxpayer-paid subsidies for recipients, fewer and fewer people will be able to purchase coverage that Democrats once promised would be within everyone’s reach.

So many Democrats have invested so much of their political identity on health care, and on their health care achievement — remember that Obamacare passed the Senate in 2010 without a single Republican vote — that the prospect of its failure is unthinkable for the Democratic Party.

Jon Stewart is distraught that the shutdown is over, ripping Dems for, as he sees it, caving. “Our long national nightmare is over, but the Democratic psychodrama isn’t,” wrote National Review’s Rich Lowry, who called the shutdown “pointless and dumb.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has plans to ride out the calls for his ouster as Minority Leader, but Schumer’s omnipresence in New York state politics appears to be on dimmer. New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin writes that President Trump “stands tall,” having “won” the shutdown:

The collapse of Chuck Schumer’s shutdown gambit when seven fellow Democrats and one independent broke ranks with him serves as a humiliating bookend to the longest government closure ever.

It also simultaneously highlights one of President Trump’s most sweeping and crucial Washington victories over his most toxic opponents.

What the Dems extracted was that there will be a debate in Congress on healthcare insurance. This may be just what President Trump wants. Wouldn’t it be ironic if this debate paved the way to replace the Affordable Care Act with … affordable health insurance and care for all Americans? The Federalist urges the GOP not to bail out Dems on the Affordable Care Act.

The end of the shutdown isn’t the only good news. We were off yesterday, so this is my first chance to note that the International Olympic Committee appears to be on the verge of banning men from participating in women’s and girls’ sports. The Los Angeles Times, which takes it for granted that men should compete in women’s sports, reports:

The International Olympic Committee appears to be near a pivotal decision with wide-ranging consequences in advance of the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics: Should athletes born male be allowed to compete in women’s events?

The debate comes amid a larger societal discussion about transgender athletes that has taken center stage in recent years, fueled in part by President Trump and others who are putting pressure on the IOC for a ban. The decision is being closely watched in California, where officials have tried to establish some protections for transgender athletes and pushed back against Trump.

Meanwhile, “The Olympic Ban on Cheating Men Is Long Overdue” is the Spiked Online headline on a Joanna Williams story, which argues that the IOC owes an apology to the women who had their dreams shattered and safety compromised to appease trans activists. “Too many young women, like American swimmer Riley Gaines, have already had to put up with their sporting careers being prematurely ended because of men who feel entitled to a place on the women’s team,” Williams notes.

Unherd’s Lisa Selin Davis had a piece on the apparently pending IOC ban (“IOC Ban Is a Reckoning for Women’s Sports“) that noted that high-profile legal cases “alerted many people to the fact that ‘trans rights’ weren’t just about protecting people from discrimination; they were also about redefining sex in a way that unfairly impacted women and girls.”

Suzanne Moore at the U.K. Telegraph says that the IOC is “finally turning its back on trans nonsense” and urges others to follow suit. Moore, who hopes she never again will have to see someone who refuses to take a sex eligibility test punch a woman in the face and win a gold medal for it, writes:

Sport is about bodies, not feelings – advantages like male puberty or differences in sex development have no place in women’s competition.

More Folding. The BBC admitted that it had doctored a Trump address from January 6, 2021, and the outgoing Director of the BBC is taking the hit and stepping down. Read his quotes in this story and see if you think he gets it. In the Ain’t We Got Fun Department, President Trump is still threatening to sue the Beeb.

Another Collapse. China’s great, new engineering feat, the 2,487-foot-long Hongqi Bridge, which connects Sichuan P rovince with Tibet as part of a national highway, has fallen down. Fortunately, no casualties, but PJ Media has intriguing observations about the Commie labor system that produced the former bridge. Perhaps an inopportune day for the New York Times to enthuse that “China is equipping other countries to fight climate change. It’s a role reversal.”

Speaking of Building Bridges …. New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani now says he will call President Trump before he takes office on New Year’s Day because the relationship between City Hall and the White House “will be critical to the success of the city.” The New York Post cover calls the Mamdani administration now taking shape “the socialist network.” Chief of Staff will be “secretive” Democratic Socialist of America strategist Elle Bisgaard-Church, who cut her fangs in the pro-Palestine movement.

