Who’s the Real Enemy? Joe Kent: Strange New Respect. Hochul: Just Cut Me the Checks, Dammit. Scourge of E-bikes. Rise of Chicken Thighs. More
As the U.S. warplanes and helicopters kicked open the battle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices subsided, and Iran’s rump regime recommended hanging protesters.
The butchers of Iran hanged three people, including a teenaged wrestling champion, after confessions obtained by torture. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“The Enemy in Iran in One Lesson”) addresses Iran’s latest public hangings:
We know it’s fashionable on the left and even in some parts of the right these days to think that President Trump is the enemy in the Iran war. So forgive us for pointing out the character of the actual enemy our troops are fighting. To wit, Iran’s regime has resumed executing its citizens for protesting against the government.
The hangings underscore the brutal way the regime has tried to stop the protests. By some counts, regime enforcers killed as many as 32,000 Iranians who took to the streets. Photographs leaked from the country show body bags lined up en masse. Many of the wounded were pursued and then killed in hospitals.
Meanwhile, save a thought for the members of the Iranian women’s soccer team who have returned home from their matches in Australia. Some of the team initially sought asylum after they declined to sing the national anthem during a match. But they changed their minds under what must have been enormous pressure. Their families at home would have suffered had they defected to the West. You can imagine how the players will be punished now that the government has them again.
Saudi Arabia, which has always had a “complicated” relationship with Iran, is threatening attacks against Iran, which just goes to show you that bombing your neighbors’ energy infrastructure is not such a neighborly thing to do. Meanwhile, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takyeh argue that, while severely degraded, the regime in Iran will still pose a threat if not completely overthrown, in a Wall Street Journal piece headlined “Will Trump Finish the Job in Iran?” We’re always being told by critics that Trump hasn’t explained the war to the American people. Not so, according to the Wall Street Journal story headlined “In Nearly 90 Truth Social Posts, Trump Narrates the War in Iran.”
Sayanora. U. S. strikes have killed Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps spokesperson Ali Mohammad Naini. Still no proof of life from Supreme Leader Khamenei Jr.,–in the closet?—but there are concerns that his two luxury residents—lots of tyrants dabble in real estate—located in London’s posh Kensington section are perfect for surveilling the Israeli embassy (it’s conveniently right next door). Eli Lake reports in The Free Press that Israel is helping Iran’s Opposition:”
Israelis are targeting the security forces that recently murdered protesters en masse. And they may provide air cover when the next uprising begins.
Politico’s Wishful Thinking. “The GOP Is Dismissing Joe Kent. They Might Come to Regret It,” is Politico’s headline on a story about the counterterrorism official who resigned in protest of the Iran war. What’s interesting is that Joe Kent—a Tucker Carlson ally (thanks, Suzy Weiss for this and RCP for this)—is not the sort of guy who usually gets such sympathetic treatment in liberal outlets. But the Kent resignation can be used against President Trump.
Describing President Trump as “a man who has been stabbed in the back more times than Julius Caesar — yet has still survived,” Douglas Murray writes that “a deranged Tucker Carlson” has backstabbed Trump. Enquiring Minds Want to Know: Did Trump utter, “Et tu, Tucker?” One more observation on Kent. “Joe Kent sums up everything that’s wrong with the MAGA Israelophobes,” Brendan O’Neill writes at Spiked.
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel’s lead this morning is very funny:
In a bid to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, the White House on Thursday offered to make Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer head of the department. Mr. Schumer flatly rejected the offer, saying he could never trust anyone the Trump team appointed.
The column addresses the intransigence of the Dems on reopening DHS, even though the Trump administration and Senator Markwayne Mullin, whose confirmation hearings to lead DHS took place this week, are ready to embrace certain reform. Strassel says that behind closed doors, the Dems admit they have a problem. She writes:
Note that this week’s letter was authored by Mr. Homan, who is as serious as a heart attack about border security and who knows DHS inside out. If he feels these changes can be accommodated, they can. The letter lays out five alterations, all of which, in some form, address Democratic demands.
It promises an expansion of the use of body cameras, new limits on enforcement operations in sensitive places (hospitals, schools), additional DHS oversight in the form of mandatory inspector-general audits, a promise that officers will visibly wear ID and say their names if asked, and adherence to laws against the deportation or detention of U.S. citizens. …
In a sign they know they are losing ground, Democratic leaders this week scurried to send a (nonpublic) counteroffer to the White House—after weeks of completely ignoring administration outreach. And some Senate Democrats are in conversations with Republicans about a deal. The lesson for the GOP (as always): Good policy is good politics.
Schadenfreude Corner. New York Governor Kathy Hochul apparently believed taxpayers were captives, no matter how big a chunk government demanded of their earnings. But now Hochul is begging taxpayers who fled New York’s high taxes to come—she needs their money. National Review writes about what it calls Hochul’s “seller’s remorse:”
Back in 2022, Hochul built upon the work of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, in making the case that Republicans were unwelcome in the Empire State. “Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, okay,” Hochul said of her gubernatorial opponent, Lee Zeldin, among others. “Get out of town because you don’t represent our values. You’re not New Yorkers.” …
Hochul’s plea is notable for many reasons, but none so galling as that she appears sincerely to believe that America’s citizenry works for her. If anyone has a patriotic obligation to the State of New York, it is not those Americans who choose to live in other states. In Hochul’s mind, “generous social programs” are self-evidently virtuous. And yet, clearly, not everyone feels the same way. Ultimately, politics involves trade-offs, and for a considerable number of Americans, the judgments being made in Albany are less attractive than those that are being made in Tallahassee, Austin, and elsewhere. In a particularly embarrassing turn of phrase, Hochul demanded that rich families ought simply to “cut me the checks.”
The Scourge of E-bikes. Since e-bikes on recklessly driven on sidewalks by klutzes have evoked my anger more than once recently, my heart went out to New Yorkers when I read this headline: “Mayor Mamdani Is putting Countless New Yorkers at Risk with Change to E-bike Rules — I Know because I Was Critically Hurt by One.” Here’s what Hizzoner did:
Hell on wheels now has no limit.
At least no speed limit, after City Hall gave e-bikers license to run roughshod over New York City.
As of March 27, the NYPD will no longer issue criminal summonses to e-bikers and cyclists for traffic offenses, spiking an Adams-era policy to criminally charge reckless riders for blowing stop signs or illegally zipping along city sidewalks.
The idea underlying the e-bank craze (and craziness) is that we can save the planet by running over people instead of polluting the environment with automobiles. “Fossil fuels are the stuff oflife,” counters James James Woudhuysen of Spiked.
On Buffets and Menus Everywhere: once spurned chicken thighs, “What the Rise of Chicken Thighs Says about America,” in the Wall Street Journal proposes tat the trend is both economic and cultural.
