House Passes War Powers Resolution. Condi Rice Touts Accomplishments of Iran War. Rubio Goes to the Circus. California May Have Life Wish. Columnist on ‘Britain’s Reverse George Floyd Movement.’ More
Somewhere in Iran, a mullah is smiling.
A resolution to block President Trump from ordering more strikes in Iran yesterday passed the House:
The 215-208 vote marked the first time such a measure has cleared the House or the Senate on a final vote since the start of the conflict more than three months ago. The Senate advanced a similar resolution last month on a procedural vote, reflecting growing impatience with a war Congress hasn’t authorized.
The effort faces sizable hurdles, however, before Congress could force Trump to end hostilities.
Four Republicans crossed party lines to vote for the resolution. NBC characterizes the vote as “a rebuke” to President Trump but “largely symbolic.”
A Dem talking point is that the Iran War has accomplished nothing but to make Iran stronger. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice disagrees in a Wall Street Journal piece headlined “What the U.S. Has Accomplished in Iran.” Rice argues that the “regime is much weaker, and time is on the side of the U.S. and its allies that want a more stable region.” Rice writes:
The war against Iran has been a limited war, and its outcome is likely to be inconclusive. But it has achieved enough to produce a far better Middle East.
The three-month military campaign degraded Iran’s ability to project power by significantly damaging its conventional forces, missile stockpiles and proxies….
Yes, there are large stockpiles of highly enriched uranium somewhere in Iran, but this is a problem for the future, not today. Even if the uranium is at 60% enrichment, a fairly short technical step away from weapons grade, taking that final step is virtually impossible today. To reach weapons-grade—93% or higher—the material must be spun in sensitive centrifuges that are subject to breakage. It is hard to imagine that Iran’s centrifuge cascades survived the intense bombing. The Iranian conversion facility, without which one can’t make a bomb, was destroyed. Its A-team of nuclear scientists has been eliminated.
In sum, Iran is far weaker today than it was in February. No amount of Iranian propaganda can mask this reality. America’s near-term goals should be to keep it in that weakened state, to strengthen the region’s political realignment, and to make certain that President Trump’s promise that Iran will never possess a nuclear weapon is fulfilled.
Meanwhile, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal charges that “Trump Talks, Iran Escalates,” while President Trump reportedly is telling aides that he won’t resume all-out war with Iran unless U.S. troops are killed.
The War Powers Resolution wasn’t the only thing that happened yesterday in the House. Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about Trump’s foreign policy. “Is this the Foreign Affairs Committee, or is this a circus?” Rubio was moved to ask. The answer is circus. PJ Media caught the antics. PJ Media’s curmudgeon Stephen Kruiser praises Rubio’s brilliance.
Entrail readers are feasting on the results of Tuesday’s primaries. For The Free Press’s Peter Savodnik, California’s stunning results are evidence that “California Won’t Die Without a Fight.” Savodnik, Caitlin Flanagan, and Michael Shellenberger unpack the California election results in a Free Press headline, “The Revenge of the California Republicans.” USA TODAY columnist Nicole Russell writes that ending one-party rule may be the key to improving the quality of life for Californians.
But Tuesday was also a good election night for progressives. National Review’s Andrew McCarthy writes about Adam Hamawy, New Jersey nominee for a House seat, who sympathized with the Blind Sheik, who inspired the first World Trade Center bombing. Former federal prosecutor McCarthy prosecuted the Blind Sheik. Hamawy was a character witness for the defendant. Hamawy is featured in another National Review piece headlined “The Monsters Come for Their Creators“:
Democrats can blame themselves for tolerating a species of “anti-Zionism” so radical that their voters are now willing to overlook a few contributions of material support to al-Qaeda. …
The party’s institutionalists cloyingly sought the favor of the mobs who never had any love for Democratic institutionalists (indeed, they tore at the security fencing and attacked the police who separated them from the Democratic lawmakers they despised). All the while, the likes of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walz bent over backward to lend moral authority to their tormentors. Hamawy’s likely election to Congress in November is a result of that calculus.
Similarly, Liel Leibovitz employs a monster simile—this time Mary Shelley’s monster—to argue that former President Barack Obama, “a brilliant and arrogant man who wanted to change the world,” ended up transforming his Party:
The creature that emerged from the experiment no longer talked about fiscal responsibility and government reform. It howled instead about opening our borders, legalizing gay marriage and redefining politics as the pursuit of identity by other means.
Identity politics essentially murdered Henry Nowak, the young stabbing victim whose pleas for help were ignored by UK police because the (now convicted) killer claimed (improbably) that Henry had made a racist remark. The cops handcuffed Henry, who was bleeding to death. Demonstrations are breaking out in the UK. Dominic Green calls this “Britain’s Reverse George Floyd Moment“:
The age of George Floyd ended as it began, with a scuffle in the street and the dying man saying, “I can’t breathe.” Those words were recorded on a police bodycam on Dec. 3, 2025, in Southampton, U.K., as Henry Nowak, 18, bled to death from five stab wounds from the Sikh ceremonial dagger carried by Vickrum Digwa, 23….
Mr. Digwa’s brother had phoned in a claim that “we just got attacked racially.” The magic word “racially” had activated the police. They came to arrest a racist. Three officers dragged Nowak across the parking bay in front of Mr. Digwa’s house, handcuffed him, and held him down while his lungs filled with blood. … In Britain as in the U.S., accusations of racism carry more of a charge than accusations of rape or murder. The Digwa family exploited this.
“Henry Nowak’s Murder Is the Logical Conclusion of Black Lives Matter” is the headline on a piece in The Federalist, by John Daniel Davidson: “Indeed, Davidson writes, “what happened to Nowak is the logical endpoint of all western societies that choose to erect racial hierarchies and separate people into racial and ethnic identity groups.” Police officers have been cleared in the investigation.
An editorial in the Washington Examiner headlined “Democrats Are Still Soft on Crime” vividly makes its point in the first sentence:
There is perhaps no better example of Democratic Party dysfunction than what one sees when visiting the aisles of an urban retail store.
What you find is merchandise, some of it everyday items such as toothpaste and razor blades, locked away behind plastic cases.
This is to prevent retail theft, which has become an epidemic in many, if not most, cities across the country. It is necessary for stores to stoop to this level of inconvenience for law-abiding citizens because thieves are not held accountable.
We’ve had some heavy stuff this morning. How about Some Fun with Scott Pelley? The New York Post’s Charles Gasparino has an analysis CBS boss Bari Weiss’ decision to fire Pelley. As does the Wall Street Journal. But as is so often the case it is the Babylon Bee analysis that takes the cake:
’60 Minutes’ Begins Search for New Pompous Blowhard
Legacy media guy Jon Alter says that “60 Minutes” must be saved. The cry goes up: WHY? Media types such as Alter tend to confuse old media shows as sacred institutions, which means it doesn’t matter if they have died on us.
Two important articles: “Why Medicare and Medicaid Fraud Won’t Go Away” in City Journal and “Activists Claim Restrictions on ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors Cause Suicide. The Study They Rely on Has a Huge Flaw” in National Review.
Jill-O-Rama: Barton Swaim’s “Why Jill Biden Didn’t Say No” and Tunku Varadarajan’s yummy view review of Jill’s “View from the East Wing.” Why do you suppose she wanted to highlight the East Wing?