Adam Louis-Klein worries at The Free Press about Mamdani and the new racism. “Anti-Jewish libels are a social technology reshaping everything around us,” Louis-Klein argues. The NYPD is preparing for the Mamdani mayoralty. Thomas Horgan writes in City Journal:

The New York City Police Department has to be feeling cursed these days. Having barely recovered from the dark years of Bill de Blasio and still emerging from the chaos of the Eric Adams era, the NYPD now faces the daunting prospect of reporting to democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. But don’t bet against the men and women in blue. They are remarkably resilient—and they may have a secret weapon in their experienced and savvy commissioner, Jessica Tisch….

An interesting combination would be Tisch as Police Commissioner and Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik as Governor of New York. Another woman for public safety, HHS Secretary Kristi Noem announces that “Operation Dirtbag” has netted more than 150 illegal migrant sexual predators in Florida.

The Berkeley Left is not building bridges. The Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the “unrest” after the campus erupted in response to Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk, having an event there:

“Mob assault and thuggish intimidation of attendees exercising their First Amendment rights are unacceptable,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote in a post announcing the probe on X.

While prestige campuses can rustle up a mob in a moment’s notice, too many college kids at such “good” schools are struggling with—you know—getting educated. “The College Kids Who Can’t Do Basic Math” at The Free Press, by Tanner Nau, observes:

More than 10 percent of new students at a prestigious California university are taking math that covers what they should have learned as far back as elementary school.

“Have American Institutions Become Overly Feminized?” That is the question raised by Helen Andrews in a seminal piece in Compact magazine. Seven women discuss this at TFP.

Run, Jack, Run. Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of JFK, announces that he will run for Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s House seat. Nadler is not seeking re-election. He may be the weirdest Kennedy scion yet.

Schumer Shutdown Collapses. Winners & Losers. Carville: We’ll Pack the Court. Mamdani and Grade Inflation. Trump’s Pardons. And More

Posted on November 10, 2025November 10, 2025 by Charlotte Hays

We thought it might drag on and ruin the holidays. But last night the Schumer Shutdown collapsed (and probably with it Chuck Schumer’s political future). Fox Digital reports:

The Senate took a massive step forward on its way to reopening the government on Sunday, with a group of Senate Democrats caving and joining Republicans in their bid to pass a revamped plan to end the shutdown.

Eight Senate Democrats crossed the aisle to mark the first step in the GOP’s quest to end the shutdown. Many of the lawmakers that splintered from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were among those engaged in bipartisan talks over the last several weeks.

An extension of enhanced subsidies for ObamaCare was the sticking point for the Dems. They didn’t succeed and at most will get an agreement to debate health care and the subsidies (which is long overdue anyway). Progressive Democrats erupted. Senator Bernie Sanders hailed the deal as “a very bad night.” Here is the breakdown on who crossed the aisle:

Seven Democrats and one Democrat-affiliated independent — Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Angus King of Maine — voted alongside 52 Republicans to break the filibuster on the spending package, which includes three spending bills to fund SNAP benefits, veterans programs and congressional operations through Sept. 30, 2026.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was the only GOPer to vote no.

Last night’s 60-40 vote was only the first step, but barring an unexpected development in the House, the shutdown is ending. USA TODAY publishes a list of its shutdown end winners and losers. Moderate Democrats headed the winners, while “Republicans (kind of)” made it into both winners and losers. The Dems did win on one point—mass firings will be reinstated. This establishes the Dems as the party of choice for redundant workers.

Powerline’s John Hinderaker thinks he knows what broke the Dems’ intransigence; The New York Times has six takeaways from the Senate deal to end the shutdown, including “Trump’s pressure tactics worked, even as voters blamed his party.” The radical lefty Daily Kos (remember him?) calls the eight sensible Dems who helped end a pointless shutdown “Vichy Democrats” and demands that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer must be replaced.

No Autopen Required. President Trump yesterday granted pardons to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and more than seventy others tied to an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election:

The full list of those pardoned, each of the president’s co-defendants who faced charges related to the 2020 “fake electors” plot, was posted to X just before 11 p.m. by Trump’s “clemency czar,” attorney Ed Martin..

Martin shared the pardon document in a reply to his May 26, 2025, post that read “No MAGA left behind.”

The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland has a good piece on why President Trump issued the pardons—they were for “citizens targeted by lawfare.”

