Pelosi’s Made Man. Finally: Help for Illegal Aliens Trapped in Wrong Body. TFP: Don’t Forget the (Truly) Oppressed People of Iran. Usual Suspects: Hochul, Mamdani. More
Before erstwhile bon vivant Eric Swalwell is permanently disappeared, Miranda Devine’s “All the Queen’s Men” this morning is required reading.
You know who the Queen is—America’s favorite little ol’ stock picker. Devine writes:
Eric Swalwell was Nancy Pelosi’s made man, the golden child of San Francisco’s rotten machine politics.
Today he’s roadkill, his name erased from the sign outside his congressional office, vultures feasting on his remains.
Swalwell’s clinical political eradication this week tells you everything about the Democratic Party and how ruthlessly and efficiently they will move to keep to power in the state they have controlled for 15 years and run into the ground.
More Swalwell-related Assigned Reading: “The Male Feminism Con Job,” by Christian Schneider at National Review. Subtitle: “The loudest voices claiming to support women often belong to the worst men.”
Because so many Dems are running for Governor of California, Swalwell’s curiously well-timed exit gives a boost to the Democratic field. Billionaire Tom Steyer moves up, apparently replacing Republican Steve Hilton as frontrunner. Mr. Steyer has a ready-made fan base (dare I say constituency?): illegal aliens. Steyer has released a plan that could jail ICE agents, whom he calls designated members of a violent extremist group. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin “pushed back” on Steyer’s agenda on the Ingraham Angle.
For homeless illegal aliens trapped in the wrong (though still illegal) body, California apparently quietly offers what every homeless person needs most: “gender affirming” care. Chris Rufo and Jonathan Choe tell this uplifting story at City Journal:
We discovered not only that the shelters were housing illegal immigrants but also that they were apparently housing a population of male-to-female “transgender” illegal aliens, who had hoped to obtain “gender-affirming care.” And, to our shock, state and local governments apparently are providing it….
Among the shelter’s residents was a group of Hondurans who identified as transgender. During our visit to MSC-South, whose executive director did not respond to a request for comment, we spoke with two Honduran men, “Lyca” and “Alondra,” who identified as transgender women. Both indicated that the local government gave them shelter and food….
Lyca, who wore long hair and red lipstick, was candid about this arrangement. He confirmed that he was an illegal immigrant and that the shelter doesn’t ask questions about immigration status. “Tengo Medi-Cal,” he said, referring to the state health-care program, which, under Governor Gavin Newsom, began providing “full scope” coverage to illegal aliens, which includes transgender procedures, or “gender affirming care.” He said he was receiving cross-sex hormone therapy—and bore the physical signs of having done so.
Lyca, who wore long hair and red lipstick, was candid about this arrangement. He confirmed that he was an illegal immigrant and that the shelter doesn’t ask questions about immigration status. “Tengo Medi-Cal,” he said, referring to the state health-care program, which, under Governor Gavin Newsom, began providing “full scope” coverage to illegal aliens, which includes transgender procedures, or “gender affirming care.” He said he was receiving cross-sex hormone therapy—and bore the physical signs of having done so.
Hot Air elaborates on the City Journal scoop. Whatever body you’re currently inhabiting, your restaurant options in California are shrinking thanks to the state’s new $30 an hour minimum wage.
Gulp. “Will Samuel Alito Retire? Trump Mulls His Supreme Court Legacy” is a USA TODAY headline. CNN has President Trump “leaning in” on the idea of replacing Justices Alito and Thomas. CNN bases its story on the president’s call-in to Maria Bartiromo’s show. Justice Thomas has an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal. It’s headlined “Progressives vs. the Declaration.” Subtitle: “Woodrow Wilson’s ideas are opposed to the basic American creed. They can’t coexist forever.”
More Supreme Court News: Very genteel of Justice Sotomayor to apologize to Justice Kavanaugh for disparaging remarks she made about him. She called her words “inappropriate” and “hurtful.”
