Why It’s Impossible to Negotiate with Iran. A Scary Night in Mamdani-Ville! DSA’s Modest Agenda: We Don’t Need a President … or the Senate. Elites Don’t Get: Texas & Caitlin Clark. More
The Iran War is officially back on, despite President Trump’s U-turn on his 20% toll to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s an update on military actions.
Negotiations with Iran were never going to work, according to Jason Brodskey of the London Spectator:
With the reimposition of the American naval blockade against Iran, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Washington and Tehran seems dead. Its demise reveals the Islamic Republic for what it has always been: an aggressive, terroristic power that has no interest in rejoining the community of nations.
The Trump administration demonstrated with the MOU that it was willing to go big on sanctions relief for Iran. As part of its terms was a General License X that permitted Iran to sell oil using dollars for the first time in decades. The US military blockade was lifted. Discussions were beginning on the unfreezing of billions of dollars in frozen or restricted Iranian assets. The document also dangled a $300 billion investment fund for economic development and reconstruction of the country as part of a final settlement.
In “How to negotiate with Tehran,” Danielle Pletka has an interesting suggestion:
Present Iran with an MOU drafted in the United States, not Tehran or Islamabad, and explain that it is a take it or leave it offer.
In a column unpropitiously headlined “No Pain, No Gain in Iran Blockade,” the Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins nevertheless says something quite encouraging: Trump’s war, according to Jenkins, has a saving grace: Its goals are in alignment with energy realism.
The New York Post cover this morning shouts, “Tear Down this Sprawl!” The sprawl consists of homeless encampments that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani won’t let the cops clear. An editorial inside the paper orders, “Mayor Mamdani: Tear down this sprawl!” The Editors observe:
The Department of Homeless Services estimates it will spend an astounding $97,000 per street homeless person in the next fiscal year.
If taxpayers are going to shell out that much money, we need — nay, deserve — something in return.
And that something is streets free of homeless encampments.
Unherd’s Sohrab Ahmari writes about his night spent in a “Mamdani-Ville.” Mamdani’s is responding to the encampments “very gently,” says Ahmari:
Mamdani’s response amounts to a careful threading of the needle between doing what’s necessary and keeping the activist, anti-police Left at bay. He doesn’t want a “Mamdani-Ville” mushrooming on his watch, feeding daily horror images to the tabloids. But he’s tackling it with the lowest-intensity and -visibility means possible.
Michael Goodwin has a good column on Mamdani’s socialist policies in general and the homeless encampments in particular.
Ms. Must is getting ready to live in a socialist-run District of Columbia. The progressive City Council is getting a head start on our incoming socialist mayor by attempting to pay for “affordability” by making food deliveries more expensive, potentially harmful to elderly and disabled citizens. But onward to a socialist paradise! Speaking of which, the Democratic Socialists of America have released a new platform:
The Democratic Socialists of America launched a new platform on Tuesday night, part of which calls to “replace” the presidency and Supreme Court with “an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”
“Whenever people are like, ‘Oh my God, they want to get rid of the president,’ I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know what we would call it in the future. We could call it the ‘head honcho’ or whatever,” Michaela Brangan, who helped draft the platform, said on a Tuesday evening webinar.
Never say nobody told you.
As you’ve probably heard, Justices Elaine Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett made a joint appearance on the Hill yesterday to ask for more security for Justices. Justice Barrett told a poignant anecdote about her 12-year-old son noticing her bulletproof vest. A Wall Street Journal editorial attributes the need for additional security to the Left’s demonization of the Court:
But the larger fault in recent years lies with Democrats. In 2020 Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) declared that Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch had “released the whirlwind and you will pay the price.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) has made smearing the Justices as corrupt a personal mission. The social-media left is vitriolic and often unhinged.
It doesn’t take much for a disturbed individual to turn this into a cause to kill. This is why it will cost more to protect the Justices and their ability to rule on cases without intimidation or fear for their safety. The price for the country will be far greater if a Justice is killed.
Berkeley law prof John Yoo also says the Left’s war on the Court is responsible for the security scare.
Our Favorite Skunk at the Garden Party. “There’s Not a Money Fairy Up Here!” Senator John Kennedy responds:
“Well, I’m sorry they feel insecure. They’re not the only ones. And if I sound unsympathetic I don’t mean to, Griff. But look, I listened to part of their testimony — they want a 10% budget increase for security,” Kennedy said. “They’re like everybody else up here, their favorite kind of spending is ‘more.'”
He continued, “There’s not a money fairy up here. This money that we appropriate comes out of people’s pockets or we have to borrow it.”
Meanwhile, “whirlwind Chuckles” plans to sit out the Maine Senate race until a replacement for the Nazi tattoo guy is selected, and Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin says the SAVE America Act would make it ‘hard for any Democrat’ to win an election. Republicans accuse Slotkin of “saying the quiet part out loud.”
CNBC’s ranking of America’s 10 worst states to live in for 2026 is getting blowback. USA TODAY columnist Nicolle Russell refutes the effete snobs with a column headlined “CNBC claims Texas is miserable. Texans want to keep it that way“:
Promise me you won’t move to Texas after reading this.
No, really. I need you to promise, because some of you will want to. Shake off those feelings of freedom and affordability, gather your progressive senses and keep loathing God’s country like you’re told to, for reasons that don’t make much sense, at least not to most conservatives.
Why the warning? CNBC just ranked Texas one of “America’s 10 worst states to live in for 2026.” I can’t decide if I’m offended, surprised or relieved.
Funny thing: Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee sit at the top of the U-Haul Growth Index‘s list of states people are actually moving to.
So, CNBC gets it wrong about Texas, and Matthew Hennessey says that “The WNBA Is Mishandling Caitlin Clark.” The women’s basketball league is missing the marketing opportunity of a lifetime, argues Hennessey:
What is wrong with the WNBA?
The women’s professional basketball league has never really caught on. For decades the only thing keeping it afloat was money from the cash factory known as the NBA.
Then, suddenly, Caitlin Clark arrived. The Indiana Fever guard seemed like the savior the WNBA had been waiting for. She could help get the struggling league off life support….
Ms. Clark has what it takes to put the WNBA on the map for real . . . and for good. So why does it seem like the powers that be are trying to make sure it doesn’t happen?
Remember when you thought college was supposed to expose young people to the best that has been written and thought? Mark Bauerlein explains why this is no longer the case in “Gen Ed Is a Joke at Most Schools”:
Getting courses included in college general-education requirements is how fringe academic departments with few majors justify their existence.
Whenever people refer to The Odyssey as “a book,” Ms. Must can feel her inner pedant wanting to correct them. Instead, I submit John Miller’s delightful “How ‘The Odyssey’ Evolved“:
The epic poem popularly attributed to Homer almost certainly grew out of a much older oral tradition.
Ms. Must understands the movie has evolved further, but that’s a topic for another day.