Meanwhile, President Trump, who bestrides the tiny Daily Musts like a colossus, is floating the notion of a tariff rebate of $2,000 for citizens as the legality of his tariffs is being scrutinized by the Supreme Court. An editorial in the steadfastly anti-tariffs Wall Street Journal says he’s doing this to blunt the harm tariffs are (in the opinion of the editors) doing to the economy:

This is a teaching moment for a high school logic class. Start with the contradiction that Mr. Trump can both pay a tariff rebate and pay down the national debt. The annual federal budget deficit is roughly $1.8 trillion even with tariff revenue, so paying a rebate would add to the national debt, not reduce it.

New Wrinkle in Class Warfare: “Grade Inflation Produced Mamdani’s Proletariat” is the headline on Allysia Finley’s column this morning in the Wall Street Journal. Unemployable college grads blame capitalism, but the real culprit is higher-ed subsidies, Finley argues:

Palantir CEO Alex Karp attributed Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York mayor to a reverse class warfare: “I think the average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is highly annoyed that their education is not that valuable, and the person down the street who knows how to drill for oil and gas, who’s moved to Texas, has a more valuable profession.”

It’s understandable that grads might feel indignant about employer demands after having earned stellar GPAs for little effort and mediocre work. A recent Harvard report found that A’s account for about 60% of grades, compared with 25% two decades ago. Some 80% of grades awarded at Yale in 2023 were A’s or A-minuses.

It almost requires an effort to get a C…. Parents and students who pay $80,000 a year expect high marks in return…. Mr. Mamdani’s supporters are rightly angry that the value of their degrees and earnings have declined. Instead of blaming their woes on capitalism or Israel, they ought to be protesting big government and greedy colleges.

In the same vein, you might enjoy Helen Raleigh’s “Mamdani’s Vast Support Among the College-Educated Tells Us All We Need to Know about Higher Ed” at the Federalist.

Meanwhile, Renu Mukherjee notices something interesting about the racial make-up of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s voters in City Journal, and Santiago Vidal Calvo in the same journal observes that the Mayor-elect’s minimum wage hikes will have a devastating effect on young workers, while—oh dear—Roger Simon says Mamdani reminds him of somebody (thanks to Real Clear Politics for noticing Simon’s opus)

I knew Zohran Mandani reminded me of someone as I watched his victory speech on election night. Only minutes in, I realized who it was — Benito Mussolini, Il Duce himself.

A hardened leader determined to transform not just the city that had elected him but the entire country had replaced the sweetness and light, ain’t-I-cute-and-charming candidate of the campaign trail. Instead, he suddenly evinced the tough, take-no-prisoners swagger of Mussolini.

What little attempt he made at post-election reconciliation was less than half-hearted. As if to rub it in the faces of those who were not his followers, he intoned in Arabic, a mere twenty-four years after 9/11, “ana minkum wa alaikum,” which apparently translates to something like “I am of you and you are of us.” I wonder who he wasn’t including. …

Meanwhile, New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin practically begs Washington Republicans not to punish New York for electing Mamdani:

As awful as the mayoral election outcome was for sensible New Yorkers, misguided Washington Republicans plan to use the results as a club to further punish the city.

If they succeed in hitting Gotham with enormous financial penalties for electing socialist radical Zohran Mamdani, the GOP wackos will end up penalizing all 8 million New Yorkers, including the 1 million who rejected Mamdani to vote for other candidates.

The efforts also could turn Mamdani into a martyr, which would boost his popularity and inspire far-leftist copycat candidates across America.

Another unintended consequence of the daffy congressional effort could be the death of the election chances of one of their own.

That would be firebrand Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has announced that she is running for Governor of New York.

I’ve noticed that many Republicans are very ho-hum about Tuesday’s election results (“they were all blue states anyway” is the line). James Carville’s predictions for 2028 might shake them up: The Dems will win, and a Democratic president and Senate will pack the Supreme Court.

Just For Fun. The New York Times did a big interview with Greg Gutfeld—there was a day we’d have said that such treatment by the New York Times meant you’d arrived. But Gutfeld arrived long ago with his 3 million late-night viewers. Speaking of late night, Sasha Stone dubs Jimmy Kimmel and his wife “the monsters of late night.” And huge kudos to Sidney Sweeney, who shows she can handle smug media hacks any time of the day or night.

OUT: Nancy Pelosi. IN: Gubernatorial Aspirant Elise Stefanik. Warnings to GOP: Continetti and Strassel. Harsh: Can’t Put Gender Identity on Passports. And More

Posted on November 7, 2025November 7, 2025 by Charlotte Hays

Nancy the Ripper announced yesterday that she will not seek re-election to Congress, ending a “storied political career” with an unwrinkled brow, at the sprightly age of 85. Diabetics are warned to keep away from the high saccharine content of MSM farewells to the former Speaker of the House.

