Somebody in Iran Leadership Still Alive to Negotiate. Never Startle a Gun-toting Illegal Alien. Code Pink Visits Cuba. Homeless Myths. And More
Is Operation Epic Fury winding down?
President Trump announced that the U.S. is in secret talks with whoever currently represents Iran:
It took almost a month. [!!] But on the tarmac of Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport, Donald Trump abruptly announced that peace talks to end the conflict with Iran had begun.
“We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have points, major points of agreement – I would say almost all points of agreement,” the US president told reporters beside the steps of Air Force One.
The New York Times calls this turn of events an off ramp for President Trump (off ramps—good—except for when President Trump takes one). The Times also noted that “Iranian officials” deny such talks. The Wall Street Journal refers to the latest development as President Trump’s “U turn” and takes the reader into the world of the secret negotiations. First hurdle: finding Iranians with whom to talk:
Egyptian intelligence officials managed to open a channel with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—the paramilitary group that protects the Iranian regime and is the country’s most powerful security and political entity—and put forward a proposal to halt hostilities for five days to build confidence for a cease-fire, some of the officials said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry (wherever did we find them?) denied talks are happening, leaving The Five’s Greg Gutfeld to summarize, “He said. Shia said.” The denial that talks are in progress led to a spike in oil prices.
Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York explains why President Trump needs a short war. What would constitute a win? The Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker writes that the U.S. and Iran see this differently. “‘Not Losing’ Has Different Meanings for Iran and the U.S” is Baker’s headline this morning.
But was this war necessary? International affairs columnist Walter Russell Mead says “yes” in a column headlined “Hawks and Doves Got Iran Wrong:”
As the latest Gulf war intensifies and its economic consequences grow, two things seem clear. First, many Iran doves seriously underestimated the risks and costs of attempting to coexist with the regime. Second, many Iran hawks seriously underestimated the risks and costs of opposing Tehran’s drive for regional hegemony through military action. The result is a war that is more necessary than doves thought and harder to wage than hawks supposed….
Domestically, Democrats are mostly locked into opposing a war that many doves think the president could and should have avoided. A conviction among many grassroots Democrats that Donald Trump poses a greater threat to America than the surviving members of the Iranian mullahcracy strengthens that opposition. It also raises the costs for Democratic politicians seeking to rally around the flag against Iran. Internationally, allied recognition that American forces are defending a vital waterway on which their economies depend struggles with public distaste for the American president and doubts about his will and ability to win.
Mr. Trump has weathered many crises. The Iran war is the greatest—and gravest—challenge he has faced.
New York Post cover: “I Messed Up.” Those three words are the “anguished cry” of the LaGuardia air traffic controller before the collision between a Canadian regional jet and a Port Authority fire truck that left two pilots dead and dozens injured. The Wall Street Journal has a minute breakdown of the events on the ground leading to the fatal crash. The pilots, who have been praised for their actions, have been identified.
I can’t find the clip of Dems calling ICE, now deployed to help unpaid TSA agents at airports, calling ICE agents every name in the book. But an unashamed Senator Edward Markey gives a fair example of it in his official statement on the confirmation of Senator Markwayne Mullin to serve as Secretary of DHS:
“The Trump administration has sent ICE thugs into our communities to terrorize innocent immigrants, raid homes without judicial warrants, separate families, and target protestors,” said Senator Markey. …
And with Trump unleashing ICE agents at our airports, we cannot risk another leader at DHS who will simply rubberstamp the illegal, brutal Trump agenda.
Given this kind of talk from elected officials, it should come as no surprise that unmasked ICE agents are being hounded at airports:
“Go back to your master, Donald Trump, go back to your master!” one woman shouted at agents across a baggage claim terminal at Newark International Airport, footage taken at the airport showed.
Other travelers were happy to have the ICE agents helping with long lines. Meanwhile, Daniel McCarthy called President Trump’s the deployment of ICE agents to airports “ingenious.
There’s a new rule: Never startle an illegal alien with a gun.
You might get killed and then it would be your own fault.
That seems to be what progressive Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden believes to be the cause of the death of Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman, 18, who was allegedly executed by an illegal alien:
A progressive Chicago Dem is taking a ton of heat for suggesting that a Loyola University Chicago student who was allegedly executed by an illegal migrant caused her own murder — and that she was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Hadden said the deadly shooting appeared to be a case of Gorman being “in the wrong place at the wrong time, running into a person who had a gun,” in an interview with Fox 32 Chicago. …
“They might have unintentionally startled this person at the end of the pier,” she added. “We don’t believe there is cause for broader community concern.”
Powerline is also stunned by the “startled” illegal angle, nothing that there were reports that Sheridan Gorman’s alleged killer stalked her. The gunman, who had been caught and released at the border in the Biden administration, wore a mask.
Code Pink Visits Cuba. Glenn Reynolds observes:
The Code Pink crowd, stacked with upper-class white women, flew first class on a chartered jet, unselfconsciously issuing press statements from their extra-wide and cushy seats.
Ouch. The Free Press deliciously dubs them “Cuba’s Useless Idiots” And then there are another group of the hopelessly deluded ….
“The Alternative Reality of Homelessness Policy,” by the great Heather Mac Donald in City Journal, catalogues the myths about homelessness that keep the homelessness game going. Mac Donald starts with New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg, who writes about how hard it is to spot the hopeless! Let’s dive in:
Fictions # 2 and 3 are closely related: Homelessness is an involuntary condition caused by a lack of housing, and “shelter resistance” is a myth invented by conservative critics of compassionate policy.
The premise of nearly all homeless programs is that the homeless are helpless victims of economic circumstances. Invisible forces—capitalism, inequality, poverty, racism—have pushed them onto the streets; government’s failure to help them get off the streets keeps them there. When a journalist does report facts that cut against this narrative, he often fails to grasp their significance.
So it is with Goldberg. The WARM team encounters its first “client” of the evening, a “fast talker,” as Goldberg calls her, named Kristina Uspenskai, standing on Second Avenue in Lower Manhattan. The workers leap from their van, “arms piled with blankets and jackets and food,” and race toward her, painfully eager to please. She quickly dispels the notion that WARM represents anything new: she has had frequent contact with other outreach teams, she says. True to form, she declines an appointment for free medical and psychiatric care: “I’m bad at keeping time. I’m bad at adulting.”
In closing, Bill McGurn reacts to President Trump’s remarks on former FBI head Robert Mueller’s death and the pervasive bile in public debate in “The Profane President Trump.” It remnds you of what your grandfather told you:
Vulgar language can be effective in a sharp response, but it dulls with overuse. And too often we disdain politeness as phony rather than respect it as the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Like schoolyard kids forced to shake hands after a nasty fight, Americans could use a healthy respect for good form, even at the risk of being hypocrites.
