Senator Lindsey Graham, RIP. Survival of the Weakest: Iran’s Leadership May Not Be Deal-Worthy. Vance’s Bad Week. Mamdani’s Secret Sauce. Mac Donald on Teen Take-overs. Parole Official: Kids Need Rapist Dad at Home!
Washington and beyond are reeling from the news of Senator Lindsey Graham’s sudden death. The Republican stalwart, 71, died unexpectedly Saturday night, hours after returning from a trip to Ukraine. The South Carolina Senator’s death is a loss for global freedom, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial, which celebrates Graham’s overall legacy:
In the second [Trump]term Graham has been a crucial counter voice to Vice President JD Vance and others in the Administration and Congress who said Ukraine was a sure loser against Russia. Kyiv doesn’t look like a sure loser now. And as Budget Committee Chairman, Graham pushed for more military spending to enhance U.S. deterrence around the world.
His legacy on domestic policy includes steering the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some readers may recall his stemwinding and much-needed rebuke of Democrats in 2018 for their assault on Brett Kavanaugh for uncorroborated accusations.
“Death of a Patriot” is the New York Post cover. National Review remembers “Lindsey Graham’s Finest Moment” (his magnificent outburst of righteous indignation during the smearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings—here), while in the same venue Dan McLaughlin laments the loss of “The Last Interesting Man in Washington.” Megan McCain writes personally of her late father Senator John McCain’s friendship with Graham. With Senator Joe Lieberman, they made up the “three amigos.”
In what was likely Senator Graham’s last telephone conversation, President Trump spoke with him hours before his death. The Washington Post obituary calls Graham a “foreign policy hawk and Trump’s critic turned ally.” Eli Lake of The Free Press writes about “What Lindsey Graham Understood“:
Those who hated the senator for not turning against Trump gave him too little credit for what he was able to achieve by forging a friendship with the president.
George Washington University law professor and Fox Contributor Jonathan Turley eulogizes Graham as a “skilled litigator with a sense of the practical,” but adds:
What I will miss most was his humor. Lindsey had a puckish side and looked at much of the insanity on the Hill with a sense of exasperated levity. He was often frustrated by the lack of progress in the Senate and would joke about it being the “most deliberative body” with a certain irony. His jokes would often be self-deprecating, downplaying his considerable skills and gifts.
However, Lindsey’s aw-shucks style concealed one of the most penetrating minds in the Senate. He also had an iron core, unflinching in the face of withering criticism and attacks. A mob could surround Lindsey and not raise his pulse rate a tick. He was rock solid.
In addition to his public career, Senator Graham became legal guardian for his sister after their parents died. He was 22, and his sister Darline was 13. “Of all the things that have happened in my life, her turning out so well is the highlight of it by far,” the Senator said.
Graham’s death kicks off a breakneck race to succeed him and leaves Republicans with a reduced majority in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Senator Mitch McConnell has re-emerged in a checked shirt and jeans, smiling in his hospital room with wife Elaine Chao. McConnell released a statement saying he had pneumonia and had been “briefly unconscious.”
The U.S. and Iran have been exchanging strikes as the Hormuz standoff escalates. John Bolton (I know, I know) has a counterintuitive Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “Iran Is Too Weak to Make Peace“:
The strikes decimated Iran’s highest government levels. Civilian leadership is in tatters. … This disarray explains why some in Iran are again reportedly plotting to murder Mr. Trump, while others are still negotiating with his representatives. …
The civilian officials running Iran’s negotiations are among the weakest surviving actors. … The problem is evident: U.S. negotiators are talking to people who can’t deliver. …
In international affairs, Iran has no real government. This is a good thing…. The next move is Mr. Trump’s.
In the same publication, Allysia Finley writes that Iran is an important factor in what she calls “Vice President JD Vance’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week.”
Apparently, [Vance] didn’t understand the regime with which he was negotiating. “I think that they see there’s a real opportunity here to turn over a new leaf so long as they do the right thing,” he said. “We have the cards, and if they don’t honor the commitment, we’ll figure out what to do when we get there.”
Now we’re there.
Whenever the perennially prescient Heather Mac Donald has a new article, Ms. Must pays attention. “The Scourge of Teen Takeovers” in City Journal is no exception. Mac Donald explores “why youths are rampaging in cities across America—and how to stop it.”
It’s become abundantly clear that “trans rights” is the hill on which a hefty segment of the Left is willing to die. The spunky The American Conservative’s “Democrats Can’t Kick the Trans Obsession” is highly recommended. It boils down to the quest for votes. Yet for most people the trans agenda is decidedly niche.
“One Secret to Zohran Mamdani’s Political Success” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial. Here’s the editorial in a nutshell: “While high-earning couples depart the city, young socialists arrive.” Another piece in this morning’s WSJ is an op-ed titled “Socialists Lead Democrats into the Tea-Party Trap.”
It’s by Barack Obama’s former Commerce Secretary William Daley. Daley’s overwhelming concern isn’t the danger of socialism but rather that “extremist candidates make it harder for a party to win and make a victory perilous for the country.”
Speaking of socialists, Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the Senate from Michigan, supports single-payer health insurance through Medicare for all. But his physician wife seems to have reservations about Medicare:
His wife, psychiatrist Sarah Jukaku, does not take Medicare or any other insurance plan, forcing her patients to pay out of pocket for the services they receive. She also appears to have scrubbed a portion of the “Frequently Asked Questions” page on her website making clear that she does not accept insurance.
Shades of Doctor Jill. Abdul El-Sayed incidentally also calls himself a doctor despite lacking a license.
We now know more about Minnesota Governor and former veep candidate Tim Walz’s pardoning of an illegal immigrant convicted of repeatedly raping a young girl:
Fox News Digital reviewed documents from the Minnesota Clemency Review Commission, which voted 4-2 to grant a pardon to Laotian national Tue Lue Vang following his conviction for criminal sexual conduct. Vang admitted to repeatedly raping a girl over a multi-year period beginning when she was 10 years old. While the two board members who voted against granting a pardon noted the serious nature of Vang’s offenses, the four members recommending a pardon each listed concern about him being deported.
One commissioner, Zach Linstrom, who voted in favor of granting the pardon, wrote in his recommendation, “Very tough case but the kids not having a father is not in the best interest of society,” referring to Vang’s six children. Artika Roller, another commissioner who voted in favor of the pardon, wrote, “The applicant stated the need for clemency related to immigration issues.”
It is very much in the best interests of the children and society that they not have a convicted rapist in their lives.
“The Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library Shows How Deeply the Left Captured Our Cultural Imagination”:
The library of a Republican president refers without an apparent second thought to the need to reconstruct society through government intervention in order to defeat “class interests.”
The U.S. has a retirement problem, but a quiet fix may be on the way.