The New York Times, for example, came up with “To Americans, Pelosi Was the House Speaker. To San Francisco, She Was Mom.” From the same outlet, another mom-themed report: “The Rise of Nancy Pelosi: From Stay-at-Home Mom to Speaker of the House.”

President Trump spared no words in ushering off stage the women who recently called him “vile” and “the worst creature on earth.” “Nancy Pelosi Prepares for Sad Future of Outsider Trading,” trumpets the Babylon Bee.

Elsewhere, the news is not as cheery. Travelers must brace for turmoil and inconvenience as flight cuts necessitated by the government shutdown kick in at airports around the nation. “Democrats Don’t Mind Your Flight Delays” is the headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial:

Most folks on Capitol Hill were optimistic this week about a deal to end the month-long government shutdown, which has accomplished nothing. But behold the cynicism of Democrats, who now want to exploit their Tuesday election victories to prolong the dysfunction at the public’s expense. …

The proles languishing on the tarmac for hours can take heart—your suffering is an assist to the Democratic brand. You may miss Thanksgiving this year when you see that red “canceled” notice on the departures board, but rest easy that you helped Democrats stir up their voting base for the 2026 midterms.

Democrats are also suddenly nonplussed about lapsing food-stamp benefits or government subsidized preschool. Democrats declare that these are cherished national priorities any time the GOP suggests reforms for better incentives or the most modest spending restraint.

While emboldened Dems seem to be digging in on the shutdown, Fox’s terrific Chad Pergram sees signs of movement coming from an emerging GOP plan to end the shutdown. But it’s all very preliminary. President Trump’s call to kill the filibuster to open the government has met with resistance. “The filibuster is a wall against a Mamdani-inspired socialist dystopia,” Washington Post conservative columnist Marc Thiessen argues. “Democrats’ off-year wins remind us why the filibuster is needed,” the Washington Examiner explains.

What about those off-year wins?

Matthew Continetti argues that 2025 election results spell doom for Republicans in 2026 if they don’t get serious about the economy in a Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “Trump’s GOP Is Losing Independents“:

Republicans enter the midterm cycle shouldering two related burdens: economic dissatisfaction arising from high prices and a revolt among independents. …

The president rarely talks affordability. He prefers to announce that inflation is dead and defeated. He points to falling gasoline prices. Yet relief is fleeting. It can’t compensate for the rising cost of groceries, housing and healthcare. What’s more, his policies that restrict the supply of goods and labor, such as tariffs and mass deportations, make the problem worse. So does badgering the Fed to cut rates before inflation is tamed….

The country doesn’t wait for parties to get their act together. It chooses the alternative. If Republicans fail, big-government populists in both parties will run roughshod over confused and ambivalent incumbents. It won’t just be the economy that suffers. America will too.

Former World Bank head David Malpass, meanwhile, gives the Federal Reserve a big helping of blame for the “affordability crisis.” Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel says it’s “time to reset the GOP clock”:

Here’s what time it is: Time for a GOP gut check. Time to set aside the play-it-by-ear triumphalism of the past year—and come up with a plan. …

Even this White House’s trademark initiatives—the things it talks about with some relative regularity—roll out like a drunk exiting a kegger. Tariff uncertainty has been a hit to the economy. But try keeping track of what to like or dislike, much less process merit. Would that be the 35% levy on Canada of a Friday? Or the 45% of a Saturday, after the president watched a commercial? Or the 50% on metals, or the 25% on autos (with exceptions)? Or the 30.7% . . . 40.7% . . . 135%—wait, no, the 58% (?) rate on China? Maybe it’s just easier to believe—as many a shopper or small business now does—the left’s simple premise that all this is costing you money.

This day-by-day approach to governance extends to the Republican Congress….

Veteran political reporter Michael Barone sees bad news for the GOP and warnings for both parties in the election results. Hope for the Republicans could come from an unexpected direction, Barone proposes:

A Supreme Court rebuff to Trump could turn out to be a political gift to the Trump Republican Party. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April thrust his job approval downward, and 3% inflation, which, though low, can be plausibly linked to continuing tariffs, provides a basis, as Mamdani has shown, for Democratic campaigns. Also, should Trump acquiesce to an adverse Supreme Court decision, as Truman did 73 years ago, voters’ fears of an authoritarian presidency will be mitigated.