Unless you’re dependent on the New York Times (try this pathetic story of a reality-challenged President Trump), you probably know that the U.S. Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz looks to be a winner. “Iran’s War-Shattered Economy Means It Has an Urgent Reason to Negotiate” is a Wall Street Journal headline.
The Free Press’s Eli Lake has advice for President Trump: “Trump Should Negotiate for Iranian Freedom, Not Just Nuclear Promises.” The president, argues Lake, is presented with “an opportunity to negotiate for the Iranian people, not just for a narrow deal with the regime on weapons.” Meanwhile, the Iranian leaders—again, whoever they are at this point—want a ceasefire in Lebanon. A Wall Street Journal editorial cautions:
As we trend toward a cease-fire in Lebanon, it’s fair to ask who benefits. The narrative that Israeli fighting against Hezbollah terrorists obstructs U.S.-Iran diplomacy gets it backward. Israel is giving the U.S. leverage….
Iran now needs to bail out Hezbollah, which is taking substantial losses. Israel is mere days from achieving full operational control of Bint Jbeil, the “capital of the Resistance,” as Iran’s anti-Israel terrorist axis styles itself.
Iran’s need for a cease-fire in Lebanon isn’t America’s. …
What is Lebanon prepared to do for a cease-fire? Rather than pledge more talks, it could outlaw the Hezbollah terrorists’ political party.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s approach to taxes is highlighted on the New York Post cover this morning. Hochul has flip-flopped from “No New Taxes” (January) to “No, New Taxes!” today. There’s a Mamdani angle:
Gov. Kathy Hochul was dragged by critics for her sudden pied-à-terre tax push — including for backtracking on her no new taxes pledge — as Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his lefty allies cheerfully took credit Wednesday.
Hochul — who for months has been hounded by chants of “tax the rich” from Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America comrades — said she now wants to slap a levy on multi-million dollar secondary homes in the city.
“Kathy Hochul’s ‘No Tax Hike’ promise has expired faster than the families fleeing New York’s affordability crisis,” said Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate facing off against Hochul as she seeks re-election this year.
Ms. Must has been reading about Hasan Piker. The New York Times published a Hasan Piker profile recently with the headline “Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy.” But then the Gray Lady quickly changed the headline:
Hours later, possibly disturbed by having defended a pro-murder Mao Zedong wannabe in its pages, the paper changed the headline to the equally ill-advised “This Is Why There’s No Liberal Joe Rogan.”
You idiots, Joe Rogan is a liberal — a vocal supporter of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
[Piker] dismissed the sexual assaults of Oct. 7 with the remark that “it doesn’t matter if effing rapes happened” — Israel’s response is still unjustified.
He has referred to his critics as “ultra-Zionist pigs” and “Israel-first monsters.”
Yet Piker, who is somehow a more cartoonish version of even the laziest caricature of champagne socialism, remains welcome in Democratic circles.
Democratic candidates court his endorsement.
We’re a long way from Bill Clinton’s performative appeal to the center with his famous Sister Souljah moment.
“The Five” discussed Piker a few days ago. Laura Ingraham discussed Piker’s seeming demand for civil war last night. Speaking of the Civil War, not all such wars are socially acceptable:
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) on Monday signed into law a bill eliminating tax exemptions for multiple organizations connected to the Confederacy.
Democrats in the Virginia House and Senate passed HB167 with vote totals of 62-35 and 21-17, respectively, earlier this year. The bill specifically removes the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, among other similar groups, from the list of organizations exempt from state property taxes.
Last time I checked, the American Civil War was more than 150 years ago. But it’s never too late to punish elderly ladies whose chief delight is putting flowers on the graves of soldiers (on both sides of the war).
Financial writer James Grant celebrates the “Men Who Bankrolled America” in a must-read Free Press Offering. They are Robert Morris and George F. Baker:
Morris and Baker were rich, bold, indomitable, enterprising, self-made, proficient, cool in a crisis, and incapable of despair. Each was an unshakable optimist on the American future.
Thinking Hassan Piker has a different kind of backer in mind?
