Pause in Iran Strikes. Mounting Feeling that Regime Not That Susceptible to Diplomacy. Berlin Gay Pride Attack Blow to ‘Queers for Palestine.’ Help a Kid Decide: ‘Trans’ Dolls with Movable Genitals. More
Another lull in U.S. airstrikes on Iran as President Trump on Friday paused a planned U. S. escalation:
President Trump has put off a major escalation of his military campaign against Iran amid efforts to revive diplomacy to open the Strait of Hormuz and a debate over the impact of declining munitions stocks, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The U.S. military had been poised Friday to launch an intensive series of strikes against Iran, which could have lasted up to two weeks, the officials said.
Senator John Kennedy, Republican from Louisiana, seems to have joined the “finish the job quickly” faction:
Kennedy said the US should act quickly to accomplish its war goals as the conflict approaches its sixth month, warning the president that previous daily attacks on Iran are just not working.
“The president likes the daily attacks. He believes that sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys,” Kennedy told CBS News’ “Meet the Press,” referencing the old Chinese idiom.
“I don’t think that’s going to work with the Iranian leadership,” he added. “These people are more than mildly insane. It’s like dealing with Son of Sam or Charles Manson.”
Wall Street Journal “Free Expression” columnist Matthew Continetti has a similar take: “If President Trump wants to win this war, he must deliver crippling blows to the Islamic Republic’s government,” Continetti argues. Eli Lake of The Free Press is similarly blunt: “Mr. President, Give Up on a Nuclear Deal with Iran.”
Meanwhile, Henry Olson proposes the heretofore unthinkable in an Examiner op-ed headlined “Winning in Iran means boots on the ground. Just win, baby.” Iran says it is not seeking talks with the U.S. Iran issues threats against Ukraine after Ukraine struck a tanker on the Caspian Sea. The price of oil was down, and the market was up early this morning because of the lull. Also, here.
The tragic attack on a Gay Pride event in Berlin left one dead and sixteen injured. “Oh, You Knew Someone Was Going to Say That About the Terror Attack at a Berlin Pride Event,” is Matt Vespa’s Townhall headline:
Initially, we didn’t know who the suspect was, but we knew it wasn’t someone from Polynesia. And it wasn’t the Amish. The suspect was identified as ‘Abdul B.,’ who had terror ties, and he was killed by German police (via NBC News). …
“I had hoped the attacker was not an Arab-Muslim, but a white Christian person,” [someone at a vigil] said.
I mean, we knew this could sneak in since the Left is moronic, dense, and addicted to suicidal empathy. But, still, get a grip, folks.
There was also a shooting at a Seattle food festival that left three dead and four (including a toddler) wounded. We don’t know anything about the suspects, one in custody and one at large this morning. Seattle socialist Mayor Katie Wilson put out a statement that features this gem: “Gun violence changes families forever.”
The Democratic Socialists of America have released their agenda—which includes abolishing the Senate. Before you harumph about the Senate’s faults, this Wall Street Journal editorial explains why we need it:
It’s important to understand how radical this is, essentially blowing up the Constitution’s separation of powers. Letting Congress choose the President means adopting the parliamentary system that prevails in Britain. It would essentially remove the presidential veto power that the Founders designed as a check on the legislative passions of the day.
Ditto for ending an independent judiciary, which is a check against legislative and executive violation of individual rights. Third World dictators seek to make the judiciary subservient to the ruling party for this reason, as they did in Venezuela, and as Mexico’s Morena party is now attempting to do.
The left loathes the Senate because it is also a restraint on temporary majorities. The Senate’s design, with two Members from each state, gives an equal voice to small and large states. This prevents dominance by California, New York and Texas. And it buttresses the federalist principles at the core of the Constitution’s design, which preserves certain powers to the states as a check on Washington, D.C.’s commandments.
“The Republicans Who Enable Socialists,” by Allyssia Finley, explains how GOP lawmakers can’t agree on spending, so they continue to fund taxpayer-supported nonprofits that support the progressive left. An even more shocking use of public money: “Taxpayer-funded trans dolls with removable genitalia to hit classrooms this fall for kids as young as 4 to ‘learn about different options’.” Meet the dolls:
“First-of-their-kind” transgender dolls — complete with removable genitalia — will debut in some Minnesota classrooms this fall to kids as young as 4 years old.
The paper dolls, with gender-neutral names like “Sam,” “Rory,” “Avery” and “Parker,” have removable internal and external genitals, along with more than 100 interchangeable pieces of clothing, accessories and hairstyles — like a trans Mr./Mrs. Potato Head.
The Medical School’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Health research over those six years included paying $20 to $60 for “trans and gender diverse” children and their parents to play with the dolls and “talk about gender and bodies” in groups.
The goal is for kids to “learn about the different options that exist for who they can be,” according to a therapist at the University of Minnesota Medical School, which spent over half a decade developing the controversial project funded by lefty Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
All Hail Queen Sophie: “With a highly memeable 22-second point, the WNBA star joined the ranks of sports royalty,” writes Kyle Smith:
Sophie Cunningham, a guard for the Indiana Fever, went viral, and then became a political piñata. In both cases she had merely pointed out the obvious. After her WNBA teammate Caitlin Clark was hit with a technical foul for a dustup with an opposing player on June 22, Ms. Cunningham thought both players were at fault, so she pointed to the other one, DeWanna Bonner. And pointed. And pointed. The pointing continued. At some point the pointing became the point, and hit the point of hilarity. Those 22 seconds changed the tides of the internet. For anyone who had never heard of Sophie Cunningham before, it was the Point of No Return….
Any high-pulchritude blonde woman who expresses views to the right of the extremist half of the Democratic Party is sure to be denounced as “MAGA Barbie,” like Sydney Sweeney and Gwen Stefani, and the same worn-out nickname was plastered on Ms. Cunningham. Staying on-brand, she wasn’t having it: “I’m clearly white and from Missouri, and so I think there was a lot of assumption there,” she told the New York Times last year. “All I have to say is I really am right in the middle, and I think a lot of America is like that. . . . In our culture today you have to choose and you have to be an extremist, and that’s just not me. So, I agree with things on both sides; I disagree with things on both sides.” Pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman predicted she’d be vice president by 2050.
We Don’t Have Enough Children. “America’s Big Cities Are Rapidly Losing Kids,” and “Regulations Are Keeping Families Smaller Than They Want to Be.”
“Where’s Mamdani?” A New York mother slams Mayor Zohran Mamdani for not doing enough about gang violence after the innocent son of a cop was killed. But Mayor Mamdani has more important things to do:
NBA star Kyle Kuzma blasted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for “cosplaying” as president over his empty threat to arrest Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Milwaukee Bucks forward said online that Mamdani’s video address last week showed he is more concerned with “content” than running America’s biggest city.
Mayor Mamdani isn’t the only public figure to have an inflated notion of himself. “Anthony Fauci was the ‘big head’ of COVID response,” according to Miranda Devine’s latest column. She predicts that “vanity will be his undoing” when he is questioned under oath by Senator Rand Paul on Wednesday.
We Don’t Have Enough Children. “America’s Big Cities Are Rapidly Losing Kids,” and “Regulations Are Keeping Families Smaller Than They Want to Be.”