Though entirely expected, the victory of socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York sent the most shockwaves through the system. Reason’s J.D. Tuccille writes that Mamdani’s win suggests a “socialist future” for the Democratic Party. Robby Soave of the same publication says it “would be a mistake to underemphasize the radical nature of Mamdani’s ideology” and highlights the Mayor-elect’s BFF, Hasan Piker, who opines that it’s a tragedy that the U.S. won the Cold War.

But there’s a new development in New York politics. Rep. Elise Stefanik announces today that she is running for Governor of New York to “clean up Kathy Hochul’s catastrophe.” Larry Kudlow asks, “Can Elise Stefanik and Jessica Tisch Save New York?” Jessica Tisch is New York City’s respected Police Commissioner.

President Trump is trying to “make America thin again,” as Rich Lowry puts it in the New York Post. Lowry writes:

President Donald Trump this week cut deals with the drug-makers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to increase access to obesity drugs in a major benefit to American public health.

The agreements are a win-win-win — good for consumers, good for the companies and good for Trump.

One of the most irrational superstitions of our time is that Big Pharma, which has for decades been routinely delivering near-miraculous therapeutics to extend and improve our lives, is a public enemy.

There was some Oval Office drama (well, there often is) when a guest fainted during the obesity drugs presentation. Meanwhile, he won his battle over whether you can put an imaginary sex on your passport.

The mess at Heritage over President Kevin Roberts’ statement on Tucker Carlson continues. This is the best synopsis I have seen of what happened. It has spurred a debate on conservative principles between the revered Robby George and John Zmirak.

The Free Press addresses the Heritage controversy both in Nellie Bowles’s Friday commentary and “The Real Split on the Right: Influencers Versus Conservatives,” by Batya Ungar-Sargon. Another important piece not to be missed: John Kass’ column on the illegal alien trucker who killed family friends of Kass and who should not have been able to obtain a driver’s license.

And I leave you this Friday morning with my choice for …

Quote of the Week:

“We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.”

– New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani

Ominous.

Tariffs Get Their Day in Court. Shutdown Forces Air Travel Cut. Emboldened Dems Lovin’ Shutdown Even More. Gender Gap Back. And More

Posted on November 6, 2025November 6, 2025 by Charlotte Hays

What would it mean if President Trump’s tariffs went pouf?

It’s perilous to read much into oral arguments before the Supreme Court, but it’s generally conceded that President Trump’s tariffs had a “tough day” yesterday:

President Trump’s global tariffs ran headlong into a skeptical Supreme Court on Wednesday, with justices across the spectrum expressing doubt that a 1970s emergency-powers law could be read to provide the president unilateral authority to remake the international economy and collect billions of dollars in import taxes without explicit congressional approval.

But even if the court strikes down the tariffs Trump initiated on his self-declared Liberation Day last April, the justices gave little indication how they might unwind the president’s signature economic policy and favorite diplomatic tool. That left unclear whether previously paid duties would be refunded or whether Congress could be invited to step in, perhaps by ratifying the levies retroactively.

“The president needs five votes to win. The math looks challenging,” is the lead-in to the Wall Street Journal’s helpful Justice-by-Justice breakdown based on yesterday’s arguments. Harvard Law Professor and American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Jack Goldsmith gave an enlightening interview on tariffs and the Supreme Court to the New York Times. A tidbit from the interview:

I think that it is fair to say that the justices the government needs to win the case — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — asked the government very hard questions that did express skepticism about important elements of its case. But they also asked the other side very hard questions. I do not think any of these three tipped off their hands definitively. I did not find anything terribly surprising in the questions.

“Trump May Lose Supreme Court Case but Tariffs Will Endure,” is the headline on a Michael Lind piece at Unherd. Lind writes that if the administration loses, it will impose tariffs based on other laws. Justice Amy Coney Barrett received attention for a question she posed:

“Would it be a complete mess?” she asked Katyal, referring to whether businesses might seek refunds for the roughly $90 billion in tariffs already collected, as reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Maybe messes is the theme of the day. Air travel is such a mess that the Department of Transportation has cut air travel at 40 airports because of the government shutdown. The New York Times stresses that it is Trump officials who did this; that’s because we have a Trump administration. This will cut air traffic by 10 percent. It was essential to avoid unnecessary risks to American lives. As for the shutdown, Democrats, emboldened by Tuesday’s election results, are hitting the brakes on ending the longest shutdown in history, according to Axios:

Victory is emboldening the party’s hardliners. Centrist Democrats seem stuck.

