Eric Who? Rats Desert Rat. Guess What Day It Is? Anathema! Rich Lowry Tells Leo to ‘Brush Up’ on Bible. Blockade Is Working. Judge Boasberg Ordered to Stop in Midair. More

It’s an old-fashioned made for the tabs scandal—and sure enough, there’s Eric Swalwell’s unsmiling face peering at us from the cover of the New York Post. Screamer headline: “Monster in the House.”

In addition to previous allegations of sexual misconduct, a new accuser has come forward to say that Swalwell, who resigned his seat in Congress yesterday, raped her in a West Hollywood hotel room in 2018. She said she believed she was drugged.

You know who had absolutely no idea that the randy Rep. might have a problem? Well, of course, his bestie and Capitol Hill roomie and wingman—think Batman and Robin or Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd. Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, who was chairman of Swalwell’s 2020 presidential campaign, had heard rumors that Swalwell was “flirty,” but that’s all. Gallego’s judgment was “clouded” because Swalwell “lied” and “betrayed” him.

Yes, you could send a picture of your penis to a young woman very quietly (as “Flirty” is accused of having done), but the Washington Free Beacon challenges Gallego’s claim in a story headlined “On Ruben Gallego, We Told You So.” The Beacon recounts its successful battle to unseal Gallego’s divorce papers (the chivalrous solon was divorcing his heavily pregnant wife) and concludes with an ominous boast:

Gallego is either one of the few people on Capitol Hill who hadn’t gotten wind of Swalwell’s misdeeds or an enabler and participant in them, and either scenario is a non-starter for a serious presidential contender. It is worth bearing in mind that the Democratic establishment shivved Swalwell when he became a liability in a crowded primary. When Gallego’s turn in the barrel comes and the press touts the power of “investigative reporting,” well, you heard it here first.

Meanwhile, a wealthy erstwhile backer of Swalwell now says, “Eric who?” Poor Flirty. How the mighty have fallen. “Uber leftie celebs are always willing to back a sleaze like Eric Swalwell—so long as he hates Trump as much as they do,” writes Kirsten Fleming. How many of them are now saying, “Eric who?” Swalwell’s own former Chief of Staff said something similar. But before giving the rats props, consider this London Spectator headline: “Swalwell’s Electoral Math not Morality.” You might also enjoy Eddie Scarry’s Federalist piece headlined “Democrats Turned On Eric Swalwell Because He Was In The Way, Not Because They Have Morals.”

Goodness! I got so caught up in the Swalwell fall that I momentarily forgot what day it is! “Happy Tax Day, America. You’re (Still) Being Robbed” is USA TODAY columnist Nicole Russell’s headline. Russell writes:

Even with recent tax changes under President Donald Trump‘s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Americans are still paying too much. The federal government collected $5.23 trillion in fiscal year 2025, according to the Cato Institute.

Happy Tax Day. Americans are still paying too much in taxes.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act did cut taxes. It made his 2017 tax cuts permanent and, on average, saved working families about $1,300 instead of hitting them with a $1,700 increase.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“The Growing State Tax and Jobs Divide”) explores how job growth has changed in the high-tax and low-tax states. ”Democrats want to pretend that taxes don’t matter, but these numbers don’t lie,” the Editors conclude. Vice President Vance’s anti-fraud task force has suspended 447 hospices and 23 home health agencies suspected of fraud in Los Angeles, with a total fraud estimate of more than $600 million. Anti-fraud prosecutions might be another way of saving money for the American taxpayer.

The Hormuz blockade seems to be going well. A U.S. Navy destroyer intercepted two tankers trying to leave Iran and ordered them back. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal is headlined “Trump’s Blockade Is a Crisis for Iran”:

Iran’s regime has tried to make this war all about economics, and now it is getting its wish. Since Monday the U.S. Navy has quarantined Iranian ports, blocking ships from entering or exiting the Strait of Hormuz for the purpose of commerce with Iran. The economic damage to the regime is immediate, and the pain will grow the longer the blockade is sustained….

The best estimates we have are from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Miad Maleki, who led the U.S. Treasury’s sanctions campaign against Iran until last year. He writes that the blockade is expected to wipe out $435 million in Iranian economic activity a day and force oil-field shut-ins within two weeks….

Iran’s entire economy will feel the collapse of oil exports. This includes the Revolutionary Guard, which siphons about half the revenue. Other export routes appear unable to compensate for the loss. How will Iran’s banks hold up?

The regime has tried to protect itself from its own people by cutting off the internet, crushing the digital economy with it. The destruction of Iran’s productive capacity, especially in steel and petrochemicals and industries that rely on them, also portends layoffs and a spike in inflation, even without the blockade.

Oh, and the regime’s latest budget calls for tax increases. This is not a pretty picture. The shame is that this pressure didn’t begin weeks ago.

The mainstream media presents the war as a disaster for the United States. Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill interviews former Trump official Fred Fleitz. The podcast is titled “Ignore the Doubters – Iran Is on Its Last Legs.” President Trump tells the New York Post that fresh negotiations with Iran could be imminent. But don’t think they’re any nicer.

Pope vs. President. Quarrels between popes and princes are nothing new. We don’t have a prince, but we have a president who is engaged in a spat with Pope Leo XIV. National Review’s Rich Lowry dares to urge Leo to “brush up on the Bible” (!)  and “its lessons” about war and peace:

A pope who doesn’t rebuke a president of the United States for threatening to bring a foreign civilization to an end isn’t doing his job.

Yet it’s important to understand that the Bible is not an injunction for pacifism, and it doesn’t entail a condemnation of the Iran war. 

The Bible has a realistic view of the inevitability of human conflict.

As Ecclesiastes says, there is “a time for war, and a time for peace.”

Father Gerald Murray, canon lawyer, priest of the Archdiocese of New York, and a popular commentator on the EWTN network, would handle the pontiff more gently. Still, Murray writes a piece headlined “The Catholic Case for War with Iran” at The Free Press. Subtitle: “The Church advocates peace, but it isn’t pacifist. Eliminating a nuclear threat from a determined enemy is a noble reason to make war.”

The Reverend Al Sharpton recently held his annual National Action Network convention—and they were all there! Kamala, Josh, JB, and others with 2028 aspirations. The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley asks, Why?

True, there was a time when Mr. Sharpton was a power broker in Democratic politics—someone who might not help you win but who could almost guarantee you’d lose if you didn’t pay his organization not to criticize you. These days, however, Mr. Sharpton is much closer to a charlatan than a kingmaker. His star has dimmed considerably, and even most black people aren’t buying what he’s selling….

It’s been clear for some time that the best way to address social inequality is economic growth. Black-white gaps in earnings shrank in the 1960s and 1980s when the economy was expanding, just as they were doing before Covid-19. What racial and ethnic minorities need most are tight labor markets, but racial activists spend most of their time searching for white scapegoats. Democratic voters deserved candidates who have figured this out.

Remember when federal Judge James Boasberg claimed he had the right to get planes deporting Venezuelan to turn around in midair? Well, now it’s Boasberg’s turn to reverse course. A federal court of appeals has ordered Boasberg to end his crusade to hold Trump administration officials in contempt for their part in enforcing immigration law.   

Remembrance of Things Past. “New Documents Reveal Democrats’ Plot to Frame Trump with Ukraine Call” at The Federalist shows that we weren’t imagining things. PJ Media quotes Alan Dershowitz, suggesting that this impeachment could be expunged.