“I think it would be very strange if on the heels of the American people having rewarded Democrats for standing up and fighting, we surrendered without getting anything for the people we’ve been fighting for,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told Axios today.

At least nine Senate Democrats, including Murphy, are privately urging their colleagues to hold out on the shutdown even longer, sources told Axios.

What a mess.

Republicans had reason to regard Tuesday’s election results as more of a trainwreck than a mere mess. Karl Rove’s politics column today in the Wall Street Journal argues that “voters are frustrated with Trump, but they aren’t about to embrace Mamdani.” Rove writes:

[T]he GOP has to learn that screaming “communist” and “socialist” at run-of-the-mill Democrats doesn’t move even die-hard MAGA voters. Explaining why a Democrat’s policies will raise costs or hurt jobs and offering a constructive, forward-looking agenda is a much better approach. Americans want to know Republicans are making life more affordable, communities safer and the economy stronger….

To turn this around, the White House will need to focus on the economy and the cost of living, speak candidly about challenges, lower expectations, temper the rhetoric, underpromise, overdeliver and stop going too far, like with Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups at Home Depot.

Fox’s Bret Baier asked President Trump last night in an exclusive interview about a voter who’d voted for him three times but was worried about her cost of living. Charmingly, the President thanked her but then went on to brag about how he had brought down prices. In other words, he ignored her plea that he, “Please do something.” (I loathe quoting this source, but it is the only one I can find,)

President Trump said the blue wave occurred because he wasn’t on the ballot. “Trump Really Was on the Ballot” counters an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. The “magnitude of the route” was a “bad omen” for the GOP holding Congress next year, the editors argue. But there’s something else brutal. A colleague of mine took note of the women’s vote from an NBC exit poll. The Gender Gap is back with a vengeance.

Unsurprise of the Week. Mr. Congeniality—aka Zohran Mamdani—doffed the smile long enough to deliver “a graceless, sore” victory speech after wining his race to become Mayor of New York. New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin responds:

Rather than any expression of appreciation, his relentless criticism of his political predecessors and successful New Yorkers sounded like a battle cry coming from the interior of the Trojan Horse.

Without doubt, he was declaring war against President Trump and, by extension, anyone else who has the nerve to oppose our newly crowned ruler.

Especially striking was the fact that Mamdani offered only the back of his hand to the more than 1 million New Yorkers who voted for his opponents.

His dark heart came through loud and clear in his depiction of New York City as something of a modern slave state where a ruling class of landlords, bankers and even neighborhood merchants sucks the life out of everyone else.

New York business leaders will be further dismayed (frightened?) by Mamdani’s naming former FTC Chair Lina Khan as co-chair of his transition team, signaling a progressive agenda. Parents of school-aged kids wasted no time in reaching out for advice about moving. The people who will have Mamdani’s ear include Women’s March co-founder, Linda Sarsour, who once said, “One cannot be a feminist and a Zionist at the same time,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Patrick Gaspard, former head of a Soros organization.

How did Mamdani rise to such eminence? Spiked Online’s Brendan O’Neill dismisses the fond notion that working class people brought Mamdani to power in a post headlined “Zohran Mamdani’s Ivy League intifada:”

The most galling thing about the Mamdani phenomenon is its claim to be a working-class uprising. Mamdani himself says he’ll fight for the working classes, though surely he’ll have to meet some of them first. The global left is gushing over his win as if it were New York’s equivalent of the Paris Commune. What we have here is the staggeringly dishonest co-option of class politics by an over-credentialled emergent elite who will in truth be pursuing their own Bushwick bullshit, not the improvement of the lot of New York’s workers. They cosplay as class warriors because that’s sexier than the reality – that they’re privileged members of an activist class that will cancel you if you say lesbians don’t have penises but love you if you say ‘Destroy Israel’.

This morning’s final mess is The Mess at the Heritage Foundation. This concerns Heritage head Kevin Roberts’ initial response to a question about Tucker Carlson and Roberts’ attempt to clarify. Eliana Johnson of the Free Beacon has a leaked video of the tempestuous staff meeting at the think tank in response to the situation: “EXCLUSIVE: ‘I Made a Mistake’: Heritage Foundation President Apologizes to Staff for Video Refusal to Cancel Tucker Carlson and Throws Shade at Former Chief of Staff.” Meanwhile, Johnson Pere penned an extensive and fascinating treatise on the Heritage Mess at Powerline.